The Great MIT/Hogwarts Photo
Scavenger Hunt
Everything is a bit different at
Hogwarts, a bit more open-to-interpretation, and so this year's photo
scavenger hunt will also be a bit different. The basic idea of a photo
scavenger hunt is that you have a few hours to run around and take
pictures of your team with various predetermined 'treasures'. This year,
the treasures are more open ended than in previous years.
The Hogwarts-MIT connection
Technology? Magic? It's all the same. Some things never change, and
many things at Hogwarts have an equivalent at MIT. You will be given a list of people,
places and things from Hogwarts, and will be expected to photograph your
team with an MIT equivalent of each item. Detailed instructions follow.
How this thing works
On Friday afternoon, you will have
a few hours to run around and take photos of your team with the
pre-specified "treasures". The list of 'treasures' will be made
available on Tuesday night. But, to make sure all photos will be
taken Friday afternoon, an additional item will be given out
Friday afternoon. This item must appear in all photos.
Order of Things
Tuesday 5PM: List of
treasures is revealed.
Friday 1PM: Teams assemble in 7th floor playroom and are
given the special item that must apear in all photos.
Friday 1PM - 4PM: Run around and take photos.
Friday 4PM exactly: Special
item must be returned to me, in the 7th floor playroom.
Friday 4PM - 5PM: Download photos from your cameras and
email them to me. I must receive your photos by
5PM at the latest (4:30 would be better).
Friday 6PM: Slide-show and scoring. Be prepared to explain your
photos.
Scoring
An esteemed panel of independent
judges will rate each picture for appropriateness and wit.
Appropriateness: the subject matter of each picture will
be scored on a scale of 0-4 indicating how closely it parallels the perscribed treasure.
The scoring will be competative: for each treasure, the combined score
for the top two teams will not exceed six, the combined score for the
top three teams will not exceed eight, and the combined score for all
four teams will not exceed nine (the combined scores might be lower if
the judges are not impressed with the pictures).
Quality: an additional score of
1-3 will be assigned to each pitcure capturing wit, originality, charm,
photographic quality, and the judges amusement (1=borring; 2=OK;
3=Wow!). There are no competative restrictions on this score.
The total number of points awarded for the picture will be the product
of the appropriateness score, times the quality score, times the number
of team members appearing in the picture.
There will also be 100 point
bonuses awarded in the following catagories:
- Most original picture
- Most amusing picture
- Greatest technical achievment
- Best Hogwarts recreation
Cameras
All photographs will be taken
on digital cameras. Each house is responsible for making arrangements to
have a camera it can use. If you have a problem getting hold of a
camera, please contact me early (i.e. a few days before the
event).
Subcaptains--- please read the
following carefully:
After you get back to the lab at 4PM you should download the
photographs and email them to me. Please
follow the following instructions, as it will make life much easier for
me: You should provide me with a single zip or gzipped and
tarred file containing the jpeg pictures in files called XXname.jpg
where name is your house name and XX is the two digit
treasure number (e.g. 07ravenclaw.jpg
for treasure number seven from Ravenclaw). Only one picture per
treasure! Either: (1) email me the picture archive, or (2) place it somewhere in
webspace, on athena, on the AI lab file system, or on the Theory file
system, make sure it is world readable and in a
world readable location, and
email me a pointer to it, or
(3) give me a CD-rom or CompactFlash card with the archive (sorry-- no
other media). In any case, make sure you give me a an archive of renamed pictures (and not a bunch of
images called IMG043432.JPG).
Please make arrangements for being able to
download the pictures in the lab on Friday evening! Make
sure that all required equipment is
available, that this can be done in the lab, and that somebody will be there to do it. It
is your team's responsibility to get me all the jpegs. I would
appreciate getting the pictures by 4:30, and in any case, you should
send them to be by 5PM at the very latest. You might lose 10% of your
total points for each five minutes you are late after 5PM. If you have
any problems with this, please contact
me in advance.
If your camera can take
'mini-movies', you are encouraged to use this feature. However,
this will not affect scoring.
Rules
- The special item must appear
in all photos. This must be the original item I give you, and not a
replica.
- You may only submit one picture (or short video clip / animated
siries of pictures) per treasure. Multiple submissions are not allowed.
- The special item must be returned to me, at 4PM, in the 7th floor
playroom. You will lose 10% of your total points for each three minutes
you are late. You can download the pictures and email them after 4PM,
but please get them to me as early as possible.
- Editing the pictures is strictly prohibited.
- Nothing illegal. All photographs must be taken in a lawful way.
Getting arrested is not worth points.
Nati Srebro - nati@mit.edu