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- Beginning of the day. All of us are waiting intently to see which stack we’ll be put into.
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- Trauma Team stack signup. We had to swipe our Caltech IDs to be entered into the lottery for this stack.
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- 10 people selected. I’m in!
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- Our first clue.
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- We head straight to Raymond and Jomya’s room, and after an embarrassingly long time, find the key staring right at us. The key unlocks the front of the signup area, revealing a suitcase.
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- The suitcase is locked, but we have another clue!
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- Apparently we need to blindfold ourselves for the next step. While blindfolded, out hands are marked with something…
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- We’re pulled into some sort of vehicle while blindfolded.
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- Still blindfolded, we’re taken to a mysterious room and a mysterious table.
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- So after a long car ride… we ended up at the Atheneum? That laptop includes some clues.
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- Here’s another clue. Looks like the suitcase combination!
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- Our T-shirts are really awesome.
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- The suitcase contains a lot of clues and… holy crap! Also included are our own personal name badges!!!
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- The hardware is actually really impressive. Apparently Raymond and Jomya have been working for the past month on getting them working (with most of the progress in the last couple days).
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- Oh, so that’s what was written on our hands… entering that into our name badges reveals the message “item locekd.”
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- Our next clue is some “Japanese” text… we’re supposed to take the Metro.
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- Walking to the Metro…
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- At the Metro…
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- In the Metro…
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- We stop off in the “land of the rising sun” aka Little Tokyo.
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- Opening clues A and B, we’re supposed to head to the library and look for a certain book.
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- Applying the next clue to the book. The message tells us the password to unlock our name badges.
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- And our next clue is “Delphi’s Clue.”
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- Delphi’s Clue… what does it mean?
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- We also have a flashlight app.
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- Delphi’s Clue tells us to go to Manhattan beach (which turns out to be a long commute). Here we are on the bus.
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- Finally at the beach!
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- We head to the pier towards the aquarium.
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- Some starfish in the aquarium
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- A view of the aquarium’s interior.
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- Our next clue is this odd electronic device. It turns out to be producing morse code. The message is a phone number! Calling the number, we are told that backup is coming to get us.
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- While waiting, we get a beautiful ocean view.
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- Backup arrives and takes us to the final stack location. The inside of Dr. Kimishiba!
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- Inside Dr. Kimishiba, we must use the power of teamwork to solve the next puzzle…
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- Each of us has a personal number and 4 numbers we’re supposed to obtain by trading with each other. In no time, we’ve devised a strategy to solve the puzzle.
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- Raymond and Jomya, watching over us.
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- After solving the puzzle, we’re told to look in the refrigerator, where we find cups full of ice…
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- Breaking them open reveals tons of keys. Most of them are blank.
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- However, one of the keys opens an apartment door.
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- After walking through a dark tunnel (containing lots of Hi fish…), we arrive in a room with a computer and a countdown. We spend a lot of time looking for the next clue.
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- Then, we notice that the Hi fish actually contain invisible ink on the back.
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- We gather them all up and try to solve the puzzle.
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- It reveals a message. Typing that in…
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- We succeed! Operation Heroine Addiction is a success!
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- Finally, we chill in Raymond and Jomya’s apartment…
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- …before going to Korean BBQ.
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- Ditch Day ends with a beautiful cake!
This was seriously a very impressive stack. I had a lot of fun solving the puzzles and getting to travel all over the LA area!
Thanks Raymond, Jomya, Edwardo, and Nikki! It was awesome.