The Hunter Games

For four wild days, University of Chicago students turn scavengers.

“This year’s list, the longest in the twenty-six-year history of the Hunt, consisted of three hundred and fifty-one items. It filled nineteen pages and contained such challenges as: Build a ten-foot bridge across Botany Pond using nothing but balsa wood and glue (60 points). Revamp a Xerox machine for office warfare (12 points). Secure a meeting with the mayor of Chicago (25 points). Produce a scale model of the Great Lakes out of fire (15 points).”

Patricia Marx, Annals of Entertainment, “The Hunter Games,” The New Yorker, July 2, 2012, p. 26

The Scav List

Retrieving the list for the annual UChicago Scavenger Hunt (biggest in the world, wut) was more difficult than it seemed….just look at these photos by Jamie Manley. 

Also, note the excited panda in the first one :)

Scav 2012

This year’s list is finally out! As UChicago descends into beautiful chaos, we present you with some of our favorite items:

• At the statue of Pocahontas, Buddy Holly sings with all the voices of the mountains. [5 points]
• You have one (1) minute to get a team member from their underwear to fully dressed. The team member cannot move, and all you have are as many helpers as you can use and some buckets of paint. GO! [12 points]
• Hershey’s French Kisses. [1 point]
• Release a pack of zombies at Cobb during the break between classes on Friday at 11:50 a.m. [Up to 4 points per convincing zombie, maximum 5 zombies.]
• At every public event, one of your team captains must have increasingly ornate headwear. Headwear must be built upon the same base item throughout the hunt. [24 points]
• Side mullet. Business on the left, party on the right. [7 points]
• As tweens in the Oughts, our first experience with the Greek Chorus was animated Lizzie McGuire. But that show never reenacted the Greek tragedies appropriate for its format! Film up to two minutes of The Very Special Episode: Lizzie McGuire does Medea. [8 points]
• Up at the Law School they work all day. Out in the sun they slave away. Couldn’t they use the distraction of mermaids in their fountain? [8 points]
• A professor, in academic gowns, over a steam vent, `a la Marilyn. Bonus points if the panties match Marilyn’s. [12 points]
• Write an original polyglot emordnilap. [6 points]
• The appropriate music video for “I’m Bringing Skeksi Back”. [6 points]
• Your appendix, in a jar, at Judgment. [34 points]

(Photo: MacPierce’s Buddy Holly, The Sturgeon Mary, Corn, and John Deer taking off to see the many wonders Iowa!! #scav2012 http://t.co/SD7LHFg9)

You be the Judge: Scav Hunt 2011. 

Scav Hunt. 

Last year I got into an elevator in Cobb and was serenaded from the first floor to the fifth by a man with a voice like Sinatra. Confused, I made eye contact with my fellow passengers.

What? smiled one of them, it’s that time of year again. Translation: this was a Scav item. 

Further translation: Scav Hunt is AWESOME. An annual four-day team-based scavenger hunt held in May, it’s known as the biggest and best in the world. There are road trips, performances, construction…and hundreds of other zany items thought up by the big brains of UChicago. In 1999, students built a breeder reactor in a shed on the main quadrangle and observed traces of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium. Gulp. 

Other notable items include: a team member’s umbilical cord, to be eaten by that team member (96 points); a real live, breathing elephant (500 points); send a SexySaxagram to your favorite class (sechs sexy sax points); the most evil thing you can build using only the parts and materials included with one IKEA item (15 points); construct a campus batbox [6 points, 16 points if it contains live bats by Judgment. Also, you must beatbox by the batbox]; a tampon that looks like Lady Gaga [4 points].