Scavenger Hunt

ScavengerHunt Pipeline
Welcome Page
Registration Page
Team Matching
Team Image Game
Riddle
Final Game
Congratulation
End Page

Inspiration

Orientation week offers valuable opportunities for new students to meet and build connections, yet it frequently make the mistake of overwhelming students with passive information and leave them feeling isolated or disengaged. Recognizing this gap inspired our team to develop ScavengerHunt, aiming to encourage students to connect more naturally and effectively through gamified experiences.

What it does

Team Meetup: Form students into teams using a smart grouping algorithm and confirm team members match via a group selfie with Amazon Rekognition's facial matching feature.
Dynamic Riddle Solving: Boosts group engagement by providing unique, interactive riddles generated dynamically with OpenAI, encouraging creative collaboration.
Interactive Treasure Hunting: Teams decode clues together, embarking on an exciting treasure hunting activity that culminates in discovering hidden locations across campus.

How we built it

Supabase to store player data and manage user authentication.
Amazon Rekognition was integrated to verify team selfies by matching them with original registration images.
OpenAI was used to dynamically generate riddles for the players, making the experience fresh and exciting.
Dall-E generates a unique image for each team, making the team member matching activity more engaging, accessible.
NextJS creates frontend experience was designed to be intuitive and fast, enabling players to easily navigate between stages of the game.

Challenges we ran into

Time constraints were a major hurdle, making it difficult to fine-tune every feature. Verifying team selfies accurately was also a technical challenge. After exploring various image-matching solutions, we chose Amazon Rekognition for its balance of accuracy and integration simplicity. Balancing seamless gameplay with robust verification was tricky but ultimately rewarding.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We successfully built a functional system that not only encouraged meaningful student interaction but also incorporated advanced technologies like AI riddles and facial recognition. Seeing players engage, collaborate, and bond through the game during testing was a major highlight and confirmed the project's value.

What we learned

We gained deep insights into user experience design, especially in gamification for social contexts. We also sharpened our technical skills working with cloud services like Supabase, Amazon Rekognition, and OpenAI APIs. Most importantly, we learned how crucial it is to design solutions that are both fun and accessible for everyone, especially for introverted participants.

What's next for Scavenger Hunt

We plan to expand ScavengerHunt by adding new mini-games after each destination, enhancing team-building challenges. We also aim to improve selfie verification using multi-angle captures for higher accuracy, and create an admin dashboard to monitor game progress live. Our long-term goal is to deploy ScavengerHunt as a ready-to-use kit for universities around the world to energize their orientation programs.