NPAW 2025 Scavenger Hunt Rules:

1. Each team must have at least one, but at most two, postdocs.

2. Some prizes may be exclusive to the postdocs on a team; prizes are still being negotiated.

3. Teams will meet in the NG food court at 10am on Wednesday morning to receive final instructions and begin the search (it is not mandatory to attend this, but this will be the start and this is where/when the initial puzzle will be made available).

4. The hunt will end when the final location is discovered, with the hunt continuing on Thursday if necessary. Do not attempt to hunt between 10pm Wednesday and 9am Thursday.

5. The scavenger hunt itself consists of solving puzzles to find locations where mock event flyers can be found with QR codes on their backs. These QR codes link you to the next puzzle. There will be red herring flyers distributed all around campus to prevent random search strategies and not all flyers will be up at the beginning of the hunt.

6. Upon scanning a QR code, IMMEDIATELY fill out and submit the web form at the bottom of the page before beginning the next puzzle.

7. Some puzzles will require/be easiest when using a computer.

8. DO NOT take QR codes or flyers UNLESS told otherwise in the puzzle instructions.

9. Some puzzles have rudimentary instructions, others do not; these puzzles are all meant to be challenging, but should be intuitable. Some puzzles will have an “Easy Mode” option, so look for the Easy Mode button if you’re stuck.

10. Teams are allowed to use web resources to solve puzzles, but please do not cheat by using AI or some other resource to directly solve an entire puzzle.

11. In the puzzles that are embedded mini-games, it is cheating to inspect the game code to bypass doing the puzzles.

12. Please direct any questions to Kelli Fenelon on Teams.