By: Elijah Carson
OwlFeed News Section Editor
On Wednesday, December 4th, it seemed just like any other regular day — until Mrs. Rai sent out a mass email that sent the whole school into a frenzy.
In this email, Mrs. Rai had sent out a QR code which read, “Students and teachers! Scan out this code with your phone and press on the notification. If you choose to scan the code, you will receive a second prompt, telling you what this was about. Curious? Give it a try!”
Throughout the school, many people felt emotions mostly consisting of curiosity and confusion, but some also felt the thrill of excitement and wanted to know what the mystery was about, and they wanted to be a part of this.
In the many responses, 50 students/teachers were selected, some being a singular person, while others being a team consisting of two to four people. Currently, some people who are competing are our Editor-In-Chief, Carlos Johnson, as well I myself.
The challenge master who calls themselves, The SM, is a student here at Agua Fria, where they are in charge of coming up with the challenges and sending them to the contestants.
Through Mrs. Rai, The SM was able to be interviewed. They wrote, “I got inspiration for this puzzle after watching a video about a secret society that made a large and elaborate puzzle online for people to solve. I thought it would be cool if I tried to replicate it. (But on a smaller scale, and without the secret society stuff of course.)”
Through the strong success of the beginning, there were problems that were unaccounted for. The SM wrote, “The responses I’ve been getting have been great, but I have run into issues with participation. Only about 35 people out of the 50 that were accepted have been actively responding. The puzzle was initially set up to have 8 challenges, that would span over the month of December. But I decided to remove one challenge, so that it eliminates the chance of unexpected puzzle entries from students who are not participating.”
Although there were some setbacks, The SM wants to continue and wish to make this event an annual, where even more people, once they can get a way to market it better so that the event can become more public.
As the month of December winds down, we shall see if any members of OwlFeed can make the top 5, or maybe there can be a possibility that one of us will win! The answer will soon be revealed on December 20th.