Every year in the days before Mother’s Day, Scav Hunt descends upon the University of Chicago campus. A four-day competition that pits dorm against dorm, the world’s largest Scavenger Hunt was founded in 1987 but launched into the national spotlight when in 1999 one of the items on the list was a working nuclear breeder reactor. Members of the Matthews House team (in the Burton-Judson dormitory) spent three days in a backyard in the suburbs, and returned to campus triumphant. They were awarded 500 points for their efforts, and a visit from the Department of Energy.
Though most items don’t attract the attention of government agencies, all, even the smallest, are hard to figure out or hard to acquire. This includes the list of items itself, which usually reaches close to 18 pages and 300 items. The list is released at midnight on the Wednesday before Mother’s Day. Teams gather at Ida Noyes Hall, where the Judges give a hint about where the list might be. In past years it has been shredded and buried in plastic bags on the 57th Street Beach, deep in the Law School fountain, or in two pieces in different parts of the neighborhood. Once the list is acquired, teams normally spend the rest of the night assembling their Road Trip team and preparing for the Showcase Item that must be on the quads the next morning.
The Hunt every year features a Road Trip, an Olympics, and Showcase Items that are to be performed in public, on the main quadrangles during class time. The Scav Olympics items are conveniently gathered in on a page near the beginning of the list. This past year included a game of life-size Battleship, in which teams blindly threw water balloons at members of the other team over a stone wall; a good old-fashioned pie fight; and a contest to see how far a teammate could extend a tape measure in the air before gravity took over.
The Road Trip items are inconveniently spread throughout the list—teams usually are able to recognize the items by identifying the road trip theme, which the esteemed Judges come up with on their own. For example, in 2006 the judges were driving through Missouri and Arkansas trying to find a theme for the Road Trip. They knew (since they were in Arkansas) that they needed to involve Bill Clinton (obviously!) when all of a sudden they passed a nuclear waste disposal facility. Immediately it was clear to this judge: the theme for the Road Trip would be Mutant Presidents—Jabba the Taft, George W. Bush with Kuato Cheney (this is a reference to Total Recall), a Martin van Buren who is more sideburn than man (Yeti Van Buren) and of course, Octo-Lincoln (eight-armed Lincoln), who drive around in their trusty vehicle, the General Ford.
Showcase Items take the same form every year – a two-day activity on the quads that must perform some kind of surface to the greater university community (for example, free tea, makeovers, or rickshaw rides across the quads), and a series of larger items that are often worth hundreds of points. On Friday night each team hosts a party on the quads about 20 feet from each other, turning into one giant party that lasts until the wee hours. Also, to prove that Scav Hunt is not just four days of frivolity, every year teams get points for the number of members who donate blood at the University of Chicago Hospitals.
Favorite items from this year included:
4. You know what Turkey has that Scav Hunt doesn’t? That’s right. A national shadow puppet play. Pick your two favorite Scav characters to narrate and perform a satirical rendition of the history of the Hunt. [9 points]
33. Have a potato break the sound barrier. [8 points]
50. Weave a basket underwater. [8 points]
56. A zeusaphone. [300 points] (College Admissions note: This is also called a thoremin, and is a high-frequency solid state Tesla coil whose electric discharge is digitally modulated to produce musical notes.)
58. Half of a bowling ball. [16 points]
73. A double-belled euphonium. [76 points]
76. Spend a night in a major Chicago museum, a la From The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. [24 points]
136. The Blues Brothers set future Chicagoans up for a major disappointment: since moving here, I have never once seen enormous groups of strangers moved, as if part of a flash mob, to spontaneously burst into elaborately choreographed song-and-dance numbers in iconic locations. Fix that. [28 points]
245. Who needs two when a monowheel will suffice? [200 points]
Scav Hunt is one of our favorite traditions and always a good time. But don’t take our word for it—read the lists yourself (note: the Office of College Admissions is not responsible for the content of the lists) and take a look at pictures and videos from this year’s Scav Hunt.
