This is part 9 of a 10-part series.

As I mentioned at the end of part 5, the Space Alert puzzle led directly into the grand finale. As soon as the frosh completed the puzzle, an alarm sounded and the giant crane in that space began rising, revealing the supercomputing core in a container made of mylar. The core itself was made out of a glass bottle filled with some flammable liquid (alcohol? acetone? I can’t remember).

Just as the group removed the core from its location, two alums (Daniel and Ryan) appeared on a catwalk above them, and yelled “What are you doing? Stop!” At that point, Kurt yelled “run!” and took the group through a back room in the building. The room was already filled with vaguely science-looking things (it being a physics lab and all), but we arranged them to force the group to take a somewhat circuitous path around the room. We also added a few extra touches: a spinning red siren light (like this one), a blacklight, and a semi-transparent plastic sheet that we turned into a wall and on which we painted the Vector logo in a paint that would glow under blacklight. When they left that room, the group had to go through a circular tunnel and climb up a set of stairs that took them to a familiar location outside, through a door they likely never even noticed.

We actually didn’t know about the existence of this room or the tunnel when we asked for the space in which we were building the Space Alert puzzle. One day, Matt came to Jeff and me and said “you guys have to see this.” We walked to the area and Matt took us to the back room. As we saw the room, and especially the tunnel with its exit, our minds were fairly blown. We knew we had to use it, but didn’t have any good ideas for how to use it until we realized that the beginning of our grand finale could be an awesome chase scene.

When the frosh finally made their way to Blacker courtyard, they found a small “furnace” in the middle. This was where they disposed of the supercomputing core, a la Portal. The frosh got their final message on the AI and the day concluded.

I had to take some video of the escape tunnel myself, since they were too busy running to record.

The next post will be the last! I will be posting the highlight reel of all the video footage I have.