Last month we were approached by Charlotte Gibson, a participant in GISHWES, also known as the Greatest International Scavenger Hunt The World Has Ever Seen. The GISHWES is an international game where teams consisting of fifteen members must complete a series of arbitrary tasks assigned to them within a week.
What made Charlotte decide to participate in GISHWHES? She said that “spending a week trying to achieve some fairly bonkers Scavenger Hunt items is absolutely my idea of fun”, as was making new international friends: “The organiser of GISHWHES is Misha Collins, an actor from the TV show Supernatural, who delights in bossing us Gishers around and making us do crazy stuff.”
This year the game kicked off on August 2nd and on August 4th Charlotte contacted us via 3DHubs with a request. She needed a 3D printed quill and then had to write a sentence with it. The catch? She also had to film the quill being printed and film writing with it. Given the competition timeline, time was of the essence and we had the quill printed and sent out to Charlotte within 24 hours.
So how much did Charlotte know about 3D printing before she was assigned the task? “I knew it existed, and knew the broad mechanism for how it worked. We’ve been thinking about getting one in our house but the technology is still too new, and until GISHWHES we didn’t really have a use for one! I can definitely see it becoming more and more useful though. It’s making me wish I knew more about 3D design – I think that once there are more free and easy to use 3D design programs out there, 3D printers will start taking off.”
After printing the quill we also filmed it – spot the paper sign in the background with Charlotte’s team name printed on it!
Charlotte said “getting NASA to tweet our team name” was a task but NASA apologised for not being able to help out any one team specifically. Talking about some of the other random tasks, Charlotte says some were weird – one of my team mates went around Edinburgh with a “Free Hugs” sign – but had to do it in a bathing suit covered in jam (she managed to get a hug!). There were some other really random things, like draw Jean Luc Picard with condiments (that was fun – and who knew peanut butter was such a great skin-tone?) and making a “tiny adorable mouse” out of bogies. Kinda gross, but 29 points aren’t to be “sniffed at”.
Last year resulted in the winning team, the Vatican Cameos, joining the GISHWES creator to enjoy a seaplane trip, a séance and a Viking-themed surprise.We noticed that the final prize will entail setting sail on a pirate ship. We are currently printing pirate gear for International Pirate Day on September 19th – you’ll need to do a 3D eye patch or hook if you win!
You can follow the rest of the tasks Charlotte’s team carried out: http://galacticspacebandits.tumblr.com/