Engage and persist

Envision

Material exploration

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Physical fabrication

Car Track Puzzle is a puzzle designed for an escape room where you input a code you get from a cypher on a poster, releasing a car down a track that flips flags that spell a name. The keypad works using an Arduino and four buttons labeled 6, 7, 8, and 5. The code for the Arduino uses an array to tell if the buttons are correctly pressed. For the track, the car starts at the top in a box with a flap attached to a servo. When the code is entered, the flap opens, releasing the car down the track. The flag-flipping mechanism uses a lever in the middle of the track attached to the same shaft as the flag. As the car passes over the levers, they flip down into the track, rotating the shaft and lifting the flags. This project is meaningful because it might be chosen to be part of an escape room, and solving the puzzle would give the people in the escape room joy and satisfaction.

My goals were to envision how my project would work in an escape room, engage and persist through challenges, explore new materials, and use physical fabrication. I chose envision as one of my goals because this was my first time designing something for a client at NuVu. I think I grew at this goal because I had to think about how my project would be part of an escape room and how people would interact with it. I had to engage and persist when I had to solve a problem with the car stopping when it hit the flag flipper, and I also had to figure out how to design it in Rhino. I explored new materials when I 3D printed the flag-flipping mechanism out of PLA and learned more about using Rhino, Prusaslicer, and the 3D printers. I also did a lot of physical fabrication this studio, ranging from lo-fi cardboard prototyping to laser cutting wood prototypes. Specifically, I learned how to make strong, lo-fi prototypes because I had to mount mine to the wall.

Collaborate

Express

Concept development

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Iteration

Music and mechanisms is a project where my partner, Lloyd, and I created puzzles for Red Fox escapes, which is a nearby escape room. At first, I created multiple music posters of albums that I enjoy and I highlighted specific letters to create words out of them. After I was done with my posters, I began to help Lloyd with his project, a maze that's point is to drop a marble into holes to reveal letters. Eventually the letters would give a hint as to how to solve one of my poster puzzles.

When I worked in the Escape Room Design studio, I improved a lot in laser cutting and 3D printing. When I helped Lloyd create his maze, he needed a cardboard table and a lot of small pieces to hold everything together. I got more comfortable using the laser cutter, designing pieces in Rhino, and working with the 3D printers.

Envision

Collaborate 

Abstraction

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Concept development

 Music and mechanisms is a project about creating a puzzle that is entertaining and interesting for all types of puzzle solvers. We created this puzzle for the intended use of a local escape room red fox escapes. We created 2 separate puzzles that were intended for 2 main types of puzzle solvers those who enjoy mental puzzles and those who enjoy physical puzzles. We had 2 main themes one being album covers and one being antique marble mazes. music and mechanisms is a project about variety and compatibility for all puzzle solvers.

 This studio during escape room design I worked on two habits of mind and two studio core skills. My project is called Music and Mechanisms. The main habit of mind I improved on was collaboration. I did this studio with a new student and learned a lot about the process of teaching and working with others. For example I worked on finding helpful things for my partner to do and learn. The other habit of mind I worked with was envision which was key to create the perfect puzzle with a good theme that was not too distracting on a puzzle that had a perfect amount of difficulty and variety. . As far as my two studio core skill abstraction and concept development. Abstraction was key in producing a great theme for of music and mechanisms. Concept development was something I use in every studio where we take our concept and improve it over and over.

Collaboration

Envision

Giving & Receiving Feedback

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Concept Development

 In this project, my group started with two puzzle ideas. The projects we worked on were "LetterMap," and "Stargazing." The "LetterMap" consists of a map, a pencil, a pronunciation guide, and a few postcards. Ultimately, if you use all of the components of the puzzle, you end up with a name. The memory associated with the map puzzle is a mixture of geography in school and just geography in general. The materials we used to design the map puzzle were acrylic, cardboard, and paper. "Stargazing" consists of a board of stars and constellations, and if you figure out the code to turn on the lights to the stars, it displays a name. The memory connected with this puzzle is stargazing with family and trying to make out shapes and words with the stars. The materials used to make this puzzle were LEDs, cardboard, construction paper, and wire. In the end, we ended up using "LetterMap," as our final project. We hope that Red Fox Escapes incorporates our puzzle into their escape room.

 In this studio I was definitely out of my comfort zone because of the fact that we were designing for a client, so I felt a bit pressure on that end; however, we did have a lot of creative freedom, which I really enjoyed. I also feel that when we were playtesting our puzzle, it was very important that we listened to feedback because if the puzzle was too easy, players wouldn't enjoy it very much, but it was too difficult, players would give up. It's also very hard to test a puzzle that you've made because you know what to look for when solving it. Make it higher fidelity. I do feel, that we could've made our puzzle higher fidelity, but we were more focused on the concept more, rather than the production. I also feel that we could've tried more to incorporate a delightful action. But, I feel that I've gotten better at receiving feedback and developing ideas.

engage and persist

Lofi Prototyping

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Physical Fabrication

During these past few weeks, my group has analyzed how to create a puzzle around the theme of memories. After thinking about what memories consist of, the revelation of how memories revolve around time became more apparent. When we thought about conveying time through an escape room puzzle, we realized we could use clocks as symbols. When thinking about how a clock looks, we realized that we could use the idea of the big and small hands to create some form of numerical code. After testing different situations with the clock hands, we discovered one that worked well by making the participants use subtraction to find the difference between the large and small hands. We then decided to have four different clocks, which you must decipher, and then determine the order of the clocks by decoding a hidden poster somewhere in the room. This project aimed to give the participants a sense of accomplishment and pride, which was demonstrated by many of our peers when they play-tested our puzzle. Many of our peers felt like they had an "ah-ha" moment when all of the pieces fit together to complete the puzzle, which was one of our main goals. 

Throughout these three weeks, I experimented with many materials and tools to create puzzle prototypes. As I progressed, I used more durable materials like cardboard instead of flimsy materials like paper. I practiced using different cutting and engraving tools to achieve puzzle designs like clocks. In the second week, I focused on refining my project and deciding which puzzles would be the most achievable in the time given. We determined that our Twister puzzle and tooth fairy puzzle would take too long, so we elaborated on our clocks puzzle. We practiced our Lofi prototyping skills by creating functional lock boxes, engraved cardboard clocks, and 3d printing (the tooth fairy tooth). We also worked on our physical fabrication skills by sketching out ideas and then creating them with different available materials. Overall, my skills in this studio were expanded due to my growth in knowledge surrounding these goals/categories.

Habit of Mind: Collaborate

Habit of Mind: Express

Core Skill: Material Exploration

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Core Skill: Concept Development

My clock puzzle, titled Time Teasers, is a puzzle where you use posters and clocks around the room to get a four-digit code to enter into a combination lock. The project started with the idea that clocks could help create an interesting puzzle. While brainstorming, I came up with the idea that you could get numbers through subtracting one hand from another. The first time anyone tried to solve it, they had no way of knowing you needed subtraction so I made a math clue and a hand clue to help point them in the right direction. After adding these hints, the puzzle was much more successful. The next step was improving the clues and clocks to make them more accurate and realistic, and we made many prototypes. In its final form, the puzzle works by helping escapees make the connection between subtraction and the clock hands using the math and hand poster. Afterwards, solvers will do the math from subtracting the small hand from the big hand. Next, they will put the numbers in order based on the clock and its order on the four-part puzzle. Finally, they will put this code into a combination lockbox and get the name after opening the box. My puzzle is meaningful because there are a lot of clues and connections the solver can make to help them solve the puzzle and help give them the sense of accomplishment after solving each part of the puzzle.

In this studio, my main goal was to improve on skills related to prototyping and coming up with ideas, as well as using as many materials as possible in order to best introduce myself to the NuVu tools. I would say that in these ways I was most successful, and despite my original goals being more related to ideas and collaboration, later on in the project I became more comfortable with a variety of tools and materials and improved towards higher-fidelity physical fabrication. Specifically, the final week of this studio I worked with laser cutting, 3d printing, and used Figma to create images. This week was important to my growth as a designer because it is very representative of my progress throughout the studio, and the speed at which I created my prototypes helped show me my progress throughout the month. This project overall helped me improve at utilizing NuVu’s different types of equipment and ways of creating prototypes and served as a great introduction to Rhino, the shop, and the 3d printer. My goals shifted more towards the end of the studio, but still overall I am happy with my progress.

Music and mechanisms

Created by Luke and Lloyd Graves IV

Persist

Collabortate

Lo-fi Fabrication

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Physical Fabrication

LetterMap is an escape room puzzle oriented around geography and learning in general. It fits the theme of childhood by bringing back memories of kindergarden and school. There are three components: the map, the postcards, and the pronunciation guide like in most kindergarden classrooms. Scattered around the escape room are postcards that were sent by a friend while they were on vacation. The postcards give you the cities the friend went to and what order they went to them in. When the cities are marked down on the map, and lines are drawn between them, it forms the letter P. This corresponds to P is for penny on the pronunciation guide. If you solve the puzzle correctly you get the name Penny.

In this studio I learned a lot about puzzle making and geography. There were many issues when making the project: the printer broke, apparently Charleston is a very popular name for a city, annoyingly, and the map was too small when printed on one piece of paper, so we had to print it in sections on four separate pieces of paper. But I overcame those challenges and learned so much about all kinds of things. We had several prototypes, using different maps and letters. The pronunciation guide was a late addition, before I added it the puzzle used a list of names.

Time Teasers

By Claire Truesdale and Leo Wheatland

Time Teasers

By Claire Truesdale and Leo Wheatland