Introduction
Welcome to Bookspace! Everyone in Bookspace needs to do Book Reports to show how well they know the books that live here. For this weekend’s Book Reports, we are focusing on Self-Help Books. Please read 3-10 of the books listed here and complete reports on them.
Rules
Length: You must complete enough reports to earn credits equal to your team size. (If your team size is greater than 100 solvers, you only need to earn 100 credits.)
One Option Per Book: You must choose to either create an essay OR a term paper for each book.
Scoring: Essays are worth 5 credits.
Term papers are worth 10 credits.
Contribution: As you are a team, we don’t want one person doing all the work. Each book report must be done by a different member of your team.
Proof: Each submission should depict the items in the requested format, along with a sign that says “BOOKSPACE 2022”.
Collection: Prepare a Google Drive or Dropbox link containing picture or video evidence of each of your items, as specified by the book report. Each file’s name should include the task number and your team name. Please name the folder ”Book Reports from Public Access”.
Submission: When your team has completed all of its book reports, send an email with the public link to your prepared reports to bookreports@example.com with the subject "Book Reports from Public Access" and we will schedule a Zoom call with you to validate how well you know these books.
Please be prepared to discuss your analysis — we will be able to tell when you’ve just skimmed CliffsNotes.
Flexibility
This is the obligatory MIT Mystery Hunt scavenger hunt. Some scavenger hunts lean toward strict interpretations, while others lean towards creative interpretations. This is the latter — please be creative and please entertain us. While we will be checking your score against the details listed below, we’ll be lenient about accepting submissions as long as you’ve put effort toward satisfying the prompt and the rules.
Good Luck!
1. 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot
Form: Video
Vertically stack US $10 worth of coins into one stack in under 59 seconds. The coins must start out on the table, with none of them on top of each other.
or
In addition to the essay task, while stacking the coins, every 5 seconds you must make a face at the camera. Each face must be displaying a different emotion. To complete this task, your tower must have at least 50 coins.
2. The Alchemist
Form: Series of Photos
Cut out the letters of the name of an object from paper, then recreate that object using only those letters. Your item must be recognizable enough that someone could identify the object just from viewing the photos.
or
Make a 3D recreation of Alchemist (optionally including the 2016 Mystery Hunt coin). It must be at least 6 inches in each dimension.
3. Atlas of the Heart
Form: Pictures
Create a map of your heart containing all the things you love. It should contain at least 10 items inside of it, in addition to a legend, a compass rose, and a scale.
or
Find a geocache and take a picture of you putting something heart-shaped (BUT NOT AN ACTUAL HEART) in it.
4. Atomic Habits
Form: Google Doc or PDF
Create the Periodic Table of Puzzles. Your table must include at least 20 puzzle types as elements and be organized visually in an interesting manner that you can explain to us.
or
In addition to the essay task, classify each of the puzzles from the Yew Labs round from last year’s hunt as compounds in your Periodic Table of Puzzles.
5. Chicken Soup for the Soul
Form: Video
Send us a video under a minute in length of a team member making chicken soup from scratch.
or
Perform the essay task, but in addition, the team member must be possessed by the ghost of a chicken the entire time.
6. Deep Work
Form: Series of Pictures
Complete enough of the scavenger hunt from the 1994 Mystery Hunt to get half of that Hunt’s Scavenger Hunt answer.
or
In addition to the essay task, provide two of the items from the 1997 Bill & Ted Scavenger Hunt.
7. Digital Minimalism
Form: Picture
Recreate a work of art from somewhere at MIT by hand on a 1 in. by 1 in. piece of paper.
or
Recreate Bars of Color Within Squares in chalk by hand on a driveway, sidewalk, or other similar surface.
8. Eat, Pray, Love
Form: Video (Essay), Photo Series (Term Paper)
Record yourself reciting a meditation using only one-syllable words. Your meditation should be at least 60 seconds long and contain exactly 20 unique words.
or
Bake something for a local organization (i.e. fire department). Make a 10-picture documentation of the process, up to and including the drop-off.
9. Fantastic Cities: A Coloring Book of Places Real and Imagined
Form: Photo (Essay), Video (Term Paper)
Dress up as a major world capital city and send us a photo. The world capital you are dressed as should be easily identifiable. (Please be sensitive to cultural differences.)
or
While dressed up as a major world city, lead a trivia quiz about that city. Your quiz must have at least 5 questions.
10. The Five Love Languages
Form: Video
Make a recreation of this music video that is at least 1 minute in length.
or
Make a recreation of this music video, translating the lyrics into a foreign language, that is at least 1 minute in length.
11. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience
Form: Video
Throw something biodegradable into a natural flowing body of water. Take a video.
or
Take a video of yourself blowing out a candle from 2 smoots away.
12. Girl, Wash Your Face
Form: Video(s)
Create a YouTube-style beauty regimen tutorial themed around your team.
or
Create a YouTube-style beauty regimen tutorial AND create a reaction video reacting to the full beauty regimen tutorial.
13. How to Win Friends and Influence People
Form: Video
Provide a video of your team “solving” the “puzzle” we have definitely planted on the covers of these five issues of People magazine to get the name of a secondary character from Friends.
or
In addition to the essay task, everyone in the video must be in character as characters from Friends, solving the puzzle as part of the episode “The One About The MIT Mystery Hunt”.
14. The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up
Form: Photos
Photograph yourself donating 2 books that no longer spark joy for you to a local Little Free Library.
or
Photograph yourself donating 5 books to a Free Little Library that meet the spirit of the Read in Color initiative.
15. The Little Book of Hygge
Form: Video (Essay), Fake Website (Google Doc/PDF/HTML file, Term Paper)
Create a blanket fort that is at least 10 feet by 10 feet wide which does not require human assistance to remain standing. Provide a video tour that is under a minute in length.
or
In addition to the essay task, create a fake page in the style of AirBnB for your blanket fort. Your listing should: emphasize your fort’s comfiest amenities, list how many candles your fort contains, show off its amenities that you don’t have to leave the fort for, etc. Be specific!.
16. The Mountain is You
Form: Videogame Level (Essay), Video (Term Paper)
Create a custom Baba is You level. Your team name must be present somewhere on the level. (Send the link to the level.)
or
Recreate one of the Baba is You levels from the Mountaintop in a physical medium. Take a video of someone trying to solve it.
17. Rich Dad, Poor Dad
Form: Video
Write and perform a new dad joke about economic inequality. Send us a link to the video.
or
Have two members of your team write and perform a new dad joke about economic inequality to each other, while trying not to laugh at each other’s joke. Record this conversation (preferably over Zoom or another teleconference program).
18. The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
Form: Google Doc (Essay), Video (Term Paper)
Rewrite a recent post from James Fell's Sweary History blog, rewriting to remove all obscenity; please copy the original post to a Google Doc, turn on Track Changes, and rewrite your bowdlerized version.
or
Create a "television redub" version of a scene or monologue from a movie; the original must contain a minimum of 3 obscenities, each of which must be replaced with a different censor-friendly piece of dialogue.
19. Think Like a Monk
Form: Photo (Essay), Video (Term Paper)
Take a photo proving you have gathered the permitted items for a Benedictine Monk: cowl, tunic, sandals, shoes, girdle, knife, pen, needle, handkerchief, writing-tablet.
or
In addition to the essay task, write and perform a 30-second gregorian chant about a Mystery Hunt puzzle. You cannot use the title of the puzzle in the chant. A person familiar with the Hunt should be able to identify the puzzle the chant is about.
20. The Tipping Point
Form: Video
Create a 40 piece domino effect using anything but dominoes. Each of the 40 objects must be different sizes. Take a video.
or
Balance 20 objects bigger than 1 cubic inch in your hand at the same time. Each of the 20 objects must be different sizes. Take a video.
21. Tools of Titans
Form: Drawing/blueprints (Essay), Video (Term Paper)
Design a tool that will fulfill a need for one of the Greek Titans. Explain this need, how this tool will fulfill this need, and instructions for how to create it.
or
In addition to the essay task, build that tool to scale. Demonstrate it in use.
22. What Color is Your Parachute?
Form: Video
Create a parachute for an item. The item’s name must be encoded in the parachute in a different way than the Perseverance parachute. Drop the item wearing that parachute, demonstrating that it works.
or
Perform the Essay task, but the item must be a raw egg, the drop must be at least 10 feet, and the egg must not break. At the end of the video, crack the egg open to show that it was raw.
23. What They Don't Teach You At Harvard Business School
Form: PDF/Google Doc (Essay), Video (Term Paper)
Create a degree program that they do not teach at Harvard Business School (or any currently accredited institution that you are aware of). Come up with six required classes and 20 electives, and create a 1-2 sentence course description for each.
or
In addition to the essay task, create a 30 to 60-second video advertising this program. Include a current faculty member, two current students, and their testimonials.
24. Who Moved My Cheese?
Form: Video(s)
Move a piece of cheese X/10 miles, where X is the number of members on your team. Create a time-lapse video of the entire cheese-moving trip.
or
In addition to the essay task, create two ADDITIONAL time-lapse cheese journeys. Each of your three journeys must feature a different kind of cheese, travel a different path (of equivalent length), and use a different means of conveyance (e.g. walking, biking, riding a scooter, driving a car, taking a train, etc.).
25. Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
Form: Picture (Essay), Video (Term Paper)
Make us a Snow Angel. Take a picture.
or
Make us a Snow Angel that moves. Take a video.
26. Workin’ It! RuPaul’s Guide to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Style
Form: Video
Record and perform a lip sync performance that makes use of a reveal.
A reveal is an unexpected mid-performance transformation, such as a change of outfit components or wig, often during the key moment of a song for dramatic effect, like the ones seen here:
or
Record and perform a lip sync battle with at least two contestants that makes use of a reveal. Include judges, their reactions, their deliberations, and announce a winner.