Touch Grass Challenge (IMPOSSIBLE!)
This physical puzzle or interaction is no longer available to do on campus.
You've been doing too many puzzles. Time to touch grass.
Welcome to the scavenger hunt! Solving this puzzle would have given you 2 strong rewards, each of which could be redeemed as a free answer for any non-meta puzzle in the Hunt.
Scoring System:
A team is required to hit a total number of points over all tasks dependent on team size.
| Number of members on team | Minimum points required for all tasks |
|---|---|
| 1-10 | 30 |
| 11-20 | 40 |
| 21-30 | 50 |
| 31-40 | 60 |
| 41-50 | 70 |
| 51-60 | 80 |
| 61+ | 90 |
Submission Guidelines
If you submit multiple times for a task, your score will be the maximum of all submissions. Resubmission requires only resubmitting new things.
For online tasks: Submit to this form. We request that teams submit as few times as possible (preferably once).
For in-person tasks: Use the "Request an Interaction" box on the page. Teams should indicate whether they would want us to go to them or them to come to us. We request that teams schedule at most one interaction with us.
We are closed from 1 AM to 6 AM. There will be no in-person interactions or virtual judging during this time.
Online Tasks
| Task Number | Online Task | Point Value (up to this value unless otherwise noted) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Stage a grassroots protest about grass rights. Your protest should be visible to people not on your team. There should be a minimum of 5 people actively protesting, and your protest should be at least 2 minutes long. | 15 |
| 2 | Make and post a Tiktok where a majority of the team touches grass. Include the hashtag #ifinallytouchedgrass. | 5 (exact) |
| 3 | Run the NPR show All Grass Considered as the host, Ira Grass. The show should have a minimum length of 2 minutes. | 10 |
| 4 | Invent the new sport grassball. Include a rulebook and demonstrate the sport with at least 6 team members. | 10 |
| 5 | Create and post an AI-generated tweet in the style of Admiral Boötes demonstrating best practices for eating grass. Include the hashtag #ifinallytouchedgrass. Do not mention anything about Mystery Hunt in your tweet. | 5 (exact) |
| 6 | Make a program schedule for the Grass Hopper Conference. There should be a minimum of 4 speakers, and each talk should have a summary. | 10 |
| 7 | Create a 3D model of the Green Building with green grass. | 15 |
| 8 | Hand-draw ceiling(sqrt(N)) unique Grass-type Pokemon getting head pats where N is the number of people on your team. | 10 |
| 9 | Create and hug a grass pet. The pet should be alive and should be at minimum the size of an average cat. | 10 |
| 10 | Act out being a lawn gnome on Killian Court. | 5 |
| 11 | Become a grass virtual Youtuber and stream yourself. Demonstrate that you can control the model. The stream should have a minimum length of 2 minutes. | 30 |
| 12 | Create a cooking video showing how to make robot-made edible grass. The video should have a minimum length of 2 minutes. | 20 |
| 13 | Pick a fight with a turf monster. The video should have a minimum length of 30 seconds. | 5 |
| 14 | Mow a lawn without destroying any blades of grass. | 10 |
| 15 | Make a grass angel. | 5 |
| 16 | Create a museum exhibit for artworks made of grass. | 15 |
In-Person Tasks
| Task Number | In-Person Task | Point Value (up to this value unless otherwise noted) |
|---|---|---|
| A | Weave grass to make a grass-plushie of MATE. The plushie must be huggable and at least as big as an average person's hand. | 15 |
| B | Give a lecture for the MIT PuMaGraSS seminar. Your lecture should involve pumas and grass and should be a minimum of 2 minutes long. Expect to be asked questions. | 15 |
| C | Perform a bluegrass song that prominently features blade-of-grass whistling as instrumentation. The song should be a minimum of 30 seconds long. | 15 |
| D | Perform a Mardi Grass celebration. At least 10 team members should participate, and everyone must be costumed. | 35 |
| E | Create a physical object with at least 2 sides where the grass on each side is always greener than the other. | 5 |
| F | Make and eat soup out of grass. Your soup should be green colored. | 15 |
| G | Create a new architecture for decentralized grass and give an academic poster presentation. | 15 |
| H | Demo a device that is capable of finding a needle in a grassstack. | 15 |
| I | Invent, then perform a minimum 2-minute minimum long sales pitch for a new kind of grass. | 15 |
| J | Dress up a team member as a grass demon. | 10 |
| K | Find or create an n-leaf clover. We will ask you to show that the clover has n-leaves for some given number of n that we choose. | 15 |