The Evolution of the Augmented Reality Easter Egg Hunt

How did a simple Easter Egg hunt morph (over the course of several years) into a full-blown, augmented reality scavenger hunt? Simple. I was born into excellence.

Don’t misunderstand: I wasn’t born into royalty, wealth or anything materialistic. I am the youngest in a family of habitual over achievers. I was raised with the expectation that if you do something, you do it right. I like to refer to it as the “Two Cheek Effort.”

A New Tradition was Born

Every year we go to my parents for Easter and partake in normal, Easter activities. Eating chocolate, Easter bread and sitting down to a big lamb dinner. (Google Easter Bread; it’s a tasty Italian tradition). Everyone ate, laughed and had a good time.

One year we went to start the boring, traditional hunt for Easter eggs and baskets when we realized we didn’t have any

hard boiled eggs to hide. We colored eggs, but only for the bread. (Seriously, Google “Easter Bread”; it’ll make sense). We had an hour before the kids arrived and were armed with nothing but Post-it notes and our wits. We quickly created clues leading the kids about the house ending at the baskets. They loved the scavenger hunt so much a new Easter tradition was born.

The premise stayed pretty much the same. They were given one clue to start. It lead them them to the next clue which led them to the next. And so on through a series of clues until they ended up at their Easter baskets. Some years the individual clues were put together to form the final clue.

And then I put both cheeks in

Each year the scavenger hunt became more elaborate. The clues were printed from the computer to look extra fancy. The next year, there was a foam core puzzle of a treasure map with a scavenger hunt clue on the back of each puzzle piece. Another year, the clues were a series of photos with each picture taken from the perspective of the next clue. (Which required a camera with a timer and some quick moves).

Of course, as the years progressed (and the kids got older) the clues themselves became more difficult. For example, the scavenger hunt clues were assembled to create a rebus puzzle as the final clue. For the puzzle to work they had to remember the order of the scavenger hunt pieces.

We went digital

The kids reached the age where there was (and still is) always an electronic device in their hands. Instead of fighting it, I embraced it. The scavenger hunt clues were again on the back of a giant, foam core puzzle. The puzzle was a QR code. Now they had to figure out how to get their smart phones (or iPods) to read a QR code. What did the QR code do? Took them to a dedicated website which had more clues. The final clue on the website? GPS coordinates which took them out in the neighborhood to their final gifts. Again, they had to figure out how to find GPS coordinates on their phones. More apps!

Augmented Reality. A quick primer

You may remember those ridiculous virtual reality goggles of yesteryear. Augmented reality’s a combination of real life and virtual. You’ve probably seen Augmented Reality (AR) in the movies and on TV. Iron Man’s helmet with the cool display with real time info overlayed atop real world vision? Or check out this cool heads up display for cars so you don’t have to take your eyes off the road. All Augmented Reality. For more info on AR check out How Stuff Works.

What can top QR codes, a custom website and GPS coordinates?

Augmented Reality. For the AR scavenger hunt I gave them an initial printed clue and my iPad with the AR software loaded and open. When they pointed the iPad at the printed clue the next clue popped up on screen. Which took them to another object in my parents house. Each object triggered the next clue to pop up on screen. So on and so forth until they ended at the neighbor’s house who was holding the baskets. Needless to say it was a success and everyone had fun.

What’s in store for next year? I don’t know yet. But I have been learning how to build Arduino robots…

Be on the lookout for a blog post with step by step instructions on how to create the AR scavenger hunt. And I’ll be updating the custom scavenger hunt website for public registration so anyone can create scavenger hunts online.