Been a while since I have posted about any of the escape rooms that I created in Seattle, but this one I finished last year is pretty fun. Normally, I make the boxes with scary or exciting premises (haunted mansions, deserted islands etc…) but this one uses a very different aesthetic.
Teach your color printer a lesson, and come join me in the Bahamas for Tropical Trigonometry Barbie!
Before you get too far in, this one is kindof a bear to put together. You will need a laminator, color printer, printable transparency paper and this thing:
here it is with the clues locked inside
I invented this because I wanted a way for the kids to earn each clue, one at a time. It works great for this box, and they were pretty easy to build. I used two old clipboards, cut them down to size, glued sections of meter stick along the sides, and drilled some holes in the top. This thing doesn’t have a name yet, so I’m taking submissions. Apologies that I didn’t take more pictures of the construction process, but “free math-based escape rooms” is a niche market. You get what you pay for.
Anyway, construction of the clues takes a minute as well. Print the five colorful triangles out on the transparency paper (amazon link: https://tinyurl.com/y2je2m7e), and cut them out.
I replaced all the triangles that you can see in the clues below with these transparent, colorful triangle windows before I laminated the clues. All the clues fit together to create complete colorful triangles, and students will need to earn ALL of the locked up clues to collect all the necessary triangle pieces and open up the final box.
The starting clue is this one: (3 digit: 430)
On the back of this clue is this:
For right now, they cannot complete the “smallest area to biggest area” puzzle, (because lots of information is missing), but the map on the back is solvable (430 miles). Once they solve the map, they can unlock the first lock that frees the second clue. Make sure you lock “clue 1” up with the three digit lock.
This one isn’t even really a clue at all, but I used a brad to attach the key to the lock. The lock unlocks the next lock (key lock) AND the blue and orange triangle bits are needed to solve the final puzzle (more on that soon)
Clue 2:
Make sure you lock up clue 2 with the key lock. Clue 2 asks students to compare trig ratios. The pink fish contains “sin a.” Using the diagrams above, you can see that the value of sina is equal to 3/5. If you follow the equivalent fish (cos c, 3/5, sin x, 0.6, cos z) you trace out a path that is R,D,D,L,L, and that will be the combination on the direction lock keeping clue 3 locked up. Also notice a piece of the green triangle is hiding on there. This clue also fits against the side of the area clue that the students started with.
Clue 3: Make sure that you lock up clue three with the direction lock.
I spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for one last good image to use with this box, and this is a screengrab from the Netflix Barbie movie “A Mermaid Tale.” These are the things I do for my students. The missing angle is about 37 degrees, and the missing side is about 46, making the combination 4637. This unlocks one of the two locks on the hasp/box.
In order to unlock the other lock, the students will need to piece together the triangle pieces that can be found on each one of the clues. When you arrange the clues like this…
…The triangles line up and you can find the areas. From smallest to largest area, the triangles are ordered Pink, Green, Orange, Yellow, Blue. That same order of colors is the combination on the FINAL lock (5 digit, color)..
As always, If you have any ideas for other clues that would fit with this content and this theme, hit me up on twitter. I’m always looking for more ideas. Otherwise, below is a ppt and pdf of the clues explained above. Enjoy!
ppt
Cantankchris Math 