Tag Archives: test

There and Back Again: Katie’s Journey

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It’s been a long journey, but Katie and Finley finally completed their quest!

You might recall that two years ago, Katie and her trusty dog Finley decided to test THE LORD OF THE RINGS Virtual Challenge series, offered by Conqueror Virtual Challenges. It’s an app that invites individuals to virtually hike famous trails, parks, and fantasy locations! Katie chose to traverse Middle Earth, carrying the One Ring all the way from the The Shire to Mordor. Katie and Finley started on June 2, 2022. After every dog walk, she logged her hours and watched her progress on the app’s neat-o map. She finished October 26, 2024. The grand total? 660 miles.

There were five stops along the journey, and at each stop earned Katie a medal that was mailed to her house. As you can see, they are unique, intricate, surprisingly large, and super cool. One of them glows in the dark!

The company also mails postcards when you reach certain milestones, and they physically plant a tree for every 20% that you walk. For Katie and Finley, that translated to 25 trees! The medal set also included the One Ring. It fits inside the Shire medal and the Mordor medal. But Katie very prudently cast it into the fires of Mordor, thus saving Middle Earth forever. Go Katie!

In case you are wondering where Katie is warming her little hobbit feet, it’s by the massive fireplace in the Yankee Doodle Tap Room. It’s located inside the Nassau Inn in Princeton, New Jersey. It was the perfect location for a restful fireside tankard.

With it’s stone, brick, wood floors, and ceiling beams, The Tap Room really does look like it could belong in the Shire. We just need a house band and a few dozen jolly hobbits.

The Tap Room has plenty of Princeton University touches as well, from a photo wall of famous alumni, to a carved tiger guarding an exit door.

But the most famous feature of the Tap Room is “Yankee Doodle,” an original Norman Rockwell painting that hangs over the bar. One of his largest canvases, it was commissioned in the mid 1930s by Edgar Palmer. Rockwell painted in right onto the wall of the Tap Room. Today, it’s carefully protected by glass.

Congratulations to Katie and Finley on their fantastic achievement! And, if you’re still in hobbit party mode, why not check out this post on Bilbo Baggins’ recent birthday bash?

Gone Was Any Trace of You

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Need to keep things like a secret? Well tortured poets, we have the perfect pen for you! Katie tested the Elemental Ink Pen by The Shop of Many Things. That’s right. You’ll have your own blank space, baby. And you’ll write your name. Take it away, Katie!

I am constantly searching for clever ways to develop clues for future Cotsen escape rooms. The Shop of Many Things Elemental Ink pens (a 3 pack is $20) definitely sounded like they would be perfect for a riddle mastermind.

According to the packaging, the elemental ink disappears when exposed to heat (104°F or 40°C) and reappears when cold (14°F or -10°C). I used my gas burner stove and a lighter as the heat source, and ice packs and my freezer for the cold. Other heat ideas include a light bulb, steam from boiling water, or an iron. Dry ice is recommended for cold. And if you are fortunate enough to have access to a laboratory with liquid nitrogen, that would be ideal!

Right out of the bag, all three pens didn’t work. I wasn’t sure if it was user error or lack of ink, but I was rightfully disappointed. It took a few minutes of scribbling lines and circles on a piece of scrap paper before the pens miraculously came back to writing life. Armed with a clever notepad (courtesy of Pop Cult Paper), I created a list of tasks:

The ink couldn’t take the heat over the stove burner and it disappeared immediately. In fact, the first time it happened, I gasped out loud. It was pure magic!

I also used a lighter both in front of and behind the paper with the same result. The lighter did leave burn marks on the back of the paper, so please be careful. We don’t want your paper to go down in flames!

It took longer for the ink to return in the cold. Simply placing the paper on an ice pack didn’t work. At all. I tried putting it between two ice packs. No go. The ink really wasn’t legible until I put the paper in the freezer where the air was cold and left it inside for around five minutes.

The Shop of Many Things claims the ink will disappear and reappear multiple times without fading, so I put that claim to the test. I went through the heat and cold process five times with the note on the left and just once with the paper on the right. Dear reader, you be the judge.

I also tested regular ink and the elemental ink to compare any differences. The elemental ink disappeared and reappeared, as expected. Absolutely nothing happened to the regular ink, also as expected.So you could write a message in regular and elemental ink, heat it up, and watch part of your message disappear! So go on, draw those hearts in the byline.

Overall, the Elemental Ink pens are a fun new addition to my escape room tool box. The ink instantly fading away using a heat source is highly entertaining, but I feel it is too arduous and takes too long for the ink to return in the cold. The bigger question is… will the Elemental Ink pens be used in an upcoming escape room? That hot topic inquiry stays cool with me.

Charmed, I’m Sure!

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Professor Flitwick is going to be thrilled, because this post is all about charms! When we learned that Malaysia, one of our awesome high school summer interns, was a huge Harry Potter fan, we just knew this kit was hers to test! Accio bracelet!

The “Harry Potter Clay Charms” kit by Klutz is intended for ages 8+ and retails for about $25. Contents include an instructional manual, 7 types of clay, a sculpting tool, a mini marker, a bracelet and hardware, a small bottle of glaze, and a paper display stand that looks like the Hogwarts Express.

The instructional manual was particularly good, chock full of full color photos, ideas, and instructions for making up to 29 characters, objects, and creatures from the famous series. I will now turn the post over to Malaysia, and don’t miss the interview with her at the end of the post. Take it away, Malaysia!

Upon opening this kit, I was pleasantly surprised with the amount of materials and inspiration provided to make these charms! The booklet gave great tips on handling the clay, tips on making shapes, and even color mixing for certain shades. As for the clay itself, the quantity for each color ranges, with blue being the least, and black and gold having the most. I’d suggest letting the clay sit out for a few minutes at room temperature to soften it a bit before handling, but it wasn’t too hard to use.

The first charm I tried my hand at was Hermione Granger, and after twenty minutes spent on her hair alone, I was regretting my decision. While she was the only human character I tried, I think it’s safe to assume the others would be of similar difficulty. There were a lot of components to the human characters, so save them for last – or first – depending on your level of patience.

Most of the other charms were fairly easy, and seem fit for the hands of someone 8 and above. Aside from the mandrake, the rest of the charms were quite simple and easy to make presentable, or resemble the photos from the book in some way. I’d recommend working with darker colors first, then progressing to the lighter ones, because once they mix…there’s no undoing it! Also, some of the coloring can rub off onto your workspace or your fingers.

Back to the dreaded Mandrake: while adorable and misleadingly simple, it’s actually quite hard to get right! Turns out, it’s a bit of a challenge to make balls of clay look effortlessly perfect as this plant. I tried using the clay shaping tool provided with the kit for a bit of assistance, but I wasn’t too successful. By this point, there was a fair bit of clay stuck onto the blade, which was stubbornly difficult to remove. The other tools (marker, charm hoops, and glaze) were simple and easy to use. Dr. Dana cooked the charms in her oven, I glazed them, and then I attached them to the bracelet:

Overall, this charm kit has earned a ⅘ star rating in Muggle terms. It’s hard not to have fun trying to perfectly recreate these beloved icons in clay form, or even just to laugh at your mistakes! So, in wizarding terms, I’ll have to give this an E in their O.W.Ls for Exceeding Expectations!

We absolutely loved having Malaysia in the office this summer, laughing and talking about Potter. So naturally, I couldn’t let her go without asking a few Potter-related questions…

What House are you?

Slytherin, proudly.

What’s your favorite book in the series and why?

Half-Blood Prince. With Voldemort really coming back, it’s a bit funny (and relatable) to see Harry and the other students balancing their teenage lives while also trying to plan on defeating He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. On a smaller note, I think it’s one of the first times we see some vulnerability in the haughtier characters like Draco, which really just puts it into perspective that this magical, whimsical world we all love is going to take a darker turn.

Which character do you associate with the most and why?

It’s probably cliché, but Hermione Granger. I can be a bit of a know-it-all at times, even when it seemingly backfires. And even to this day, one of my worst fears is getting a bad grade…or worse, expelled.

Which charm in this kit speaks to you the most, and why?

I liked the Deathly Hallows charm the most, it’s an instantly recognizable sign of the Harry Potter universe, without being too elaborate or difficult.