Forgetting where you parked is a problem. But losing track of your time machine could be a historic blunder.
Unfortunately for a group of young paleontologists at Highland Park Town Hall, some dinos had hidden their time machine in a prehistoric habitat. They had to find it to go back to their future, and they only had 45 minutes to hunt.
The teens and tweens achieved their mission, and earned some candy in the process, but it wasn’t simple to crack the code of July 23’s Teen Triassic Timeskip. The third annual escape room from the Highland Park Library and University Park Public Library challenged students’ reasoning, math, and problem-solving skills.
“I want them to have fun, but I want them to be encouraged to think about things more deeply, to actually get in there and feel comfortable with moving things and touching things” explained Highland Park’s youth services librarian Victoria Otterbine. “I think it’s helpful for them to use all their senses and be a little more tactile with discovering things and engaging with them.”
Otterbine, who is a fan of ciphers herself, spent between 80 and 100 hours designing the room with assistance from Tre Robling, the library’s youth services assistant, and Zoe Williams, University Park’s youth services librarian.
The librarians constructed many of the props themselves, including “rocks” made from painted papier-mache, a spray-foam “tar pit,” and “trees” that they repurposed from October’s haunted house.
To escape from the age of the dinosaurs, the library’s young paleontologists had to unlock a hidden duffle bag containing their time travel device.
They tackled that challenge by completing a series of dino-sized steps. The students began by finding a false rock which opened to reveal a key along with advice to “stay sharp.” By putting bones in indentations on the “tar pit,” paleontologists spelled the mirror-written word “ROCK” — the code to a locked backpack that contained a Dinosaur Track Reference Guide, the number 5, and a fake Sharpie, which concealed keys to a sample box. Along with artifacts, the sample box contained a paper with the number 7.
The guide advised students to identify and look for “Triassic prints,” which were mixed with a variety of paper dinosaur prints in the room. Using an ultraviolet light that they found in a cracked dino egg, the students read and solved math equations on each print. The answers were the combination to a locked “bush.” Inside was the number 2.
The code 752 unlocked a cardboard and plastic pipe “cave.” Inside was the duffle bag, which excited students opened with the key they had found in the false rock.
Twelve-year-old Oliver Radel, one member of a team who took about 30 minutes to solve the escape room, said the Jurassic journey was hard, but fun. “I like challenges,” he explained.
The Mammoth-sized puzzle was just one activity in the Highland Park Library’s Unearth a Story-themed summer reading program. The fun continued for young scientists on July 25 with a groundbreaking geology program, while adults spent the summer exploring their own stories in writing workshops.
Activities such as the escape room give teens and tweens unique programs they don’t expect, Otterbine said, and show them that, while the library is still packed with books, it also has much more to offer.
“Libraries are evolving,” she said. “If they get that kind of interest and that wonder, maybe they’ll look at some of the other stuff we do as well.”
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