Monthly Archives: June 2012

American Football Quiz

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Football is America’s most popular sport and therefore it’s fun to test football fans’ knowledge of the game as well as football statistics using TextClues. All you need is some football loving friends who have a cell phone who have a strong desire to demonstrate their extensive knowledge of football. To provide an incentive for your friends to participate you should have an appropriate prize to the winner who first answers all the questions correctly.
Below is an example of an American Football Quiz. Using TextClues you would set up a series of questions and answers in advance to be received and answered by your football friends at a party at say your house on their cell phones. Below are some illustrative questions and answers you could consider. Obviously you’re free to use whatever questions you want, for example you could use only questions related to your home team. Many variations are clearly possible depending on the knowledge level of the participants, time you want to devote to the football quiz and the creativity of the football quiz organizer.

Question: What Pittsburgh Steeler Quarterback has won 4 Superbowls?
Answer: Terry Bradshaw

Question: In what year did the American Football League begin play?
Answer: 1960

Question: Who was the first person in the NFL to rush for over 1,000 yards?
Answer: Beattie Feathers

Question: Who is the All-Time leading receiver in the NFL?
Answer: Jerry Rice

Question: Who is the only Head Coach to win the Super Bowl and the Rose Bowl?
Answer: Dick Vermeil

Question: Who is the leading rusher in AFL history?
Answer: Clem Daniels

After answering all the questions correctly the following text message would be sent: Congratulations, you’ve won a prize if you’re the first to answer all the question correctly, look in the kitchen refrigerator to claim your prize ! ! (You could have a large pack of beer in the fridge marked “Football Prize ! ! “) To set up your own quiz, try our Textclues demo.

Scavenger Hunt around Town

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Scavenger hunts can be used for so many different occasions and events including:
– Easter Scavenger Hunt
– Birthdays
– Anniversaries
– Team Building
– Bachelorettes
– For some general fun
and many more events…

There are so many different ways that you can run a scavenger hunt these days, however now that the majority of the population has access to a cell phone, why not save yourself some trouble setting up a scavenger hunt with paper clues all over the city and have automatic clues sent via the cell phone? This can be done through an easy-to-use tool called TextClues. With TextClues, all you have to do is input the cell phone #s of who will be participating in the event, enter all of the clues, schedule the scavenger hunt and away you go!  If you want scavenger hunt teams to not necessarily set off on the hunt in the same order, you can use the Shuffle feature to mix up the clues so everybody will be running around town in all sorts of different ways.

Once you have the teams setup, and everyone setup on TextClues, it is time to start the scavenger hunt around town. Away you go!!!

Clue: Collect a take-out menu from a pizza shop. Reply “done” without quotations when found.
Answer: Done
Clue: Collect a coaster from a local pub or restaurant. Reply “done” when found.
Answer: Done
Clue: Take a group photo with a statue. Reply “done” when complete.
Answer: Done
Clue: Collect a flyer for an upcoming event in the city. Reply “done” when found.
Answer: Done
Clue: Take a photo with a man or woman wearing a pink shirt. Reply “done” when complete.
Answer: Done
Clue: Purchase an item that cost less than $0.50 and keep the receipt. Reply “done” when complete.
Answer: Done
Clue: Take a photo with someone’s pet. Reply “done” when complete.
Answer: Done
Clue: Collect the business card for a chinese restaurant. Reply “done” when complete.
Answer: Done
Winning Clue: Head on back to Joe’s apartment to see if you are the first one back to win the prize!!!

The clues can so easily be tailored to places that might be convenient and accessible around your city or town.  A scavenger hunt can be created within a matter of minutes, but can provide fun and entertainment for a group of people for hours! Use TextClues and a scavenger hunt for your next event, and we guarantee you will have a very satisfied group of people that will be craving for more!

Text Message Math Quiz

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You can use TextClues to send your son or daughter a text message math quiz to test the skills they’ve learned in the classroom. Here’s an example with some geometry questions:

Question: Welcome to the cell phone math quiz! No calculators are allowed. First question, how many sides does a pentagon have? Reply with the answer.

Answer: 5

Question: What’s the sum of angles inside a triangle?

Answer: 180, 180 degrees

Question: What’s the square root of 36?

Answer: 6

Question: What’s the remainder when dividing 22 by 10

Answer: 2

Question: What’s 3 x 4 + 7 – 8 x 2?

Answer: 3

Question: What’s pi to two decimal places?

Answer: 3.14

Question: What’s the area of a square with side lengths of 7?

Answer: 49

Question:  What’s the perimeter of a square with side lengths of 8?

Answer: 32

Question: Give a circle has a radius of 5. What’s the circle’s diameter?

Answer: 10

Question: For a rectangle with side lengths 4 and 3, what’s the length of the diagonal from one corner to the other? (Hint: use the Pythagorean theorem)

Answer: 5

Winning Message: Congratulations! You’re a math whiz! Come to the kitchen to get your prize

To create your own fun text message math game try our demo.

Fun Scavenger Hunt Clue Ideas

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Today we’re going to give you some ideas for great clues and riddles for your scavenger hunt. Whether you are using the TextClues service or making your scavenger hunt by hand we hope that you will find these ideas helpful and fun. If you haven’t heard of out text message scavenger hunt service you might want to read more about it here. Now onto the clues!

Online Research Clues

This type of clue is great for adding some education into the fun of a scavenger hunt! It will not only help teach kids interesting facts, but it will also help with their ability to research facts on the internet. This type of clue asks very specific questions about subjects that the participants are interested in or that they are learning about in school. Some examples are as follows:

Clue: In what year did the tyrannosaurus Rex get its name?

Answer: 1905

Clue: How old was Christopher Columbus when he discovered the new world?

Answer: 41, forty one

Clue: How many planets are in our solar system?

Answer: 9, Nine

It’s easy to find facts such as the ones above by typing the topic of interest into Google and reading the educational websites that come up. You’ll find lots of interesting questions to ask the kids and might even learn something yourself.

Rebus Clues 

Rebus Clues are great riddles for kids and are really easy to make. Sometimes they are take a little time to answer which is a great way to add some difficulty to the hunt without making it too hard. It may also help with the children’s spelling. An example for a simple Rebus Clue for “Toaster” is:

OR

TV – V + O + AXE – XE + LOBSTER – LOB

You can easily make these clues on Festisite and clicking the rebus option on the top right of the webpage. You can choose to either print out the clue and hide it for the hunter or write out the clue to send over text message. This is a really fun clue to add to a scavenger hunt and we think you should try it soon!

Mirror Message Clue

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One really neat riddle is one that can only be read by holding it up to a mirror. These riddles are a lot of fun and they are actually quite easy to make. There are two ways that you can go about creating the clues. One on the computer and one by hand.

If you want to create the clue on the computer and have a printer available here is an easy way to create your mirror message:

  • First, go into Word or your favorite word processor and type out you message
  • Highlight the text and use the “copy” function on your computer
  • Then open the program Paint. This can be found by clicking the start button and clicking on the accessories folder
  • Then paste you message into paint
  • Choose the drop-down menu for image and choose Flip/Rotate
  • Then click “Flip Horizontal” and save the image
  • Print the image and your message is done!

If that seemed too hard or you want to write the clue by hand there is another way. However, this way results in a messier looking message:

  • Get some paper, a mirror and a hard surface to write on (a book works well)
  • Now hold the paper up on the hard surface so you can see the page in the mirror
  • Looking in the mirror write the message out… this will feel strange! It might take a few tries

So there you have it, two ways to make an exciting new clue for your scavenger hunt. Now you’ll need to hide it close to a mirror. In the previous clue (whether sent via text message or otherwise) lead the hunter to the message and give a clue to the fact that it will need to be held up to the mirror.

Scavenger hunts for 8 to 12 year olds

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Kids, of all ages, love scavenger hunts but 8 to 12 year oldsreally get into the fun of accomplishing a particular task, searching for an object or solving a mystery. Scavenger hunts are good for parties because they are a great way to entertain a group of children for an hour or so and are a lot of fun. To set one up all you need to do is jot down some ideas ahead of time and plan out your scavenger hunt. Here’s a suggestion for making one for a birthday party.

To start:

  • Make a list of children to invite to the party
  • Decide on a theme for the scavenger hunt
  • Make a list of clues for the hunt
  • Send out invitations that include time of party, date and location and giving information about the scavenger hunt

For example, the theme could be movie trivia and the party could be held in your home. One suggestion would be to plan to watch a movie, either at the movie theatre or at home and have the scavenger hunt be based on the movie everyone has just seen. The scavenger hunt could start when all the children return to your home after the movie.

Make it fun by hiding clues around the house asking questions about the movie you’ve just seen. Make sure to have some prizes on hand for the winners.

If you want to make it a bit more interesting and use cell phones try out the Textclues demo here. Check out our previous posts for some suggestions for clues you could use.

Website Scavenger Hunt

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Perhaps you have recently launched a new website for your business, and you want to see if your viewers are paying attention and know how to navigate through your site.  What better way to drive some traffic to your site AND add a little bit of fun to it by running a contest with your users??

How would this all work? First, you would need to start by making a call out on your website for the contest and to get people to enter in their contact information to enter the contest, as well as provide users confirmation on when the contest would take place.  Once you have gathered everybody’s cell phone numbers, you can use an easy-to-use tool like TextClues in order to create an easy text message scavenger hunt across your website.  All you would need to do is enter the cell phone #s that have chosen to enter the contest, create a few scavenger hunt questions across your website and away you go!  The individual that completes the scavenger hunt first would win the prize :) TextClues has a dashboard which can specifically tell you when an individual has completed a scavenger hunt, and at what time, so you do not need to track any of this information on your own.

Here’s an example of how you could create a scavenger hunt contest across your site:

Clue: Welcome to the launch of our new website :) What year was our company founded? Reply with answer.
Answer: 2005
Clue: Correct! Where is our office located? (just # and street address)
Answer: 1234 Rainbow Way
Clue: Perfect! What is our top selling product?
Answer: Books
Clue: Fantastic! How fast can we ship our product to you within the United States?
Answer: 2 days, two days
Clue: What is our slogan?
Answer: Doing it right
…
And the questions can continue for various other sections of your site…

Benefits of using TextClues and creating a scavenger hunt for your site:
– Creates some interest and traffic to your site
– Allows users to familiarize themselves with your site
– Allows you to collect some demographic information on the traffic to your site
– TextClues can display *everything* that the individual has inputted into the system before they get a right answer, so you can see how easy it is for people to navigate through your site and potentially make changes to your site based on user experience
– No need to create your own scavenger hunt form to collect all the answers from the user since TextClues will already do it for you!

TextClues is the perfect tool for this type of activity on your site.  Try it today and you won’t be disappointed on the results it will provide to you and your business.

Birthday Road Rally using Text Messages

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Here’s a fun idea for a birthday party for a crowd old enough to have cars (or those with willing parents).  You can set up a text message road rally using TextClues.

First everyone needs to start from the same location and this will be more fun in groups.  Also everyone will need a cell phone – just don’t text and drive! Here we go:

Clue: Welcome to Tracy’s road rally 2012! Head to the shopping mall and get a picture by the fountain.  Check the mall map, what store is at 4D?

Answer: Body Shop

Clue: Head down to the beach. How many wooden posts are there for volleyball nets?

Answer: 40

Clue: Drive to the public pool. How many feet deep is the shallow end?

Answer: 4.5

Clue: Go to the library. How many bookcases are there in the lower level?

Answer: 27

Clue: Head to the pizza pizza. What kind of pizza is combo 7?

Answer: Hawaiian

Clue: Drive over to the Walmart parking lot. What color is the sign on the east corner?

Answer: Orange

Clue: The next stop is the high school. What month was the school founded (find the plaque).

Answer: March

Clue: Make your way to Gateway Park. Who is the oak tree at the entrance dedicated to?

Answer: Deborah Wright

Clue: Next stop is the train station. How many stairs head underground?

Answer: 83

Clue: Go to the church. What color are the 4 flowers around the back on the northwest side?

Answer: Purple

Winning Message: You completed the car rally! Head back home for the birthday cake!

You can also use our randomize feature to send each group these text clues in a different order.

Sound like fun? Try our free demo to make your own text message road rally.

Father’s Day Scavenger Hunt

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Continuing the theme of Father’s Day, here are some more ideas for scavenger hunts for dad on his special day.  With Textclues set up your clues ahead of time, make sure he’s got his cell phone and sit back and watch the fun.

 

Give him clues that lead him all over the house and plant a few outside too. Each clue should lead him to the answer, and at the end of the hunt you could have a gift bag with his cards & gifts inside.   Here are some ideas using clues and riddles.  With some of the clues the answers are written on paper and dad would text back the answer, then he would receive a text with a riddle to solve, after solving it then the new clue would be sent by text to him and so on until the scavenger hunt is done.  Just explain to him he has to reply to the text with the answer each time to get the next clue.

Here’s a sample

Clue:  For your first clue go check the garage and look under the car, text the word that you see written on paper there

Answer:  (written on a note under the car):  Shoe

 

Clue:  Solve this riddle for the next clue:  A farmer had seventeen sheep, all but nine died, how many did he have left?

Answer:  nine, 9

 

Clue:  Well done!  Now go find the white shoe which has the next clue and reply with it too.  (Hint) check the laundry room

Answer (written on paper hidden in shoe):  Deck

 

Clue:  Another riddle for you:  Take off my skin – I won’t cry, but you will, what am I?

Answer:  An onion

 

Clue:   Outside on the deck under the BBQ I want you to check, whatever you find text me back

Answer:  cup

 

Clue:  Can you answer this riddle:  What can you catch but not throw?

Answer:  A cold

 

Clue:   Check the cupboard where the cup belongs and look up, text me the word you find there

Answer: ” Teapot”  (write this word on a piece of paper you can stick to above the shelf holding the cups in the cupboard)

 

Clue:  You’re good at riddles so I’ll test you on this one:  What travels around the world yet stays in one corner?

Answer:  A Stamp

 

 

Clue:  The teapot contains a nice clue which tells you the next thing to do, look for it & once you find it text the answer which is inside.

Answer:  Basement

 

Clue:  The basement has your next clue, check beside the light and we’ll see if you get it right, text the word you see there

Answer:  Mirror

 

Clue:  Beside one of the mirrors in our house is the last clue you’ll need to do, when you see what is says text your answer and receive your last riddle to answer for a prize.

Answer:  Prize

 

Clue:  Here is your last riddle to solve:  What has to be broken before it’s consumed?

Answer:  An egg

 

When he answer this last riddle, a text is sent leading him to his card and gift.

Final Text:  Congratulations dad!  Check inside the trunk of the car for your gift!!

Try a free demo now.

Father’s Day Gift Idea

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Special occasions always seem to creep up upon us, and Father’s Day is no exception.  With Father’s Day being only a few days away, you may be starting to panic if you haven’t already thought up a gift to give to your dad. With a tool like TextClues, you should have no fear! TextClues will help you make a personalized gift (aka a scavenger hunt!) for your dad in minutes!! What will it involve?
– A cell phone
– Some scavenging on your dad’s part
– A trip down memory lane for the both of you

You can make it a bit more of a surprise for your dad by having the scavenger hunt end with something that he may find useful, something that he has been wanting for a while but hasn’t had a chance to buy, or even just a personalized card from yourself :)

Here’s an example to get you started with your Father’s Day gift today!

Clue: Happy Father’s Day! Let’s start easy. How old am I this year? Reply with answer.
Answer: 15
Clue: Great job! Where did we go on vacation last year?
Answer: NYC, New York, New York City
Clue: Yup, was pretty fun! Now, go to the place in the house that has a photo from that trip. Your next clue awaits! (paper clue would be found at the photo: What sport were you apart of when you were in university?)
Answer: Football
Clue: We’ll have to go throw one around later tonight with this great weather. What’s your favorite food?
Answer: Chicken
Clue: Yup, mom’s making your favorite meal right now :) Final question! What have you wanted to buy the last month?
Answer: Golf clubs
Clue: That’s right! Go find mom to find your new gift :D Happy Father’s Day!!

Use TextClues for your scavenger hunt gift for your dad and he won’t be disappointed! It only costs $15 for 100 clues so you can create many many scavenger hunts for all occasions (and not just for Father’s Day!) At the end of this hunt, your dad will be asking for more so the extra clues will be sure to come in handy ;) Try it today.