Challenges

Grade Level: Grades 7-8         Event Type: In-Person        Learning Objectives: Soft Skills

Unboxed: Treasure Hunt sets students on a quest to discover the lost treasure of feared pirate, Captain Black.  This challenge demonstrates the importance of descriptive communication, teamwork, and making connections between multiple pieces of information.  Students will reveal hidden messages from a cipher, uncover hidden treasure maps, work together to open a cursed cryptex, and determine the location of the buried treasure.  With 30 minutes for gameplay, this challenge is perfect for a single class session or as a warm-up to other activities. 

Grade Level: Grades 10-12          Event Type: In-person       Learning Objectives: General STEM

Unboxed: CIA calls upon students, who are undercover CIA agents to find the leak within the ranks at the CIA Headquarters as criminal organization Phantom attempts to access information from a data server. Students will balance chemical equations, construct circuits, decode binary messages, solve for variables in algebraic equations, and navigate downtown Washington D.C. in their quest to put a stop to Phantom once and for all.

Grade Level: Grades 9-10          Event Type: In-Person        Learning Objectives: Manufacturing Concepts

Unboxed: Natural Disaster asks students to help their community after recent severe weather has left families without access to clean drinking water.  Drawing from recent real-world events, Natural Disaster introduces students to manufacturing concepts as they determine the needs of families impacted by the storms, reorganize the factory floor using geometry, perform quality checks using hand tools, and calculate values on kanban cards.  This theme aims at highlighting the diverse career opportunities within the field of manufacturing and the impact manufacturing has on our society.

Grade Level: Grades 7-8          Event Type: In-Person        Learning Objectives: Forensic Science/Biology

Unboxed: Museum Heist asks students to step into the role of detective as they race to solve the mystery of who stole a valuable necklace from a museum.  Each puzzle will introduce new evidence as students learn to identify fingerprint characteristics and complete Punnett squares to determine the suspect blood type.  As they piece together DNA sequences and collect fabric samples, students will inch closer to catching the thief and preventing an international scandal. 

Grade Level: Grades 9-12          Event Type: In-Person, Technology Supported       

Learning Objectives: Information Literacy/Detecting Misinformation

Unboxed: Influencer presents students, who make up a group of up-and-coming social media influencers, with the opportunity to sign a potentially lucrative brand ambassador contract.  After learning more about the product and company though, will they risk the potential liabilities that also come with the proposal?  This challenge develops students' information literacy skills to evaluate the information they are presented with and identify misinformation.

Grade Level: Grades 9-12          Event Type: In-Person       

Learning Objectives: Human Factors, Human-centered Design

Unboxed: Operation challenges students to diagnose and treat a patient who has been brought into their emergency room.  Students will review patient history and symptoms to recommend a course of treatment, prepare the operating room, and perform their "operation" while learning how decision aids and aspects of human factors design can benefit user experience.

Grade Level: Grades 7-8          Event Type: Virtual        Learning Objectives: General STEM

Unboxed: Galaxy launches students into space as a team of astronauts on their way to collect a research sample from Planet Delta. During their journey to the distant planet, they will communicate with aliens by decoding a cipher, troubleshoot technical troubles with their ship's batteries by using math, use spatial visualization skills to fix their terrain map, and lay the groundwork for coding as they navigate an asteroid belt.

Grade Level: Grades 9-10          Event Type: In-Person       Learning Objectives: Circular Economy Model

Unboxed: Circular Economy challenges students as a team of engineers to help the beverage company they manage to adopt a more sustainable circular economy business model.  Students will work through each phase of a circular economy model, identify plastics through their Resin Identification Numbers, determine solar irradiance for their location to estimate solar power, learn about manufacturing processes of plastic bottles and use math to calculate energy usage, optimize delivery schedules through riddles, and creatively recommend alternative uses for products before learning how to properly recycle commonly used plastic products.