It's a Brave New Bot World!

My kids and I had a so much fun last summer with my pirate themed treasure hunt that I started a new robot themed adventure. This has been months in the making, with me building robots that the kids have to find. Here it is! P.S. I think I have more fun designing these than the kids have actually doing it!

An email from LILBOT

Let the Search for Prime Bot Begin!

It all begins with an email from LILBOT to the kids email:


Attention operators Amaya & Hayden! My name is LILBOT! I am a robot! You must help me! Our leader, PRIME BOT, was on a top secret mission to infiltrate the stronghold of our enemy, MEGA BOT, when we lost communications with him. We sent out our best splinter cel bots to find Prime Bot, but they have disappeared too! I'm the only bot left! Please help! If you find Prime bot, you will get an awesome reward!

Help me find the SPLINTER CEL BOTS. They're so secret I can't tell you their names! I received data bits (that means info and clues) from all the bots but I can't open them because I don't have their secret passwords! I put all the bot bits inside a folder named BOT BITS on your computer desktop. If you find a secret code, you can use it to unlock the bits! I managed to hack into the first bit but I don't know what it means. Maybe you can figure it out. The password for BIT 1 is: MAXWELLFARTS

But beware, humans! Mega bot will destroy you if he gets his nasty robot claws on you. And he has minion bots called BAD BOTS! Beware that some of the bot bits may be BAD BITS from the stupid tin can BAD BOTS!! Keep your optics (that means eyes) peeled and your audio receptors (that means ears) OPEN.
Find the bots! Then find Prime Bot! Hurry before Megabot turns Primebot into a pile of scrap metal! Thank you! You are so brave. Just don't get killed.

Lilbot out.

P.S. If you need my help, just send me an email and I'll do my best.

The kids are going to freak when they see this. I'm getting anxious already. I will NOT help them with this hunt like last years. They're on their own.

BOT BIT 1

Basically all the Bot Bits are pdfs that have a security lock on them. The kids will have to unlock the pdfs with a passcode to view them. LILBOT gives them the first passcode. From then on they will find a passcode on the back of each BOT that they find that will open the next BOT BIT.

Here is the first BOT BIT:

At first glance, it's a simple maze. But look closely and you'll see that the lines are actually made of microtext. There is a story hidden in the maze. The story is a bit long to repeat here but it's basically about a little girl who finds a pile of the King's bones in the forest. The King was vaporized by a giant robot while on a hunt. The girl collects the bones in a bag and meets a wolf, a bear and a lion on the way to the kingdom. The grieving Queen rewards the girl and the animals and tells the girl that the answer she seeks is inside the King's bag of bones.

There is a book titled Bag of Bones written by Stephen King that I have a hardcover of. I made a book safe out of it, cutting the inside pages and gluing the edges with watered down wood glue. Inside waits the first bot, BOOKBOT.

BOOKBOT

BookBot was constructed from scraps of gatorboard (similar to foamcore but with a harder surface), grommets for eyes, and industrial staples for the nose and mouth. He was fastened together with a hot glue gun.

Here's BookBot's label:

Each Bot has one with their name and the password to open the next Bot Bit.

BOT BIT 2

This one was a binary puzzle where the kids fill in the square if it has a "1", leave it blank if it has a "0". Letters are formed, which scrambles to form a word to lead them to the next bot.

CRYOBOT

Cryobot was at the bottom of the chest freezer. He was made out of gatorboard. I gave him a reflector from a mini flashlight for a cyclops-like eye. The design inspiration was IG-88, the bounty hunter robot from Empire Strikes Back.

BOT BIT 3

This one is the first of the BAD BITS, bits that were sabotaged by the BAD BOTS. It's a circuit diagram with blocks of characters connected by circuitry that form the clue V-A-N-P-G-3-2-9. It took a while for the kids to figure out that this lead to page 329 of the van owner's manual. Page 329 was the index. Where they had JACK LOCATION.....pg 172. I scratched out the word JACK and wrote in BOT. On pg 172, they found a diagram of the compartment in the rear of the van where the tire jack is stowed. Also stowed away was TRUNKBOT!

TRUNKBOT

Contruction: Gatorboard scraps, nuts and staples for the face. A hot glue gun is a robot maker's friend!

BOT BIT 4

Teaching your kids how to decode morse code is so cool. They had no idea what the dots and dashes were until I instructed them to look up how people communicated before telephones were invented. They soon discovered the telegraph and then morse code. They quickly found a decode key and translated the code into "CLIMB UP INTO THE DARK" - which led them to the attic where they found TREEBOT.

TREEBOT

Treebot was built from scraps of wood that I salvaged from work. I bought the dowels at a hardware store. I knew that I wanted to make a big wooden robot and I found a perfect and simple design through Google. No paint, I wanted him pure. I told the kids that they could design and paint them however they wanted. Amaya wants pink. Hayden wants camouflage. How about pink camo?

BOT BIT 5

Another bad bit- this one smashed to "bits" that form a comic book cover. Yes, I made a comic. I can't draw anything cool to save my life, so I wrote a simple outline with descriptions of the panels, then searched Google images to find artwork, backgrounds etc. I even borrowed current movie posters to use as ads in the comic, plus I designed my own fake ad for BADMAX robotics.

BATTLE of the BOTS comic

Here's the comic. You can click on the pics to make them bigger. 

In the last panel are two sets of numbers. A latitude and a longitude. The kids had to google map the numbers and go to street view to see the name of a hangout called THE CUPBOARD. Hanging out in one of the high kitchen cupboards was CHUNKBOT.

CHUNKBOT

Chunkbot is one of the twin bad bots that I made from scrap wood from my father-in-law's new deck. The inspiration for the design came from Tyler Jackson's BLANKS, a series of wooden robots. The head is a part from an old press that just works perfectly. The weapons are from Hayden's bionicle toys. I painted it with the brightest yellow I could find and then added some simulated grime (dirt, grease and carbon scoring) with black paint and a fan brush.

BOT BIT 6

The secret location is Amaya's barbie house. A large envelope was taped to the back of the house, containing the remains of SHREDBOT.

SHREDBOT

Poor Shredbot! The kids found the three sheets (2 with his parts and 1 outline of his body) of Shredbot's remains in the envelope and started cutting them out. They pieced him together and found out the password for the next BOT BIT.

BOT BIT 7

A simple "read it backwards" puzzle. On our bookshelf, behind Stephen King's Dark Tower books, awaits BLOCKBOT.

BLOCKBOT

Ah, Blockbot. Chunky's bro. Same type of construction and inspiration as Chunkbot. His hand cannons are actually little plastic sleeves that go on the end of a ear thermometer, painted black and hot-glued on. The BAD BOTS were the kids favorites, I think because they're so chunk-a-riffic and dumb looking. It's easy to like BAD when its silly. Kind of like Dr. Evil.

BOT BIT 8

This leads to Megabots lair, which was also used in last summer's Pirate Treasure Hunt. It's a dark corner of the basement with a little nook that must of been a kid's hideout long ago. There resides a kid-sized chair and old newspaper comics on the bricked walls. Given the ominous and dark tone of the clue, the kids figured it our immediately and returned with MEGABOT.

MEGABOT

Though he's not as evil looking as I wanted him to be, Megabot is still pretty cool. A new paint can for a body, tomato paste cans for legs, Monster cans for arms and a cyclone fence part for its head. Love it!

BOT BIT 9

It's near the end! PRIMEBOT is alive and inside a suitcase.

PRIMEBOT

It was Christmas 1982 I believe, and I opened up my best present ever: Optimus Prime. I remember beholding the awesomeness in my hands. The big, shiny box with gleaming robot artwork, the red cab and silver trailer held in place with styrofoam. Because of my love for it, I knew I would have a hard time building a robot with Prime's name. So I went out and bought the Dark of the Moon Prime at Walmart, which also came with a bonus moon buggy autobot. Sa-weet!

BOT BIT 10 - THE REWARD!

BOT WARRIORS VICTORIOUS!!

4 months in the making...4 days to solve...The Search for Prime Bot is over!!
I better get crackin' on next summer's adventure!