Last night we took a trip to Breakout; it was my first time doing an escape room. Our theme was “mystery mansion” and we had to work together to uncover the mansion’s secrets in only an hour. My group consisted of Maddie, Carlye, Chad, Torrey, and I. It was a really awesome team building activity that brought our group closer together.
We first got put in a tiny, square room and were given a brief video with vague instructions. We had to figure out where to start and what to do with the items in the room. We saw locks placed around the room and had to find ways to crack them. Once we unlocked the one that was placed on a door, we were able to get through to a second room. We assumed that was the last room and that once we unlocked all of the locks in the room we would have escaped. Instead, we later realized that through the closet there was a door that we could push open to a third room. With only 10 minutes left, we were racing to finish. We finally got the last box open which we thought would have the final key in it, but instead it had another lock inside that we had to open to reveal the key. With only 10 seconds left we gave it our all but unfortunately did not breakout.
Although we did not escape, I learned a lot through the experience by being able to bounce ideas off of each other and use each person’s strengths to try to achieve our goal. At Pitt, we took a strengths finder quiz to determine our top five strengths. The ones that I saw personally come into play during the escape room were communication and harmony. I was able to easily communicate with my team members to try to come to a consensus on a certain clue. I also wanted to make sure everyone was in agreement with each step in order to not create any conflict along the way.
Even though some of our strengths overlap, I could see unique strengths that each team member has that helped us along the way. Maddie’s strength is positivity; this really helped lighten the mood when we would get frustrated with a certain clue and it is always nice to have someone in the room who tries to make the best out of everything. Carlye’s strength is includer; she always listened to everyone’s opinion and made sure we all felt in the loop about what was going on. Chad’s strength is focus; towards the end of the game, we had to solve riddles and he really focused on the task to make sure we achieved it. Torrey’s strength is strategic; he was able to figure out the clues that involved out of the box thinking which helped when solving the clues for the locks.
Overall, it was a really fun experience that helped us all come together and “breakout” of our shells. Although we were not expecting to be in Charlotte, we have been able to make the best of it and do fun, yet informative activities.