Word Circle Puzzles: February 2016

Recently I attended the Association for Challenge Course Technology's annual conference in my backyard in Texas. I picked up lots of great activity ideas that I will be sharing over the next couple of months.

​Since it's about time for another round of Word Circle Puzzles (WCP), I want to share a technology-related WCP presentation I learned from my friend Jeremy Yarbrough from the Campus Recreation Department at Baylor University. Jeremy lead us through a wonderful progression of puzzles and ways to lead the group into the puzzles. His final offering was a puzzle set with QR Codes on each card. 

First we had to use our Smartphone's QR Code reader (I use "i-nigma") to decode each word on the cards (some people needed to ask for help since they didn't have a Smartphone - yes, some people still do not have them! Awesome!)

​Then, we had to remember each word or words we were holding (since Jeremy challenged us not to use our phones again after we found our words). I had to focus intently on my two words while others (I heard in the background) were organizing the solution to the puzzle. For me it was very interesting to see how people operated within their short-term memory capacity. Great fun. And YES, we solved it!

Jeremy uses a free online QR Code generator (here's the one I use) and goes to Dictionary.com to put in his words for the puzzle. Once a word is defined Jeremy copies the URL for that word and pastes it into the generator. When a QR Code is generated he has a document template for Avery printable business cards set up - he copies and then pastes one QR Code per business card and then prints out the page when it's full. You could easily make cards in a Word document like I do - I can get about eight rectangle images on one page. From there I can drop in a word, or now a QR Code, into each rectangle and print them out after I make a set of cards. 

Jeremy did warn us to label our QR Code puzzle card sets in some way so that if we make a number of different QR Code sets you know which cards go together. In the picture above you see Jeremy has outlined the QR Codes in green. With a little effort you too can produce a very interesting puzzle challenge that brings tech and face-to-face together! 

Here are some new Word Circle Puzzles for your team building adventures. (I've mixed them up of course so you can figure them out on your own if desired (write out each word on an index card so you can shuffle them around to solve), The answers are included after the puzzles. (New to Word Circle Puzzles? Go Here. After more WCP? Use the Search box in the right side bar on this page - type in Word Circle Puzzles to find other installments and presentation ideas.)

SOME, HIT, NIGHT, GOING, TIME, ON, SWITCH, OVER, LIGHT, HER...(10 Words)

HOLD, NECK, CARD, STAGE, SMART, LACE, BACK, STREET, CREW, HOUSE, OFF, WORK...(12 Words)

​STREET, POWER, PLANT, CONE, SMART, FLOWER, PITCH, PLAY, MONEY, BACK, STAND, PINE, FAST... (13 Words)

​BOTTOM, STAMP, GAME, COACH, SCHOOL, MAN, LINE, LESS, DATE, PAYMENT, BELL, DOWN, BOARD, LAW, PLAN, ON...

SPOILER ALERT - ANSWERS BELOW
10 Words: NIGHT, LIGHT, SOME, TIME, SWITCH, HIT, HER, ON, GOING, OVER...
12 Words: STREET, SMART, CARD, HOUSE, HOLD, BACK, STAGE, CREW, NECK, LACE, WORK, OFF...
13 Words: PINE, CONE, FLOWER, POWER, PLAY, BACK, STREET, SMART, MONEY, PLANT, STAND, FAST, PITCH...
16 Words: GAME, LAW, SCHOOL, BELL, BOTTOM, LINE, COACH, MAN, DATE, STAMP, DOWN, PAYMENT, PLAN, LESS, ON, BOARD...

Have fun out there!

​Chris Cavert