Aaron Landry

Kyle Taking a Well-Deserved Break, originally uploaded by Aaron Landry.

Kyle and I participated in the BlackBerry Curve Challenge, a high-tech scavenger hunt and race around Minneapolis. I originally found out about it from a PR person that emailed me and I hadn’t heard much else about it so I didn’t know what to expect (although there was stock photography of people doing rock climbing and serious backpacking: weird). I’ve done other similar urban challenges like this before but in this one, the top thirty teams of two get a new BlackBerry Curve and the top finisher gets a trip to compete in San Francisco. Fun. I figure that if I win, I should be able to get some good money for that new BlackBerry!

I arrived I realized that I was certainly going to be outmatched on athleticism. I thought beforehand there might have have been maybe a hundred people participating but there was a bunch of tents set up, professional racing gear, announcers, radio and drink sponsors with tents and including their huge amount of staff and volunteers there was at least 400 people. A big event to put on for free.

At the start we were given a new BlackBerry Curve to use during the race. The rules indicated we’d be disqualified if I pulled out my iPhone (or any other similar device). We were also given a “passport” which contains clues to find ten checkpoints that could be completed in any order — with a few exceptions. Running from the Guthrie Theater where it started we started figuring out a couple clues. I had a paper map where I was marking the locations so we could find the fastest route. Kyle argued that we should keep running and we’d figure out a couple of the missing ones later but I insisted we could be passing checkpoints if we didn’t stop to plan our whole trip.

One of the checkpoints lead us to GameWorks where we were given a card to play games with and earn tickets. We needed 20 credits in tickets to present to another task and Kyle rocked Skee Ball like it was nobody’s business. We were out after just a couple throws. We went over to the Hard Rock Café where our task was to count the guitars with signatures on them. Kyle took the upstairs, I took the main dining area. When we were complete we had to put the number in the BlackBerry and show it for a signature on our passport. A bit silly, but we got our number wrong. We argued about some of the guitars where the signatures were partially rubbed off. We re-counted, typed the number on the BlackBerry and showed again and we were still wrong. Finally we lowered the number a couple times until we got it right. Perhaps they weren’t counting the one upstairs.

We had a misadventure where we mixed up US Bank Plaza and the US Bancorp Center and later ended up at a task on the 50th floor of the IDS Tower. Everyone was waiting in a long, slow line to do a task behind closed doors. If you fail, you have to get back to the beginning of the line, we were told. What it boils down to is being shown a photo of a table setting with cups, plates, knives, forks, folded napkins and such and you need to replicate the photo on the table. You’re only shown the photo for thirty seconds. People in line were saying that only one team had completed the task thus far and it took us a bit to realize that we were supposed to use the BlackBerry’s built-in camera. When we got in, we tried shooting off two photos but the photo quality on the camera was bad, the flash was on auto and was going off and it actually records the photo after you hear the clicking noise so our shots were blurry. Instead of even trying, we darted to get a place back in line. We noticed people scribbling forks and knives on paper and some people were trying to use their BlackBerry devices but the signal was so bad a few people were lined up next to the windows to get service. Our second time in we got a photo successfully but the screen was too small to really use it. I started setting up the table with Kyle and my strategy was to match the photo exactly, and Kyle assumed that each seat was set up the same way. He was probably right, but we didn’t even get to folding the napkins before our time ran out. Going back out in the hallway we decided: “fuck this.”

We decided to not take things seriously anymore. I figured that one of the tasks had to do with lawn bowling at Brit’s Pub so we headed in that direction, stopping at the Verizon store to do a tedious Facebook task: logging into someone else’s Facebook account and looking at your “only friend,” which at the time was two friends. Now he has nine. I thought it was rather strange to give a couple hundred people the same username and password to a single fake Facebook account. This task would have been a lot easier to do on the iPhone, by the way.

We made it to Brit’s and unfortunately, the task was strange: instead of real lawn bowling you each get one bowl only and you had to land your bowl into one of three rings. We failed and had to do a secondary task of untying three knots out of a rope that we’re both holding without letting go of the rope.

At this point we decided to get a table and order a pint and some food. We started hearing reports about some of the other tasks and we were glad we skipped out. People wearing the same jerseys, a ton of sweat and different numbers were running past our table laughing and complimenting us at our idea while we enjoyed our fish and chips.

We got on a bus to do the final task which was near the finish line. People were screaming and shouting at us and telling us how awesome we are doing, not knowing that we only completed half of the tasks. One of my favorite moments was when twenty people were cheering me on, the chorus of Europe’s The Final Countdown blared out the speakers and went down on one knee and played air guitar with rock hands before casually bouncing across the finish line. Then I overheard the announcer proclaiming that Team 66 was in “fifth place” and announced our names for everyone to hear how awesome we did.

We were treated to free beverages and food from Cue and shared a few stories with some of the people that actually completed all ten checkpoints. Ends up that many of the earlier finishers were using Kyle’s method: get a couple done first that we know are on the far end of downtown and figure the rest out on the way. One team came running in that also saw us enjoying a pint at Brit’s — I think they were surprised that we beat them back. Tee hee.

In the end, while it was a fantastic promotional event for BlackBerry, people were using paper maps instead of the clunky map and GPS features in the BlackBerry. The people that completed the task we failed were using paper and pens instead of the built-in camera. Googling on the device was frustrating and it would have been easier to just call friends (which we were allowed to do and should have done). In other words, actually using the BlackBerry to complete the BlackBerry course actually may cause you to do a lot worse. Pretty funny, to me. Either way, we had a ton of fun and didn’t take it too seriously. A fun way to spend a morning and afternoon. (Update: the final stats)

The BlackBerry Curve Challenge goes to Portland on June 7th and the finals are in San Francisco on June 14th.