Day 68 of Lockdown. I had seen a link to the Stanmore History Challenge on social media and thought it could be a worthwhile lockdown activity. Valerie was also happy to take part and we both downloaded the workbook with the clues and puzzles.
The activity was devised by Stanmore artist Kristen Watts as a lockdown activity and also as a way for people to learn about some of the amazing history of Stanmore. Before starting, we had already worked out the answers to the first three puzzles, and the first one told us the location we had to be in to start the challenge.
We went there and found a QR code. This took us to a website with a google document where we could fill in some more answers. We had to be observant, visit a few addresses and then could fill in information into the workbook which we could submit to the Google document. If our answers were correct, we could access the next part.
The activity was both fun and challenging. But more than that, it was very informative. It filled in some big gaps in my knowledge of history at a very interesting part of the early colony of NSW.
The workbook had a phone number we could SMS if we got stuck. We had to send a message at one time, when we could not find a QR code part way through the challenge. It looks like kids may have removed it. We got an answer very quickly – thanks to Kristen, and we could continue.
All the challenge answers can be found in a small area of Stanmore on on the north side of the railway line. You do need a smart phone with internet access to see the documents. We also used the phone to look up certain flags for one of the puzzles.
If you want to do something different, then I would strongly recommend doing the challenge. Many thanks to Kristen for devising it.
Sounds very interesting! Hope my area will also plan such kind of activities!