This summer, the minds behind Maveristmas, a.k.a. the Party Planning Committee (and Allen), put their heads together to create the next great virtual event. What did they come up with? A two-week long series of challenges modeled after the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and creatively dubbed the “Maveris Olympics”.
The event was announced during a companywide virtual lunch session at the end of June and was met with excitement and anticipation as the details rolled out over the next few weeks. In the Olympic spirit the Maveris Olympics were created as a team event and interested employees were asked to sign up via a Google Form. From here, the Party Planning Committee (and Allen), utilized a rigorous set of complex and secretive processes to randomly assign team structures.
The festivities began with six teams vying for a generous assortment of prizes, including virtual gold, silver, and bronze medals, and of course, fame, glory, and bragging rights. With the events spread out over a two-week period and opportunities to participate in both team and individual challenges, the teams got right to work formulating their winning strategies.
THE GAMES
The Party Planning Committee (and Allen) designed a total of six events for the teams to participate in and earn points, as well as one additional competition which took place before the rest of the events for the opportunity to earn bonus points. Each event lasted for several days to allow ample time for teams to make submissions.
The competition consisted of individual and team events. In the individual challenges, each team member could submit their own interpretation of the event, while the team challenges were a single submission with contributions from all team members.
Submissions were reviewed by employees at the end of each event period during a virtual lunch where the winners of previous events were also announced.
All submissions were then compiled and sent out to all employees for voting. The individual events allowed the voter to rank their top three choices while the team events only allowed voting for a single submission. Each event turned out a gold, silver, and bronze medal winner with points allocated for each.
The designers of the Maveris Olympics ensured that participants could check their team’s standings daily in the Maveris Olympics slack channel with a clever script that ran each day to keep the scoreboard updated.
INDIVIDUAL EVENTS
LOGO COMPETITION
The first individual event kicked off with the announcement of the Maveris Olympics. All employees were invited to design a logo to represent the event and subsequently vote on their favorites. The winning logo was used throughout the competition and gave the winner’s team a boost of points to start off with.
DIY OLYMPIC TORCH AND/OR RINGS
The games officially kicked off with an opening ceremony. Here, employees could submit their individual creations to gain points for their team. Submissions included baked goods, graphic designs, family pets, and even some authentic flames.
BUILD-IT – BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND!
Build-It returned from Maveristmas for the Maveris Olympics as the final individual challenge. Employees could use whatever materials they had on hand to create a scene representing the Maveris Olympics. Popular submissions included Legos, crochet creatures, and even bananas to build their masterpieces.
TEAM EVENTS
TEAM SPIRIT
The team events began with an appropriate team spirit challenge. Each team was asked to put together a visual representation of their team spirit. Some teams went with a fear-based approach, hoping to rattle their competitors, while others utilized their children to tug on the heartstrings.
PENTATHLON
The pentathlon event was a long-running event. This was a test of strength, agility, and endurance which asked each participant to submit individual scores for a number of physical activities. Each team member was asked to perform the following exercises:
– Running (the distance (miles) covered in 10 mins)
– Sit-ups (the amount performed within 2 mins)
– Pushups (the amount performed within 2 mins)
– Dips (the amount performed within 2 mins)
– Air Squats (the amount performed within 2 mins)
Participants added their results via a Google Form that could be submitted multiple times to allow members to put forth their best effort. To receive participation points, each team member had to complete at least four out of the five exercises and the lowest score for each team was dropped before the points for each exercise were aggregated together to achieve a final score.
DIGITAL MARATHON
The digital marathon ran in tandem with the pentathlon and was a team-based digital Capture the Flag-style event. Just like a real marathon, there were 26.2 challenges that had to be solved to gain points. Participants had to follow the clues and learn new Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) techniques to solve the puzzles. Submission points were earned for participation in this challenge, so teams had to work together to ensure all team members had a chance to answer some questions to earn maximum points.
The digital marathon was also opened to the public for participation and received submissions from 352 users around the world. Check out a post at Maveris Labs that explains the Digital Marathon.
RHYTHMIC GYMNASTICS AKA DANCE ROUTINE
The final, and perhaps most anticipated event of the Maveris Olympics, was the all-important dance routine. Teams were asked to submit a video of their members dancing or otherwise creatively interpreting this event. Many teams incorporated Olympic themes into their videos in the hopes of securing the final gold medal.
CLOSING CEREMONY
At the end of the two weeks, the Maveris Olympics officially wrapped up with a virtual lunch/closing ceremony where the scores for the pentathlon and digital marathon were revealed before the final gold, silver, and bronze medalist teams were announced. Participants relived the highlights of the games and congratulated each other on an Olympics well done.
The design of the Maveris Olympics ensured that all employees could take part and contribute, and a great time was had by all. With the games complete, the Party Planning Committee (and Allen) sought companywide feedback to gauge the collective experience of employees.
With another virtual event in the books, it’s safe to say that the Maveris Olympics were a wild success and hopefully an indicator of what’s to come in the future.
