A "Daddy Special"

C requested for his birthday party a "Daddy Special." That means, a party that J plans and executes to wow and amaze. Two years ago, we had a science party with many experiments and explosions.

This year the theme for the party was Dangerous Book for Boys. Codes, a rocket, remote control cars, BB guns.

Eight boys converged on our backyard. The first activity involved a robotic sprinkler. The boys had to see if they could retrieve the canister guarded by the sprinkler. The sprinkler detected motion and would go off when they got close. For the first time ever, J wrote software for a party activity!

Inside the canister was a piece of paper with a QR code, which is a scan-able bar code. Some gibberish came up on a smartphone when the QR code was scanned.

On the other side of the paper, written in invisible ink, were the words "Caesar Cipher 4."  C pulled out his Dangerous Book for Boys since he remembered it had codes and ciphers in it.

The book said that every letter is shifted by a certain number. One boy decided to write out the alphabet and take the gibberish and decode it systematically.

The result was "Birthday's Boy's Nickname," We thought this would be easy to figure out but C's friends didn't know his nickname. One boy was able to guess it out of the blue. Taking those letters C and one friend turned the switches on a box (switches for each letter of the alphabet) which launched an ethanol bottle rocket with a message inside.

The rocket shot out of the top tree house and landed on the ground.

A map was inside of the bottle. It was cut into jigsaw pieces and written in invisible ink. The map was of our yard.

The boys eventually found the "X" where the treasure was buried.

The treasure was a plastic box (dug out of the ground) which contained remote controls for two RC cars.

We went out to our cul-de-sac where the boys took turns operating the RC cars. The goal was to use the RC car to push the cardboard box through the goal posts (two flower pots). The 2nd car played defence. Inside the box was the artillery (BBs) for the next activity.

J had the boys use BB guns to shoot some cheap pottery which was hanging from string. We were surprised at who was the best shot. A quiet boy who is our pastor's son. He could shoot better than my husband J! I don't have photos of this activity since I had to leave to pick up the ice cream cake.

C opened his presents and we had cake.

After that was over, the boys played hide and seek and used the tree houses and sprayed each other with water guns. J & I vowed that this is the last elaborate birthday party we throw!








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