The Spring 2017 Innovation Dojo began with light snacks and mingling amongst the new “Dojees,” getting to know each other and sharing their excitement for the semester ahead.
New Dojees enjoying snacks and mingling
“There are no strangers here; only friends you haven’t yet met.”
Soon after, the Dojees participated in a fun ice-breaker game, where they asked each other questions, of an already chosen theme, aimed at fostering a connection between members. Afterwards they had to try and guess what the theme of the questions was and where they came from.
Ice, Ice BABY… Ice-Breaker Time!
From there, the Dojo mentors introduced themselves and went over the plan for the semester. Dojo master, Manny Gorotiza, shared an interesting ‘Startup of the Week” story about asteroid mining. Followed by Jillian Cai and Sophie Starck (former Dojees and current Dojo mentors) demonstrating to the new members an impromptu elevator pitch as well as a Demo Day final project - what all Dojees work towards through the semester.
Jillian, current mentor, sharing her past project
From there, the fun really began in the form of a fun, team-bonding trip to The Great Escape Room in downtown Providence. This is where the Dojees were divided up into two teams and then had to compete against one another to be crowned “Escape the Room champions” (a very coveted title, with mass bragging rights within the Dojo circle).
Team A
Team Condensed Milk
“Teamwork makes the dream work.”
How the game worked was that teams had 60 minutes to solve a number of puzzles in a locked room in order to get out, with initially no clues to help them. The objective of the game, therefore, was to find the clues in the room, in order to solve the puzzles, and try to get out the room the fastest. After minutes of tearing apart the locked room for clues, it was Team Condensed Milk that was victorious, unlocking the room with only 27 seconds to spare - nail-biting stuff!
Squad photo with some of the Team ‘Condensed Milk’ Escape the Room Spring ‘17 Champions
Overall it was a great first session, where both mentors and Dojees really got to bond and get to know each other over competitive fun and mutual love of creativity and design.