The campus is the console: Eric Yoon’s Engineering Week Scavenger Hunt
Eric Yoon ’27 likes games that get people moving.
“While I love how I can reach a broad audience through making video games,” the Yale Engineering computer science major said, “I’ve always held a special place for physical games, especially when a whole community participates.”
That instinct shaped the Engineering Week scavenger hunt he designed this year – one that turns our Yale Engineering campus into a playable space. The idea traces back to his childhood memories of geocaching with his dad: solving clues, navigating cities, and discovering places by looking more closely.
So, when Yale Engineering asked Yoon to design the hunt, he didn’t hesitate. “I knew I couldn’t turn down the opportunity,” Yoon said.
Yoon has spent years solving Yale’s scavenger hunts – Whales of Yale, The Veritas Search – but designing one required a different mindset.
“A scavenger hunt is not complete without two phases: (1) gathering intelligence and (2) the physical search,” he said. “The core gameplay loop should involve seeing a new clue, doing research and thinking outside-of-the-box to decipher what it means, and then actually going out there and finding your prize.”
That structure is intentional. Some players excel at research and pattern recognition. Others rely on speed and campus intuition. In Yoon’s design, both approaches matter.
“The great thing about this is: it gives everyone a chance to get ahead, no matter what their strength is,” he said.
Before writing any clues, Yoon focused on his audience: Yale Engineering classmates from every discipline and class year.
To test that balance, he even used generative AI as a playtesting tool – making sure the puzzles couldn’t be solved instantly.
“One part of this was playtesting hints with ChatGPT to make sure Generative AI couldn’t ‘one-shot’ the puzzles I spent so long creating!”
At the heart of the hunt is a computer science concept Yoon knows well.
“Perhaps the best CS comparison I can draw is RAG (Retrieval-automated generation),” he said. “This is exactly what scavenger hunt participants do – to solve the puzzles, they have to scour books, Yale archives, and Internet sources to gather the right info.”
Engineering Week celebrates how engineering happens at Yale, and for Yoon, a campus-wide game captures that process.
“To me, the discipline of engineering is all about identifying a problem and rapidly iterating approaches to converge on the best possible solution,” he said.
Even the physical tokens reflect that philosophy. At the Center for Engineering Innovation and Design, Yoon laser-cut wooden tokens embedded with NFC chips – tap your phone, unlock the site, claim your points.
“In a world full of QR codes, I find physical technology delightful,” he said. “There’s something magical about interacting with something tangible as the last step in solving a clue.”
The hunt is designed to reward participation, not just speed.
“I intentionally chose to have my hidden items able to be found by multiple people to make this game a marathon, not a sprint,” Yoon explained. “Yale students love intellectual challenges … and the promise of free Yale Engineering swag doesn’t hurt, either.”
When Dean Jeffrey Brock’s Engineering Week announcement landed in inboxes across campus, Yoon paused to take it in.
“Designing this scavenger hunt made me feel like I had ‘gone pro’ with my puzzle-making hobby,” he said with a smile.
What’s next?
“(I’m) thinking about getting a campus-wide game of Senior Assassin going and maybe designing an app to facilitate 1,500 players participating?!”
For now, the campus is live. The clues are out there. The game is on.
To connect with Eric Yoon: yoonicode.com / eric@yoonicode.com
Photo: Taylor Burke '27
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Published Date
Feb 25, 2026
