This week, the University of Skövde has been transformed into a playing field for digital mysteries and international collaboration. Students from Howest University in Belgium are working together with students from Skövde to solve challenging IT tasks – while also exploring how diversity influences collaboration and problem-solving.
Diamond, Andy and Sami were in the same team and to try to solve a challenge they had visited all locations in a video with rubber ducks.
This week, 18 students from Howest University in Belgium are visiting Skövde. Together with students from Skövde, they are working in mixed teams to crack digital puzzles as part of the course Project in IT Infrastructure Design.
“This is part of a course module where we examine how teamwork and collaboration are influenced by aspects of diversity, such as gender, ethnicity, or cultural background, says Johan Zaxmy, Programme Coordinator for the Network and System Administration programme.
A hopeless hunt for rubber ducks on campus
Each day, the teams are given new "capture the flag"-style challenges to solve – on the first day alone, they tackled 30 tasks, followed by 18 the next day. Diamond, Andy, and Sami shared that they had solved several quite difficult challenges, including “What the Quack”, where the aim was to find a hidden password.
The task consisted of a rebus that led to a YouTube video. The video showed various locations on campus where two rubber ducks were talking to each other.
– “What the Quack” sent us on a wild goose chase around campus. We located every part of the video and went there. We only figured out the solution once we got back, they explained.
The solution was to change the subtitle language to Klingon – a fictional language from Star Trek. Only then did the password become visible to the viewer.
This is also a valuable experience for the Swedish teachers, and the two Belgian teachers, Nico Declarck and Jill VandenDriessche.
– Howest is a strong partner when our students choose to go on Erasmus exchange. During this week, we teachers also benefit from the exchange, as we can share experiences and challenges while the students focus on the competition, concludes Johan Zaxmy.
Watch the video for ”What the Quack” on YouTube
