The iScout Travel Guide

Due to the Corona pandemic, iScout 2021 will look different than other years. To prevent spreading of the virus we discourage you to meet as a team and keep distance to each other. We changed the rules of the game a little this year so you can keep distance to each other. You can find the tips and rules of this year’s edition on this page.

Meet online

Each player can play iScout 2021 from home. You can meet in small teams, but only if it’s allowed in your area/country, you can keep distance and everyone feels comfortable with it.

Each team gets one account for the iScout Game site, just like other years. With this account, you can login with an unlimited amount of computers, phones, tablets at the same time.

Just like other years you make smaller teams for Tasks and Travel Questions. Use WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Discord, Slack, Zoom, … to meet and discuss online. For example, create a chat for the Travel Questions-team and one for the Tasks-team.

Travel Questions

Travel question can easily be played online from home. Assign tracks to individual team members. Just like other years, questions are separated into three tracks.

It’s important to work together on questions, so meet with the Travel Questions-team online in a chat group of group call on Skype, Discord or Zoom. This way you can still work together on the travel questions and makes it more fun.

Tasks

All tasks in iScout 2021 can be done from home or the direct surroundings. Assign tasks in the Tasks-team. Let one or two persons coordinate this so you know who’s working in which tasks. It is possible that a participant doesn’t have al the things needed for a particular tasks. So, work together to find out who can do which task.

All Tasks can be done with 1 to 3 people and everyone can keep enough distance from others. It’s no problem if one or more of them aren’t scouts. It’ll even be fun to involve housemates. Don’t worry if they’re not in your Group Photo (see chapter ‘preparations’).

The person(s) assigned to a task can had the photo or film in himself through the Game Website, or you give a coordinating person the task to collect the results and hand them in.

The Travel Agents might be publishing a little shopping list in the week or days for the game. This list will then contain items you might need for the Tasks. If we’ll do so, we send it through e-mail and use our Facebook and Instagram channels.

Projects

There will be no projects in iScout 2021.

Preparations

Playing iScout during the pandemic will need some extra preparations. Take some time to arrange the following things:

• Decide on how you will communicate. For example through WhatsApp groups or use Facebook Messenger, Discord, Slack, Zoom. There are plenty of options. Try the option of your choice upfront with one or two people so you know how it works and can help-out others.
• Make or plan your alternative Group Photo. Like other years you need to hand in a Group Photo, but you can’t meet all together at the same time. Be creative. For example to make a collage of selfies, a screenshot of your zoom meeting or let everyone visit the place you’d normally meet up in the weeks upfront and let them take a picture of themselves there.
• Make sure your Tasks-team has a Group flag to show in their work. So send everyone the same A3 page (might be two combined A4-papers) or e-mail instructions on how to make their own. Make sure to do this early, so everyone has time to be prepared. Your Team name and “iScout 2021” should be well visible on the flags you use.

Preparing for iScout will not take al lot of time as you play the game from your own place. Make sure to have a team of 15 to 25 players, collect the needed materials and know the guide below.

If your team is smaller than 15 players, you will still be able to play the game, but your chances of winning will be smaller. Over 30 persons will not increase your chances of winning and the game might be less challenging. You probably finish all Questions and Tasks, which doesn't necessarily mean you will win the game.

Material

• Your place with a decent internet connection.
• Computers and notebooks with Googles Chrome browser pre-installed. Make sure it's appropriate for daily use (Youtube etc.). The iScout Game site will most likely work OK at your system.
• Make sure you have a sufficient amount of cameras (or smartphones with film and photo function) and know how to set it to a lower quality. Additionally, install software to reduce image and film size.
• You most likely need bikes and/or cars. So, arrange transport.

Software

• Only use Google Chrome for the iScout Game site.
• Use tools like Irfanview (Windows) or Preview (Mac) to reduce the size of photos. But even more convenient: when you send photos and movies to each other via WhatsApp, they are automatically resized for you. Perfect to hand in via the Game site. When you're making movies, you'll often have to shorten them. Shortening videos is most convenient on your smartphone (Apple and Android).
• You are not allowed to 'Photoshop', you can make photos lighter or darker or turn them into a collage. Sometimes you are even asked to do so.
• Making a photo collage is quite easy in PowerPoint: add all photo's to a slide and save te slide as a .jpg file.

Team Flag

As a team, you need your own flag, visible on every photo of movie you hand-in. Make sure you have a few of these flags with at least the text 'iScout 2020' and the name of your team on it. Use at least A3 format. Digital creative people, can download the iScout-Teamflag-kit.

Login information

Every team receives login information at March 7, 2020, around noon (CET).

Contact

You can ask questions until saturday March 7, 2020 12.00h via Travelagent@iScoutGame.com. From saturday 17.30u you can use the iScout chat, which is available in the iScout Game site.

Objective

The target of the game is to collect as much Travelpoints as you can. You earn them by virtually travelling around the world. Every good answered questions gives one point.

The start

iScout starts at 19.00h CET. You can login on the Gamesite from 17.00h to admire, explore and hand in your group picture.

Travel Questions

To earn points, you have to answer questions and thereby travel around the world. Questions are about countries, cultures and places around the world and answers are always spots on the map. You have to put a marker at the right spot at a Google Maps map. There are different Tracks to play. Every track starts with some easy questions and will get harder every question. After correctly answering a question you have to pay one Credit to get a new question.

If your don't know the answer (for sure), you can use a wildcard. The wildcard option is available after 15 minutes after paying the credit for the question. If you use a wildcard you won't receive a point.

If you answered the question wrong, you can retry it after 5 minutes.

Credits

To play questions, you need credits. You can earn them by handing-in tasks. Every well executed task gives you two credits. Furthermore, you start the game with 7 credits and receive 1 extra credit every half hour.

Tasks

A Task is challenging and you have to film of photograph your interpretation. You hand in your result via the iScout Game site. The Travelagents (Jury) will check your upload as soon as possible in order reward you with the credtis. If the jury marks your product as insufficient, you can retry.

Task requirements:

• Your team flag should be visible on every task product;
• At least one person should be visible on the product (filmed or photographed);
• Photographed of filmed Scouts can be recognized as Scouts, they wear a scarf, uniform or scout shirt.

The list of Tasks is available at the start of the game on the Game site. You can hand in you first task at 17:00h, being the Group picture. With every task concern your own safety and that of others and the evironment! You are responsible for this and you decide whether you do a task or not. See also our Terms and Conditions.

Project

iScout 2021 does not have Projects, because they do not fit in a Corona-proof game.

Submitting files

You can submit files via the iScout Game site. Make sure files are not too big and film isn't too long. Furthermore, there are some restrictions to the extensions you can hand in.

Type	Extensions	File size
Photo	.jpg .jpeg .png .gif	10 MB
Film	H.264 (.mp4 .mov .f4v) FLV (.flv)	90 MB, max. 2 minutes
Tekst	.pdf .txt	10 MB

NOTE:

• You may also upload your films and photos to e.g. YouPic or Youtube and send us the URL. Make sure the files are available if you submit the URL! If it's not available, for example because Youtube is still processing the file, the task will be marked as wrong.
• When the Traven Agent click on a link you handed in, the photo or video should appear directly. We cannot scroll to a list of photo’s to find the right one.

Contact during the game

Important information from the Travel Agents is spread via Twitter with #iScout21 in the tweet. Teams can contact the Travel Agency via a chat function embedded in het Game site.

Cheating

You may not edit your material content wise, like photoshopping. You may decrease pictures in size, make them lighter or shape a collage from them. Using bots or scripts is also considered as cheating, as well as actively searching for answers or material of other teams on the site. If the Travel Agency suspects a Team from cheating, they can immediately exclude the team from further playing.

The game stops at 23:00h and Travel Agents work hard to judge the last Tasks. We hope to publish the final scores and ranking around midnight on our website and Social Media channels.

Scoring

The team with the most Travel Points wins iScout. In case of a draw, the team with the most Travel Credits left wins.

Do you want to make the iScout top 10 this year? Then you have to strategically organize your iScout Trip around the World! You can find some general tips and trick below as wel as comprehensive strategies.

General Tips & Tricks

• Don’t be afraid to use al your contacs in- and outside Scouting. Use your network on Social Media to complete Tasks and Travel Questions.
• Think, upfront, of a division of tasks between the players in your team.
• Shoot film and pictures in a lower quality to generate less MB’s.
• If you think you will be able to generate more than enough Credits, start working on your Project early.
• Know how to use operators in Google, advanced search and reverse image search.

Strategies

Small Team, 5 to 15 persons

Because your team is not that large, you are going to focus on the Tasks and Travel-Questions. The project you can better skip, because of your small number.

• Task Team, 4 to 10 persons
  This is the team for the most creative people in your group. You are going to pair up to make as many Tasks as you can.
• Head Task Team, 1 person
  This is a great role for the most structured person in your team. While the pairs are working on the Tasks, the Head of the Task Team keeps an overview. You make sure that Tasks aren’t done twice. You also are the one to resize images or shorten movies before you upload them to the iScout Game site.
• Team Travel Questions, 2 to 4 persons
  The perfect team for someone who loves facts and knows how to work with Google. This team is going to answer the Travel Questions. Decide at the beginning of the game who is going to work on which one of the 3 Tracks. Also discuss if there is going to be one, or multiple people working on the Tracks.
• Head Travel Questions, 1 person
  The Head Travel Questions helps searching for answers on the Travel Questions but also maintains oversight. Are there too little or too many people working on a specific question or Track? You also coordinate when to use Wild Cards. Think tactically before you use one of these Wild Cards.

In very small teams the Head Tasks Team and Head Travel Question can be the same person. If you prefer only doing the Tasks, you can also choose to not do the Travel Questions. However, you’ll not earn any travel points and therefore will end very low in the rankings.

Middle size teams, 15 to 25 persons

You are a team with quite some people, but not that much. Therefore, at the start of the game you should focus on the Tasks and Travel Questions first. After playing for about an hour you may decide if you want to stark working on a Project. You basically follow the same strategy as the small team. However, there are some extra tasks you might divide amongst yourselves.

• Task Team, 8 to 13 persons (same role as small team)
  Tou can decide to work in groups of 3 or 4 persons.
• Head Task Team, 1 person (same role as small team)
• Task Team Editor, 1 person
  Are you an expert in working with programs like Photoshop, iMovie or Windows Movie maker. Then you are the perfect Task Editor. (kijk voor tips in de reisgids) You work closely together with the Head Task Team, The duo’s or trio’s from the Task Team hand in their pictures/movies to the Task Team Editor. You pick out the best picture, makes collages, resize images or edit movies to a desirable length. After this you send the files to the Head Task Team to hand them in on the iScout Game site.
• Team Travel Questions, 4 to 9 persons (same role as small team)
• Head Travel Questions, 1 person (same role as small team)
• Project Council
  Because you haven’t started with the Project at the start of the game, after about an hour of playing the Project Council has a meeting. You decide based on the results so far (especially the number of Travel Credits you have used so far), and decide if the Travel Questions Team and the Task Team can miss some people to start working on the Project. The Head Travel Questions and Head Task Team are part of the Project council, together with the person you envision as Head Project.
• Team Project, as many people as you can miss in the other teams. These people are not only super creative but also incredibly crafty. You together pick one of the Projects and use your creative minds to make your project superb. Don’t slack off, the better you project the more travel points you can earn!
• Head Project
  You try to maintain order in the chaos of creative persons in the Project Team. It is especially important to keep an eye on the time and to make decisions when necessary. Keep in mind that filming and editing takes time as well as uploading the movie. The result of your project has to be hand in before 11PM (CET). When you hand in your project to late you will not get any points.

Large Team, 25 to 35+ persons

As a Large Team you ofcourse also do the Travel Questions and Tasks, but additionally you also start immediately with a Project. Additionally, you may decide on a Head Beamer, Strategic Council, and maybe some people to distribute drinks and snacks?

• Task Team, 10 tot 13 persons (same role as small team)
• Head Task Team, 1 person (same role as small team)
• Task Editor, 1 person (same role as middle size team)
• Team Travel Questions, 4 tot 9 persons (same role as small team)
• Head Travel Questions, 1 person (same role as small team)
• Team Project, 6 persons (same role as middle size team)
• Head Project, 1 person (same role as middle size team)
• Head Projector, 1 person
  The beamer may become the Head Quarter for strategic discussions and to keep all team members on speed with how you are doing in the ranking. You know exactly how all the teams (Tasks, Travels Questions and Project) are doing, knows the points you’ve earned (Travel Credits, Travel Points, and reads every tweet sent by the Travel Agency. You keep oversight and arrange the beamer screen so everyone can follow along with the game as well. Have some spare time? Share your progress on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter how you are doing using #iScout20.
• Strategic Council
  Every hour the strategic council meets to discuss how you are doing (How much Travel Credits, Travel points etc. have you earned?) And to read and discuss the tweets from the Travel Agency. You decide which teams need some extra help, and which teams can maybe miss a person. The three Team Heads (Task, Travel Questions and Project) as well as Head Beamer are part of the Strategic Council.
• Team Drinks and Snacks
  Hard work makes hunger, as team Drinks and Snacks you make sure everyone is well fed. You, ofcourse, also make sure the champagne is cold for when you get to celebrate your place in the top 10!