Addendum – This article has been edited for clarity
Jonah Hammen –
Despite the sub-zero temperatures, HKMC is heating up with a competition. Created by Kylie Anderson and Emily Fitzsimmons, “Battle for the Building” is a semester-long event involving monthly contests between the floors and halls of HKMC. 15 teams compete every 30 days towards a different objective—sometimes fun, sometimes furious.
Before the first contest began in mid-February, the teams were tasked with choosing a film to represent their hall. The overarching theme was Disney movies (or franchises) which gave plenty of options for the students moving forward. While planning, plenty of movies ideas were thrown out. Some went with obvious classics such as “Up,” “Finding Nemo” and the “Little Mermaid,” while others seized the opportunity to make a joke by choosing specific, forgotten films like “Cars 2” or “Kronk’s New Groove.”
Once the teams were set, it was time for the first event. Things started off with a hall-decorating challenge that lasted one week. Teams got to work by hanging decals from the ceiling, sticking homemade posters to the walls and overall transforming their hall into a Disneyfied portal. Dawson Wellman, the RA for third floor Chinnock, states,“There are some people, like the girls in Milnes over there, who go hard. They chose ‘Up’ as their movie, like that’s why you see a giant Kevin cutout every time you walk past the lounge. Most of the floors are pretty competitive, and…then there’s ours, who just shouted ‘Planes 2’ and called it a day!” said Wellman. Foley designed Battle for the Building to work with all levels of engagement, big or small.
This months’ competition will involve a building-wide capture the flag-scavenger hunt hybrid in which teams search every floor for as many miniature flags as they can find. They will be looking for color-specific flags hidden by the opposing teams and the team with the most at the end of the night win the most points! Said points are currently being tallied on a board in the HKMC lobby, revealing that third floor Milnes has already soared ahead after the first competition with 33 points. Their closest competitors are second floor Milnes with 22 points and fourth floor Keith with 20 points. With many of the other floors struggling to catch up after this first-round blowout, third floor milnes is showing promising signs of taking the gold early and keeping it that way until the competition comes to an end in early May.
When paraphrasing Foley, Wellman assured everyone that “the prize for the winning floor is actually really, really cool. Like, it’s not just ice cream bars or pencils or something like you’d get in high school. So, if you put your all into it, it’ll definitely be worth it.’”