During the week, the Grade 12 common room on the first floor of Agassiz Elementary Secondary School is a place for the school’s most senior students to chill. But on weekends, the room becomes much more eerie, as people are willingly shackled to furniture in the room as they begin their hour-long attempt to escape.
The Psychic, Agassiz’s newest escape room, transforms the common room at AESS into a replica of a mind reader’s den each weekend. Groups of three or four people attempt to escape the room using logic and teamwork — something creator Jess Lucki says was key to bringing in a “more diverse activity to the town.”
“It’s something out of the box,” Lucki, 18, said. “Not only for the people coming into it, but for us. And I think it’s more enjoyable for everyone that way.”
Lucki’s “us” includes fellow AESS graduate Jaydin Lees, who designed the escape room with her. The two girls had graduated from the school last year, and over the summer started working for iLearning Canada — an education company started by AESS science teacher Leonard Naimi.
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Naimi had long been a proponent of escape rooms within the education system. He developed escape rooms for his math classes at the school.
“In order to escape the room, you have to work together,” Naimi said. “You have to be able to solve puzzles. You have to be able to communicate well. You have to be able to explore.
“So things like that are valuable learning things that you can have.”
Escape rooms, which see participants using problem-solving skills to leave a locked room within a specified amount of time, have gained popularity within the last five years as a skill-testing past time. Currently there are two escape rooms in Chilliwack, two in Abbotsford, one in Mission, a number further west in the Lower Mainland. And now, one in Agassiz as well.
Lucki and Lees began working on the escape room under Naimi’s direction in September 2018, developing the theme and the puzzles participants would have to solve. It wasn’t always easy.
“We had some trial runs that clearly told us we need to go back and fix some things,” Naimi said.
“Lots of technical things weren’t working,” Lucki added. “So we had a lot of trial and error, which was good because it made us understand the room more.”
After months of development, the iLearning Canada team opened the escape room to the public for the first time on Dec. 15. Since then, they’ve seen close to 150 people attempt to escape the room. Bookings for the hour-long session were made in advance, and cost $20 per person.
Overall, the response has been positive, Naimi said.
“Most people walk in and tell us they’re not expecting much,” he said. “Then they walk out and they say, ‘That was really good.’”
For now, the escape room will remain a weekend set up at Agassiz Elementary Secondary School (7110 Cheam Ave). But Naimi has big plans for its future.
“The idea is to start designing escape rooms to bring to classes based on the B.C. curriculum,” he said. “So just using the stuff they would know from the classroom, and using it in a more teamwork-based environment.”
He suggested lab-based escape rooms for chemistry courses, or spy-work to bring in characters from history classes — all with the goal of taking learning outside the classroom walls.
“The whole idea is to offer a different type of education that students wouldn’t normally get just inside the classroom,” Naimi said. “Because I feel there’s a lot more you can do outside the class.”
grace.kennedy@ahobserver.com
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