Back in January, Val and I introduced Ollies to iHub Here. Get a full week of checkins and you’d get a random pentapus of varying rarity. Collect ’em all and you’d get a shout-out on the Instagram.

Ollies.

It was a pretty simple idea, and it proved to be incredibly popular with you all. Every Friday at 12:10, I’d hear cries of dismay or shouts of triumph as each student got their well-deserved Ollie for the week. In the end, only Alan Turner and Patrick Townsend managed to collect every single one, but quite a lot of other students got really close.

All the Ollies.

Back when we introduced Ollies, I also added Snapchat-style streaks for students who remembered to check in for at least three consecutive attendances. Early on, Patrick settled in with an impressive lead, and after the first couple weeks, no one else ever got first billing on the streak leader board.

Sometime before Spring Break, I happened to be chatting with Patrick about his lead, and he suggested that I create an iHub Check-In Simulator for former iHub students recovering from the addiction to streaks and Ollies, and perhaps even for students over the summer as well. I mentioned the idea to Anika a couple months later and she suggested it be a scavenger hunt as well: There’d be Ollies hidden all over the Tri-Cities, and you’d collect them by checking in.

So… Over the summer, you can check in. Twice a day, five days a week. Since a lot of you sleep in, the check-in periods have been moved. The first attendance of the day now goes from 8:00am until noon, while the second goes from 4:00 until 8:00pm. If you want to keep your streak up, you’ll have to check in during both.

Yes, you can get streaks by just sitting around and checking in, but can you still get Ollies that way? Alas, no longer! Now you have to work to catch them.

There are dozens of different types of Ollies hidden all throughout the Tri-Cities, and over the next two or so months, I’ll be adding more and more. From coffee shops to rec centres to elementary schools, there are Ollies everywhere.

Some are pretty common. Check out this sweet new Weekend Ollie, courtesy of Sterling:

Weekend Ollie

Even though that little guy only seems to come out on weekends, he’s still pretty easy to catch, and I expect you’ll have quite a few of him by the time things are done. But then, he’s a common Ollie. Common Ollies are common.

Rare ones are what you’re looking for.

Rare Ollies only inhabit particular areas. For example, you might find a bookier Ollie near a library, or an Ollie sipping coffee near a coffee shop. But they’re also harder to catch! You may have to try a few different check-ins before you get one!

That raises the question… How does when catch an Ollie? Well, let me tell you.

Over the next two or so months, I’ll be releasing little riddles here and there. Some of them will be on iHub Here; some of them may be passed on to some of you individually. Some may be on my Instagram, and some may even appear on this blog. Each riddle will point to one or two locations in the Lower Mainland with public wifi.

Once you’ve got a place you want to check, go to it and connect to the wifi. In some cases, that might be the public wifi set up by a local organisation (like Starbucks’s free wifi). In the cases of places near schools, that would be the SD43 network. In a couple of rare cases, it’ll be free wifi provided by a local business, but the wifi will have a password on it; In those cases, you will have to kindly ask for the wifi password.

After connecting to the wifi, go to the URL you’ve come to know and love — here.inquiryhub.org — and check in. Your phone will capture the Ollie for you, and add it to the new, completely redesigned Ollie page!

After the first time you check in at a location, you can check in there again, but only during scheduled attendance times. The more times you check in, the more likely you’ll be made the place’s champion, which will add a nice little Ollie-with-a-crown to your collection.

Oh, and if you’re the first one to check in at a place, you’ll get your name permanently affixed to the homepage for that place. Quite the honour!

Well… what are you waiting for? Go to here.inquiryhub.org and start hunting!

Well, I suppose you may want an Ollie since you took the time to read through this… Once you’re logged into Here, click here to get one. But don’t tell anyone where you got it. It’ll be our secret.

Good luck and have a great summer!

I want to paint a picture for you. Imagine it’s the morning, just before the first attendance of the day. The Commons, empty just a few minutes before, is now bustling. But there’s one sound I want to draw your attention to.

It’s the sound of two small wheels moving quickly across the floor. Every few seconds, they skip as the case they carry rolls over another bump. Finally, round the corner comes the person pulling the case, long brown hair pulled back. She sets the case down, plugs in a blue-and-white crock-pot, and sits at one of the tables.

Down the hallway outside the Commons, two more figures are walking quickly, gesturing animatedly to each other. One of the figures, dressed all in black, is quite tall, while the other figure, clothes featuring more vibrant colours, is, in comparison, fairly short. Between the two of them, the shorter figure’s gestures are sharper, more aggressive, while the taller figure’s are defensive, exasperated. Only a few words of their conversation filter through the din of the Commons: “Wiggling”, “Manjerine”, and “Homestuck” are three of them.

Yet another character has appeared, and she, like the previous one, appeared so silently not many people immediately noticed. She has long, straight black hair. By now, she’s begun a clapping game with one of the previously-mentioned characters, the somewhat taller one. Another figure, smiling nervously, giggles and offers some dark assessment of the situation. Her comment complete, she turns back to a sketchbook in which she’s drawing.

From the other end of the hallway comes a new figure. He’s blond and skinny, and, though he’s been at school for a while now this morning, has only elected to come into the Commons now. In one hand, he carries both his laptop and his mouse, the cord swinging beneath. He looks around the hallway and the rooms adjoining it with alternating thoughtfulness and mirth, and, when he sees one of the figures mentioned earlier, immediately approaches them, places his hands on their shoulders, nods, and says one single word his eyes alight with meaning.

Have we picked the day it is yet? No, I suppose we haven’t. Imagine it’s a Tuesday. Tuesday means one of our characters isn’t here yet. A dark-haired, somewhat more muscular man, one with a slight smile permanently fixed on his face and a habit of talking slowly and with such a voice that one finds it difficult to believe him, no matter what he’s saying. He will arrive later, but only as his first class of the day is just finishing up. When he does, he will write in the attendance book as reason for his lateness the same word he’s written the last fifty or so times… “Bus”.

Another tall figure has appeared in the Commons. When and where from, no one knows. He pulls out his phone to check in, sighs, then sits down limply. Upon his head he used to wear a fedora; now he goes hatless, a shirt emblazoned with the words “got tin?” his only brand. He pulls out a gigantic book titled “Accounting”, sighs once again, and places it back.

I’m going to miss them.

I’m sure we all are.

It was wonderful to have known you, Twelves of the Round Table.