Breakout Boxes Part 1 – What nobody told me about breakout boxes

I had never done a breakout box activity, other than digital ones, but I had seen and heard a lot about them from colleagues and social media.  It seemed like every other school had them and I wanted to get a set for my school.  One hastily written grant later and we had 6 sets of toolboxes, word locks, 4-digit locks, 3-digit lock boxes, key locks, directional locks, UV pens, and UV flashlights. Here is a spreadsheet of these items if you are interested.

Setting up the boxes

It took forever to unpack and setup everything with a pair of dull scissors cutting through hard plastic packaging!  I was careful to save all the directions, add color-coding with smiley-face stickers to all the items and the boxes in which they resided; and I even created a spreadsheet to track the combinations of everything.  One directional lock was particularly frustrating.  I swore that the original combination DIDN’T work!  UP-RIGHT-DOWN-DOWN and nothing!  I must have tried 30 times until, finally, it opened.  Don’t go too fast, reset the shackle correctly, pull HARD.  I think I must have made every mistake possible.

Hooking the teachers

It was challenging and fun to make clues for my big reveal to the staff at our in-service week faculty meeting.  No one in the room had done breakout boxes either.  I rolled them out on a cart and quickly explained how the locks work and the set of clues.  I did not give any further instructions so I could observe how the staff interacted with the boxes.

AND…IT…WAS….AWESOME!

The clues covered all the core subjects (math, English, science, and social studies).  Teachers worked the clues together to open the boxes and claim their prizes!  I had the “We Broke Out” signs printed in color and laminated for the group pictures after they opened their box.  After the activity, I talked about the excitement, joy, teamwork, perseverance, and fun that everyone had as they talked about the content within each clue.  Everyone was smiling and clapping which, as you probably know, doesn’t happen very often at faculty meetings.  Mission accomplished.

Little did I know, the first teacher to use the breakout boxes in their class wouldn’t happen for several months.  All the chaos involved in administering pre-assessments and other obligations front loaded in the school year took precedent, I suppose.  Also, there is a difference between me making up clues and teachers doing it with no experience.  Mission NOT accomplished.

Eventually, many teachers asked me to help them conduct breakout box activities.  Almost all the 6th and 8th graders have had an opportunity to do at least one breakout box activity.  Of course, they all loved it and wanted to do more.  Some teachers are even having the students come up with clues for their peers in other classes.

The lock doesn’t work!  Correction: The locks don’t work!

Now that you have some context, let me stop burying the lead and share with you what nobody told me about breakout boxes.

The locks can EASILY be reset incorrectly rendering them worthless.

Throughout the process of doing breakout box activities, my colleagues and I have made some serious mistakes resetting locks and failing to safeguard student tampering which has caused a lot of headaches and cost a significant amount of money.  There is actually another lock, not pictured above, that I had to cut away with bolt cutters to get it off the hasp. Ugh!

Here are some cautionary notes:

• Never be distracted when changing combinations.  If you get a phone call or a student/colleague walks in to talk to you, get the lock reset BEFORE talking to them.  It is easy to lose your train of thought and forget what step you are on in the process of resetting a lock.
• Always follow the directions. It seems obvious, but with so many different types of locks and procedures to reset them, it is easy to skip a step and end up closing a lock for the last time.  Don’t think you remember the steps to reset the lock, LOOK THEM UP AGAIN!
• Beware of the directional lock. You may have noticed that the graveyard has mostly directional locks.  These things are tricky!  For one, the “slider” used to enter the combination rotates so it’s easy to think you went one direction when you didn’t.  Also, the reset lever in the back is exposed so desperate students looking for a shortcut to open it can easily push it up to the “R” (Reset) position and change the combination without even knowing what they have just done.

  

  I learned that a piece of tape over the top of it reduces the chance of this happening.  Here is the good news.  If you do mess up a directional lock, you can always guess the combination.  There are only 256 possible combinations (4*4*4*4). 🙂  Otherwise, be ready to spend $10 and visit the nearest store (Walmart, Target, Home Depot, and Lowe’s usually have them) to get a new one.

• Watch your fingers on the word lock. The word lock is very easy to reset, but it’s also difficult to hold without turning the letters inadvertently.  Make sure that the word you want is lined up with the indicator on the lock before resetting.  Sometimes the word may be lined up above or below the indicator.
• Test EVERYTHING. After you reset a lock.  Test it right away.  It’s so frustrating for students when they can’t get a lock open with the correct combination because it hasn’t been set correctly.  Also, make sure when you put the directional lock on the hasp, you reset the shackle by pressing it in twice.  Pull on it to make sure it doesn’t simply open without putting in the combination.  When students can circumvent the combination like this, they aren’t getting the benefits of using the clues to find the combination.

Ok, those are my tips for setting up your breakout boxes.  Check out my Breakout Boxes Part II blog post for tips on how to run a successful breakout box activity.

As always, I welcome your comments below.  Let me know your experiences starting out with breakout boxes.