Jacqueline Hochheiser, Corporate Communications
In honor of Women’s History month this March, Mini-Circuits’ SWE group hosted its first-ever scavenger hunt from March 20 to 24. With scavenger hunt items dispersed across all of Mini-Circuits’ US-based locations, members from the company’s headquarters locations in New York (Knapp Street and Neptune Avenue in Brooklyn and Deer Park on Long Island), Missouri and Florida participated.
Not only was the scavenger hunt a great way to celebrate Women’s History Month, but it also served as an interactive team bonding experience by connecting team members across the country. At the start of the scavenger hunt, participants were randomly assigned into groups of up to five people, with priority on connecting members from different locations into each group. This approach would aid in finding more items in the scavenger hunt and unite members who would not normally work together on a daily basis.
The hunt lasted for four days to give group members time to collect the hunt items on the list. Some of the items included a material documenting the company’s founding year (1968), the name a facility that has a mirrored wall, and a photo of Mini-Circuits’ first full-page print ad published in an RF industry magazine.
The members who participated in the scavenger hunt enjoyed the opportunity to dig deeper into Mini-Circuits history and culture, and to meet colleagues from the wider organization and work together as a team on something fun.
“This was one of the most fun events I have ever participated in at Mini-Circuits,” says Jeremy Cortez, who leads the Applications Engineering team at the Knapp St. office. “I really enjoyed working with members from other departments, and I learned a lot about the company in the process.”
Trapti Kumari, a Product Design Engineer who is a recent addition to the Mini-Circuits family, got a first taste of what company life is like – not least of all because her team won first place!
“I originally decided to take part in the scavenger hunt to break up my daily routine and do something fun,” says Trapti. “I really enjoyed meeting new people– everyone on my team was enthusiastic. Being a new member, I learned a lot about the company and its history. These kinds of events encourage mutual engagement among people from different departments and offices and promote team work.”
After all the teams submitted their finds on March 24th, the SWE team came together to name the winners, who would be awarded Mini-Circuits SWE T-shirts and stickers. Each item on the scavenger hunt list had a certain number of points based on its difficulty. For example, questions that were location-based had more weight as they required teams to reach out to more sources and sleuth the details for themselves.
First place was awarded to the “Scientific Searchers” who accumulated 126 points. This team was comprised of Anirudh Vankatesan, Christian Tyler, Michael Gonsavos, Trapti Kumari and Andrea Shen. A very close second place was awarded to “The Cult” who accumulated 125 points and was made up of Albina Smalko, Crystal Ragland, Stephanie Mifflin, Gabriella Almeida and Karen Lopez.
Congratulations to the winners, and to everyone who participated in the scavenger hunt and made the event a success! The scavenger hunt is just one example of the exciting activities that Mini-Circuits’ SWE group has in store for members to bring people together and strengthen our community.
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