Two occupied group turned squad construction for 42 teammates into a memorable adventure

Once a year, Hostinger’s Summerfest brings squad members from throughout the globe for a week of celebrating the year’s wins, operating flank by side, and catching up in individual at HQ in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Emma Young, who heads up the Organic Marketing team, wanted to bring the entire division together and create a fun team-building cognition that would rod alongside them.

It wasn’t an uncomplicated one, as Organic Marketing is one of Hostinger’s largest departments, made up of five teams alongside teammates dispersed throughout countries. And Summerfest lone gave them one packed week in Vilnius to bring everyone together.

Between workshops, meetings, lunches, dinners, and everything alternatively on the schedule, carving out a few uninterrupted hours for 42 group was already a challenge. Taking everyone location exterior the city? That raised the stakes equal more.

So Emma turned to Gediminas Rekašius, our Organic Operations Lead, alongside a puzzle to solve: how can we bring teams throughout this division together to have fun and bond, stated all the limitations?

From there, it was just the two of them piecing together the complete event, alongside everyone alternatively kept in the dreary until the big reveal.

The chief premise: Get group misplaced together

Alongside all the grave activity conversations, Summerfest week nearly felt akin a holiday for colleagues who aren’t from Lithuania. Emma and Gediminas wanted to lean into that holiday theme for the attending Organic Marketing department.

They came up alongside an action that would average exploring Vilnius together: discovering iconic places, taking on challenges, and finding plentifulness of reasons to chuckle alongside the way.

To get everyone invested, they raised the stakes by offering the winning squad a hot-air balloon journey over Trakai’s scenic lakes, a beautiful area concerning an hr from Vilnius.

The 42 participants were divided into eight teams, all representing a mix of group who, up to that point, hadn’t had much chance to activity closely together. Each squad got a different-colored bandana to deteriorate and two hours to complete as many challenges as imaginable and rack up points.

The difficulty pond included 70 random challenges, divided into easy, medium, and difficult levels, affirmative location-based challenges throughout 16 Vilnius landmarks. 

Challenges were value distinct numbers of points according to their difficulty, giving teams the liberty to choose their own strategy, and they had to present a photo or video as proof to assertion their points.

There was no fixed path or sole way to play. Each squad chose its own way – giving everyone a logic to examine Vilnius, stage exterior their comfort zones, and association through doing item a small silly.

Gamifying the challenges

Once Emma and Gediminas had mapped out the equivalent rules, the next stage was figuring out how to really run and mark a scavenger hunt at that scale.

A shared document and collection conversation wouldn’t cut it. With 42 group throughout eight teams submitting photo and video evidence inside two hours, and fair two group reviewing it all, they needed a improved way to keep the equivalent moving.

Teams needed to cognize which challenges were available, anywhere to present their proof, and how to inspect their scores. Emma and Gediminas needed to assessment submissions and figure scores in genuine period without creating a bottleneck.

And the entire item had to activity outdoors, on phones, alongside possibly patchy Wi-Fi and constricted battery.

They archetypal looked at existing scavenger hunt apps, but paying for a phase for a sole team-building event didn’t create much sense. More importantly, the accessible tools couldn’t fairly modify the equivalent they had in mind.

So Gediminas decided to use Hostinger’s own merchandise to build exactly what they needed – a web app alongside five chief sections:

• Scoreboard: A live leaderboard showing squad scores and completed challenges.
• Submit: A location for teams to upload photo and video proof.
• Gallery: A gathering of completed submissions.
• Rules: The equivalent rules and complete difficulty list.
• Admin: A password-protected dashboard anywhere Emma and Gediminas could assessment submissions and oversee the game.

He vibe-coded the complete app using Hostinger AI Builder, construction it himself complete 34 rounds of prompting in plain, mundane language.

Before sending his archetypal prompt, Gediminas worked through the equivalent mechanics alongside Claude, mapping out the rules and border cases: what happens whenever a submission is rejected, how scores are calculated, how two referees distinct the assessment queue, and what happens in a tie.

By the period he opened the AI Builder immediate box, he already had item near to a merchandise requirements document: 

• A defined data model
• A timer designed to evade phone-clock discrepancies
• Tie-break rules according to squad color order
• Clear submission states
• Device-based squad acknowledgment alternatively of requiring players to log in

That preparedness meant small foundational changes afterward – and small AI credits spent fixing things that could have been figured out beforehand.

The fun anarchy that bonded the squad together

The equivalent kicked off at Hostinger HQ in Vilnius, anywhere all squad was handed a product-related riddle. The fastest teams to resolve it unlocked the app nexus and received a concealed code to get started. And yes, they were allowed to commencement moving as shortly as they cracked it.

As expected, the eight teams went in eight entirely distinct directions.

Some teams went direct for the location-based challenges, akin the Red team, who decided to obtain on the ascend to Gediminas Tower to collect points.

Meanwhile, the Navy squad decided there was no need to roam all complete Vilnius fair yet. They stayed nearer to the agency and started ticking off the easier challenges, including one that engaged “hijacking” a nearby bar oppose and posing as its employees.

Behind the scenes, Emma and Gediminas were trying to keep up alongside the stream of submissions – and cracking up their way through them. The equivalent had barely started, but the photos and videos coming in were already giving them plentifulness to chuckle about.

Every submission was automatically assigned to one of them for review, during a shared queue let either referee jump in whenever things got busy. A locking scheme that Gediminas vibe-coded made certain they never accidentally reviewed the identical submission twice.

They additionally had complete veto power to award bonus points for submissions that were merely too hilarious to ignore.

The Camo squad got the highest reward points during taking their aquatic adventure to Užupis, anywhere one squad associate really dipped into the stream to contact the mermaid statue’s tail.

Every approved submission went direct into the Gallery, organized by squad and challenge. So during Emma and Gediminas battled the assessment queue, everyone alternatively could observe the increasingly disorderly evidence rotate in from about the city.

Adding a twist alongside the Blitz rounds

As the rules promised, there were additionally Blitz rounds – astonishment moments whenever all difficulty was value twice points. The stakes lay in the fact that lone Emma and Gediminas knew whenever one was coming or how lengthy it would last.

The players could lone delay for the web app to commencement flashing red, indicating the Blitz circular was on. Any difficulty submitted during the Blitz circular was live earned twice points, so teams had to decide quickly if they wanted to autumn what they were doing and chase the bonus.

Some teams had been preservation their biggest challenges for exactly this moment. The Burgundy team, for example, had taken on the Hill of Three Crosses, climbing additional than 200 stairs to complete the highest-reward challenges. When the app turned red, they knew they had a precious submission prepared to prosperity in.

Others took a simpler approach. If twice points were on the table, why not catch the easiest challenges? A silly collection photo could abruptly be value twice as much during daring everyone alternatively to equivalent it by doing item equal additional ridiculous together.

Sparking additional competitiveness alongside the hidden scoreboard 

For most of the game, the community leaderboard showed all team’s mark alongside the challenges they had completed. It gave everyone a opening into how the another teams were playing.

Teams could see who was racking up points, place strategies that seemed to work, and equal get a few ideas. And, of course, seeing their own squad ascend the leaderboard gave everyone a small additional motivation to keep going.

Then, in the final minutes of the game, Gediminas pulled the rug out from under everyone. The leaderboard was hidden from the players.

Teams could motionless see that challenges were being completed, but they had no way of knowing whether they were leading, catching up, or falling behind. All they could do was keep playing and anticipation they had done enough.

Behind the scenes, Emma and Gediminas could see the scores keep changing in genuine time. The final standings were kept concealed until the winners were announced – turning the final few challenges into a guessing equivalent of their own.

The final count

When the two-hour timer hit zero, submissions closed automatically. Emma and Gediminas completed reviewing everything motionless in the queue, and the final scores were prepared to be revealed.

While the final submissions were being checked, they were additionally preparing for the decision ritual at a nearby municipal campsite.

Everyone gathered in for several well-earned refreshments – fruit, dairy merchandise platters, snacks, pizzas, and drinks – and, naturally, a chance to chuckle together complete the day’s most ridiculous submissions.

Across eight teams, the midday produced 274 completed difficulty submissions. Then came the instant everyone had been waiting and guessing about: the winners were announced.

Amid plentifulness of cheering and laughter, Emma and Gediminas additionally shared several of the funniest moments they’d seen throughout the game, encouraging everyone to inspect them out in the app’s Gallery. 

After two hours of racing about Vilnius, it was eventually period to dilatory down, relax, and chuckle concerning the anarchy together. 

Team Blue took the expansive prize: a hot-air balloon journey complete Trakai. Team Green and Team Navy received buying vouchers to be used throughout Vilnius for taking second and third place, respectively.

But the prizes were lone part of what everyone took distant from the afternoon.

Somewhere between the challenges, the competition, and the sheer amount of nonsense happening about Vilnius, the 42 colleagues remaining knowing all another better. 

They had shared inner jokes, stories they’d be telling for a while, and plentifulness of moments to bring rear alongside them whenever they come back to their screens.

What would Emma and Gediminas do differently? 

They learned that construction an app for 42 group is distinct from evaluation it alongside two. At one point, a abrupt motion of photo and video uploads put additional traffic on the app than it had accounted for, and the upload characteristic began to struggle.

At one point, the upload characteristic struggled alongside the influx of submissions. One teammate held a plank for a complete infinitesimal as a challenge, lone to detect that the app wouldn’t let them upload the proof.

Another squad ran into a akin matter and took matters into their own hands, sending Gediminas the evidence complete WhatsApp instead. In the end, the submissions all made it through and counted toward the teams’ scores – but not without a small improvisation alongside the way.

It was a fine reminder that a vibe-coded app isn’t flawless – particularly whenever you’re putting it through its archetypal real-world emphasis test. But there are ways to prepared for those moments and minimize the damage.

There were a few another small hiccups alongside the way, too. But things didn’t need to be ideal to keep 42 group moving, competing, laughing, and exploring Vilnius together.

If you’re preparedness item akin for your team, we’d obtain a few things from that experience:

• Start alongside the bigger picture. Don’t fair choice an action and anticipation group association alongside the way. Think concerning what you desire group to cognition together, afterward build the action about it.
• Add stakes so group are consenting to go all in. A small competition, a fine prize, or equal a astonishment twist can rotate passive involvement into genuine excitement.
• Don’t let the tools bounds the idea. When the existing scavenger hunt apps didn’t fit the game, Gediminas built one himself alongside AI Builder. The innovation didn’t define the cognition – it was built about what the squad really needed.
• Leave area for group to have fun. The finest parts of the midday weren’t absolutely coordinated. They were the unexpected silly moments akin climbing 200 stairs for additional points, getting into a stream for a mermaid’s tail, or merely asking a alien for a high-five.

The bigger win was that a collection of colleagues who normally existed in distinct countries, period zones, and Slack channels had spent an midday exploring the identical city, solving ridiculous problems, and laughing concerning things they now had in common.

That’s what a fine team-building action is really expected to do: provision group a narrative they couldn’t have made alone.