We are hosting another great seminar with Collegewise tonight at the library.
Find out all about UC admissions from a former UC admissions counselor! Ask questions, get answers, and feel more confident about your application.
Meet us in the Storytime Room at 6 pm.
See you there!
The escape room was on a Saturday afternoon in the Mission Viejo Library’s Heritage Room. The people overseeing the event had set up random images all over the place, some of which were clues that we could use in the escape room. It had an eerie feel to the air, there was haunting music playing in the background and the lights were dimmed to a point where it felt like evening in the middle of the day.
Soon after our group of four people (including myself) had walked in, a man with a British accent started talking, laying down what we were supposed to do: open a box with four locks on it–and we had to do it within the time limit of about thirty minutes. Immediately after he’d stopped talking, everyone began searching for clues. The first thing I ran for was the box with locks. One needed a direction code, one needed a letter code, one needed a number code, and the last required a key. For the lock with a key, there was another box that we had to unlock before we could access the key, so that was one of the trickier parts of the escape room. But then after we figured out the combination, the key didn’t fit in the lock on the box. We had to use the key to unlock a safe that led us to the right key.
The hard part about this escape room was that there were random things scattered all over the place, but we couldn’t tell which ones were clues, or which ones were red herrings, which is a “clue” that’s meant to distract you from what’s actually important. Also, when we asked for hints, they gave their help in terms of rhyming poems, so we sometimes couldn’t figure out what they meant. (And we couldn’t always tell which direction the lock was supposed to go or what order to put the letters or directions in.)
In the end, we unlocked all four locks with two minutes to spare and what was inside the locked box was kind of ridiculous. In the beginning, they said a talisman was supposed to be in the box, so nobody had any idea what to expect. I was just glad that we had managed to open the box at all within the time limit, because I’d never really done an escape room with a time limit before.
Overall, it was a great experience and the clues were very creative. It’s an awesome event for anyone who enjoys puzzles, games, and just a little bit of trickery.
Last Sunday, Mission Viejo Library celebrated its 25th anniversary since its opening date in 1997. They decided to host a grand event in honor of its 25th year of opening.
When you first walk in the front doors of the library, they had two tables, one to the right, and one to the left of the double doors. The two tables included many foods, snacks, drinks, and candy for the patrons to enjoy. Many kids were crowded around the delectable treats!
As you continue to walk in, you are able to see a room in which they set aside for board games and puzzles, mostly for adults. As you get into the main hallways in the library, to the left, there is a photo booth where you can snap pictures of this memorable event. They also had super cute props next to the printing paper you can hold up and the background was also pretty, with a ’90s touch to it. My sister and I definitely took more than a couple photos there!
As you exit the photo booth and continue walking, you will see the many craft tables and stations set up for little kids. They had coloring stations and little fortune tellers you could create with the help of a few library volunteers. The bracelets and necklaces were also very cute! Not to mention, they also had a Kona Ice truck outside (one of my personal favorites).
Later on in the afternoon, they had a little karoke/dance in one of the rooms in which all of the hit ’90s songs were playing. Overall, it was a great event that our whole family enjoyed!
Launched on December 25, 2021, the James Webb Space Telescope (or Webb) has the potential to revolutionize astronomy, astrophysics, and other space sciences forever. Last month, the first images from Webb were transmitted back to Earth, and what they show is astonishing.
On Saturday, August 20, the Mission Viejo Library held the James Webb Space Telescope: First Images Revealed event, which showcased the preliminary images received from Webb as well as a live presentation by NASA Solar System ambassadors alongside expert comments and conclusions from video panelists.
Webb works by using infrared light (or heat, imperceptible to the human eye), to view and capture images from deep space. This new technique complements the Hubble telescope, but it also allows Webb to see extremely far away at distances over 13 billion years away – nearly as old as the universe itself!
One of my favorite images from the presentation was the Carina Nebula, shown to the left. The James Webb Telescope has captured the first image of a star actually being born in a stellar nursery, confirming scientific theories while also raising new questions about the details of star birth.
I also liked the picture of the deep space field, shown to the right. Although the brightest stars are “photobombing” the image, since they’re part of the Milky Way galaxy, some of the smaller and dimmer spots are actually never-before-seen galaxies, part of the ancient world formed just after the creation of the universe. The curves near the center of the image also show concrete proof of gravitational lensing (or the curving of space-time as theorized by Albert Einstein).
Despite all of these fascinating discoveries, Webb is far from finished. Not only is there so much left to be discovered and explained about the images it has already sent, it is projected to last for a decade or longer, so it will undoubtedly unveil more and more about the universe we live in. Overall, I really enjoyed the Webb event, and look forward to presentations like this in the future.
Images courtesy of NASA (nasa.gov)
– Mahak M.
This Saturday, October 27, 2018, my friends and I went to the Mission Viejo Library escape room. I had never gone to an escape room before, and this was a great introduction. In the escape room, our group had to solve various challenges to figure out how to open the padlocked large box. In the box, there was a cure which would save us from the witch’s curse. This backstory helped motivate us to break the locks.
The first key that we found was under the lamp, which opened a smaller box. In that box, we found a battery and a key. We didn’t know what to do with these, so we started looking around and discovered that one of the books on the shelf was fake. It turned out there was a lockbox inside. We used the key we found earlier and opened the lockbox. Inside was a blacklight flashlight which we then put the batteries in. We walked around the room and looked at everything with the flashlight. We found a padlock with three different locks. One lock had different letters it that was opened by various cards we found on the table. Another padlock was solved through different highlighted numbers on a piece of paper that we found taped to the wall. Also taped to the walls were clock hands pointing in different directions that matched the third padlock. When we unlocked the final set of locks, we were finally able to open the box!
I really liked the spiderwebs and skeleton decorating the room as well as the scary music because it gave the whole atmosphere a scary vibe. Overall, this was a fun and challenging experience, and I am looking forward to doing more escape rooms!
Mission Viejo Library Teen Voice 