Today, optionals took a strange form in the VAMPY tradition that is “CTF day”. Typically, campers are presented with a variety of optionals with titles that share information about what it is. For example, there might be an optional called “52 card pickup” or “Open Mic Night”. However, as a way of encouraging the campers to try new things, over the course of the camp, the titles of the optionals get vaguer. They move towards things like “Button Mashing”, in which campers made wearable buttons.
To play around with this idea, one day during VAMPY, we make all the optionals have the acronym “CTF”. The campers are only told that the optional is called “CTF” and whether or not it is active. The reason they are called CTF is because one of the favorite optionals that will typically happen every year is a game called “Capture the Flag” or “CTF” for short. This year, there was no actual “CTF” in the mix, however there was a similar optional “Catching the Fire” which is based off the Hunger Games! Other CTFs included: “Create the Frat”, “Cosmos, the Future”, “Conspire to First”, “Conspiracy Theory Force”, and more.
In my experience, campers enjoyed the change of pace. Every once in a while, it’s nice to switch up which group of people you are sticking to. Not to mention, campers got to try new things. Some of the campers that would perhaps stick to more relaxed unstructured optionals got a chance to play around with a more thought-out activity. And the campers that normally stick to thought out and highly planned activities got a chance to relax and take it easy. Overall, CTF day was fun and let campers try new things. 
