Munzee Card Dunk Test - No Punch Holes

Munzee card. Thumb covering
QR Code.

There is a new electronic game that I have taking a liking too. It's called Munzee and it is a lot of fun.

In short Munzee is similar to Geocaching. That is you go to a website http://www.munzee.com and make an account. Once registered you can then make Munzee Cards. Each Munzee Card has a QR code on it. The QR code has all the information about that particular Munzee Hide. You activate the actual Munzee Hide by using your smartphone and the Munzee app by scanning the QR code at the place you want to hide the Munzee card.

To find a Munzee card you simply use the same app on your smart phone and look at the local map. You can zoom in enough to get a pretty good bead on where it is at. When found scan the QR code to earn your points.

That's pretty much all that is to it. The nice thing is you can either choose to hide your Munzee card in a container like a geocacher or place it on or behind a magnet. There will be tons of ways invented I am sure.

Now for the reason of this post. One of the ways that I saw a Munzee card hidden was with a lamintation similar to the photo above. The hider used a hole punch and a tie to attach it to a tree branch. The second I saw this I wondered how waterproof the hole now made the Munzee card?

To The Dunk Test!

The first of a series of tests was to see exactly how water resistant a hot lamintation would be. To test it I used a plastic container filled with some water and a business card of mine. The size of it is about the same as a standard Munzee card.

I sunk the card which was no problem and let it sit for an hour. I figured that would be  pretty consistent of a couple of rainy days in the wild.

Hot Lamination Dunk Test - No Hole
Time - One Hour 
Result - Stayed perfectly dry!

No surprise here. The biggest problem in the wild would be heat and the edges finally splitting but the initial test shows a Munzee card will stand up if not tampered with.



Sir You Have A Hole In Your Munzee...








The next dunk test was to duplicate what I had seen in the wild. I took the same card and punched a whole into it. You can see it here right next to my face. I let it sit submerged for another hour. Guess what happened?









We Have Found Leakage!


Not too much of a surprise when I looked at the card after being under water for an hour. On one side enough water seeped in to discolor half of my face and down into the text making it smear. Imagine all the things that would start happening after a few showers and then mold and anything else that made it inside over time. I would suspect this would not last very long before becoming unreadable.

Hot Lamination Dunk Test - With Hole

Time - One Hour 

Result - Moisture Leaked In!

Side Two Really Shows The Leak.

When I flipped the card over I really could see how much moisture entered through the hole. Almost half of the card was wet and most of the ink was smearing. 

End Result: laminations either hot or cold do not glue to the objects inside when sealed. In the case of hot lamination it tightens slightly when the plastic is heated but only the plastic to plastic bonds together. The hole when created opens enough so that the inside of the hole exposes the paper within to the air and thus moisture. This causes the leakage and the problem.

So if you are going to put Munzee cards out do not put a whole directly into the paper area of the lamination. Try this. Before printing, shrink down the size of the Munzee in the print options to 70% instead of 100%. Then put the card towards the bottom of the sleeve when doing the lamination. This will leave enough of clear plastic to plastic which will bond together. Punch your hole through that area and no leaks! Hope you found this useful and also whetted your appetite for playing Munzee.

Have fun out there.

-HHH


Update:

Printed 83% to fit room for a sealed hole

Here is what it looks like when you print the Munzee Card at 83% instead of 100%. This leaves more than enough room for your sealed hole to be made.










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