Geomate Jr. Help

[hightechhicks]

Hello everyone! I am a middle school teacher, and I have been asked to teach geocaching to students in an after school program. I've been caching for several months now, so I am up to the challenge. The after school program has already purchased what they called a "geocaching kit" from geocaching.com. It contains 12 Geomate Jr.'s and several cache containers. The problem is, the closet cache to the school is still several miles away. I was hoping I could set up several unoffical caches around the school grounds, give the students the coordinates, and let them go find them. Is there a way to enter just coordinates on the Geomate Jr.? Or does it only navigate to the closest cache? I start this program in a couple of weeks, and I would love to introduce others to geocaching so any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!

[+mpilchfamily]

In order to upload caches to the unit you will need the update kit. Then you can update each unit one by one. Not even sure if you can load custom caches or if its tied directly to the Geocacing site for update. The Geomate Jr isn't the best unit for teaching new comers in this manner.

[+CacheFreakTim]

The Geomate does not have the ability to enter coords. manually. To update them you will need the update kit ($25, also note you do not need one for each Geomate as you can just use one to update all the units.)

 

When you go to update the units you have the option of updating to "all public caches", or uploading your own .GPX file. At this point you have the option of actually creating caches and making them public or placing the caches and keeping them secret. To create a GPX file with just these secret caches you would need to use an application such as GSAK to create a GPX file to upload to the Geomate's.

 

Its up to you on what you want to do. Just creating a bunch of caches and making them public is the easiest method, while placing them and creating a GPX with the coords in GSAK will take some work on your end.

[savingbirds]

I understand that the Jr. is an economical solution for schools, but you do have to post your caches in order to track them on the Jr.

[hightechhicks]

Thanks to everyone for their help. I have visted the Geomate Jr. website, and found out how you can upload custom caches. The school has purchased the update kit (an apparent must have if you want to to anything), and once it arrives I'll have some more info on how the custom caches work. I do not believe they are uploaded to the website, but just uploaded to the Geomate itself.

[gcerullo]

I'm not sure what you have in mind as a lesson plan but if all you teach them is how to find a cache then you're just teaching them half of what geocaching is all about. I guess what I'm trying to say is that the fact that established caches are too far to use for teaching should be taken as an opportunity to teach the kids the whole process of geocaching. From selecting objects appropriate for a cache; hiding the cache; posting the co-ordinates on the geocaching.com web site complete with descriptions and hints; accessing the geocaching.com web site to find caches and load them on the device; and finally, how to use the device to go out and find the caches.

 

You could break up the participants into appropriate group sizes so that each is responsible for a separate cache. Have each group go through the process of selecting the objects for a cache and posting the info to the geocaching.com web site. You could create an account for the group to access. In case the public at large should come across your cache listing add to the account/cache description that the caches being listed are for educational purposes only and not for the general public as they will not be there if someone so go try and find them. Have each group hide their cache and have each group hunt down each other's caches. At the end of the course just change the account password to prevent abuse and delete the cache listings so the general public isn't likely to come across them and try to find them.

Edited August 17, 2011 by gcerullo

[hightechhicks]

Don't worry, this class is going to last several weeks. We are going to learn all about geocaching before I send the students out. I would never hand them a GPS and tell them to go. I only hope they enjoy it as much as I do.

 

I did take the Geomate Jr. out for the first time to find a cache I've been having some trouble with. I drove up to the cache site, turned on the Geomate, and it listed the closet cache as 4 miles away! Myself and my husband (who is a surveyor & geologist) were not too pleased. The geomate had last been updated in 2010 and the cache had been placed in 2008. When I came to school today, the leader of the after school program told me that already had the update kit, so hopefully an update will help the matter. I'm going back to the cache site today, to see how it goes.

[+CacheFreakTim]

Don't worry, this class is going to last several weeks. We are going to learn all about geocaching before I send the students out. I would never hand them a GPS and tell them to go. I only hope they enjoy it as much as I do.

 

I did take the Geomate Jr. out for the first time to find a cache I've been having some trouble with. I drove up to the cache site, turned on the Geomate, and it listed the closet cache as 4 miles away! Myself and my husband (who is a surveyor & geologist) were not too pleased. The geomate had last been updated in 2010 and the cache had been placed in 2008. When I came to school today, the leader of the after school program told me that already had the update kit, so hopefully an update will help the matter. I'm going back to the cache site today, to see how it goes.

 

The units only come pre loaded with 250,000 caches. This sounds like a ton but by default the reality is they cut out all the ones that have a higher difficulty, and have not been around for a long time. You can use the update kit to update to all available caches. Once you do this it should show up, as well as all the others in the area.