Geocache game

[Mamaw-Hall]

I am new at geocaching. I want to introduce it to my Sunday school class as outings. I would like to know if I can hide items for them to find. I thought maybe I could mark the location via my GPS. Would I need trackables? I think it would be a fun activity for us, I just don't know enough to set it up for them. I do however, enjoy it. Ive taken my grandkids out and they loved it.

Thanks for any help. I hope my question made sense.

Terri

[+cerberus1]

Sure, you could hide items for others to find, but on this site there's guidelines to adhere to.

Some are a log and container required, proximity to other caches to be aware of, permissions, longevity of the hide, and maintenance.

- And caches here have to at least be open to everyone.

 

Do you have GPS' or a phone app for every one attending? If not, how would they find them?

 

Until you have a better feel yourself of what's involved (you say you don't know enough to set it up), maybe something like a scavenger hunt would be fun in the meantime.

Edited May 1, 2015 by cerberus1

[+kunarion]

I would like to know if I can hide items for them to find. I thought maybe I could mark the location via my GPS.

If it's your intention to do a very basic hide-and-seek game for just your group, you could.

 

Does everyone (or at least several, if there will be teams) have smartphones? If you select some locations and note the waypoints, have each smartphone user type the coordinates into Google Maps, and go. Find a nice park to do this, with lots of landmarks that show up easily on the satellite map. Place temporary items to find, collect them afterward.

 

One way get the coordinates of a hiding spot, is to load the free “GPS Status” App, although there are a bunch of ways to get at least approximate coords. Hide your cache, note the coords. Go hide the next. The participants only need what's already likely on their phones.

 

When everyone's ready for actual Geocaching, they all sign up, get Apps or devices for more features, load coords, and learn how to find caches. For now, it's a private game.

Edited May 1, 2015 by kunarion

[+wmpastor]

Sure, you could hide items for others to find, but on this site there's guidelines to adhere to.

...

... maybe something like a scavenger hunt would be fun in the meantime.

 

You could make it a scavenger hunt using GPS. No need to list caches on this site. These could be informal, private geocaches. Less work, less red tape. It will avoid a key issue with listed caches - the proximity rule. In other words, official caches need to be 528 feet apart. Private caches could all be on the organization's property (or a public park).

 

Then if there's a lot of interest in the activity, you could find and place official caches listed on this site (which would then also be found by other people).

 

Note: if the kids don't have a GPS, they can do pretty well with a smartphone (a widget can access and display the internal GPS readings, an app can provide more features).

[+AustinMN]

I have helped to hide three unlisted caches on church camp property for use by the camp. They were not listed on any web site. A lack of GPS receivers (and the puropse of the excercise) led us to give three different means to find each cache. One set of instructions used GPS coordinates, and you got that set if your team had a GPSr. The second set used compass headings from known landmarks (similar to orienteering), and you got that set if you had a decent compass. The third set used "clues" that could be figured out (somewhat similar to traditional letterboxing). The campers were sent out in teams, and because each team had a different means of finding the cache, even if you encountered another team, they would be doing something different to find the same cache.

 

It was called "GPS - God's Positioning System," and was used as part of a program intended to demonstrate that God can use different means to bring us to the same place.

 

In our case, the objects in the cache were supposed to be left there, but information about them recorded. Later, they (as a group) were asked about items in the caches. How many had yellow objects? What cahce had a red comb? Which container was the largest? etc.

 

There was some information made available about Geocahcing.com, for those who found it interesting and wanted to do more.

 

After camp, the containers were removed.

[+Team GPSaxophone]

I am new at geocaching. I want to introduce it to my Sunday school class as outings. I would like to know if I can hide items for them to find. I thought maybe I could mark the location via my GPS. Would I need trackables? I think it would be a fun activity for us, I just don't know enough to set it up for them. I do however, enjoy it. Ive taken my grandkids out and they loved it.

Thanks for any help. I hope my question made sense.

Terri

The short answer is yes. You can hide anything you want and give the coordinates to anyone you want and let them find it.

 

Is that geocaching? Sure it is! You're using a GPSr to hide and find the container.

 

Can it be listed on Geocaching.com? That's another question. If it's listed here, it has to be available to anyone in the world to come and find it, not just your students. It also has to be in place for at least 90 days so people have the chance to come and find it. If it's placed on private property (such as at a church) you may need permission from the church management before placing it because you'll have several people looking for the cache who aren't there for church. They'll visit at all hours, so it should be in an accessible location as well (not behind a locked fence that's only opened on Sunday, for example). There are several other factors to consider and they should be addressed in the Guidelines (waterproof containers, what items shouldn't be placed in a cache, how close it can be to another cache, etc).

 

Either way, your class will probably enjoy the hunt and some may ask Mom and Dad about finding other "treasures" outside of class. Good luck with your project!

[TahoeJoe]

I've created caches for teaching longitude and latitude to my students that I did not publish and took down after my lesson. I also created a cache for our outdoor wilderness program we use to run each winter and listed it on geocaching.com. The students found it fun to watch the listed cache and read the logs. As others have posted, if you have coordinates to a location and a GPS receiver you’re geocaching.

[+niraD]

When I've taught geocaching to various groups of kids at church, I usually start with a simple one-hour introduction. That includes about half an hour of "classroom" discussion with a hands-on demonstration of how GPS works, and lots of hands-on examples of different container types/sizes, different trackable items, etc. Then I take them outside to a corner of the church property where I've placed a couple dozen assorted geocache containers. I have the kids take turns pointing out the caches they've spotted (and I try to have at least one container per kid). The containers range from painted regular-size containers to well-camouflaged micros.

 

If we're going beyond that one-hour intro, then I try to take them to a park away from the local neighborhood, so we can go on a hike and find real geocaches. I make a point of not taking them to local neighborhood caches, because even if I trust all of them completely, I don't necessarily trust their friends or schoolmates who hear about "hidden toys" in the neighborhood.

 

I've also created a puzzle hunt that used GPS coordinates, and found that people (adults and children) who are not used to entering GPS coordinates into a GPSr/app often struggle with fairly basic things. For geocaching, I would rather hand newbies a GPSr with the coordinates already entered and saved. For puzzle hunts, I'd rather use clues that don't rely on GPS coordinates. (But even there, you run into teams who don't read the clues, or who have difficulty interpreting the clues correctly. You'd think I would have expected that, after watching so many seasons of The Amazing Race.)