Travel Bug Football? Looking For Suggestions

[+Eric K]

Just off the top of my head I think it would be fun to have some king of TB football game.

 

I think on a nationwide scope it may be to difficult to do. But maybe in a single state or neighboring states it may be easier.

 

My thought is to say have designated caches in either a North-South or East-West configuration and the goal is to move the bug to the North or South (or East or West) towards it's goal.

 

Of course there would have to be some guidelines.

 

This is just an idea so right now I'm open for any suggestions on how to make it work.

Edited November 25, 2003 by Eric K

[+stomps]

I think that would be a great idea! It could be done on a nationwide scale. Even E/W Coast to the Mississippi.

[cool_and_the_gang]

This a great idea! I gave it some thought and designed this game based on your premise:

 

The goal would be to get the TB from one coastal state to a state on the opposite coast within 4 downs (moves). I'll be happy to start it because I live in NYS. A hypothetical "game" would then proceed as follows:

 

1) The Football TB would get "kicked off" from NYS (if that's agreeable) or some other Eastern Coastal state.

 

2) Cachers would take the "ball" and place it in caches, moving it West as far as possible within 4 subsequent moves.

 

3) When the "ball" lands in a cache in a Western Coastal state it consititutes a "Touchdown". The score could be kept on the TB pages or on a separate web site.

 

4) It's goal would then be to travel back to an Eastern Coastal state for a "touchdown".

 

5) While enroute either way, the opposing team would have the opportunity "grab" the ball and reverse it's direction of travel. If the ball was heading West, for example, and somebody from the Western "defense" grabbed it, they could send it back to an Eastern Coastal State for a "Touchdown" unless it as intercepted by an Eastern player who sent it back to the West.

 

Admittedly, this is a very simplistic version of Football (it actually more closely resembles Volleyball!) but simplicity, I think, is the key here. I don't know how to incorporate offside kicks, safeys etc. without making it too complex to be enjoyable. Check out the StarWars TB game. I have no idea what's going on in it and it is an example of an overly complicated TB game (to me anayway).

 

Another caveat is the distances involved. Moving it across the contry within 4 downs would require travel of several hundreds of miles which might be out of range for cachers on a regular basis. For this reason it might be more manageable if it were, as Eric suggested, a regional game.

 

Lastly, I wouldn't want to get into a high level of management of teams and players or the score for that matter. I would suggest that the game be largely symbolic, that is, if you're traveling West and can move the TB go ahead and do it.

You don't have to be an a team as I can't see how to manage that. The real goal would be to eventually see this TB zig-zagging across the country.

 

That's my two cents. It will be interesting to see if this works out.

 

Eric: Would you mind if I posted your idea in my regional forums to see if I can get it to work on a state wide scale in the state of NY?

[+Eric K]

Cool and the Gang:

 

Feel free to post my message anywhere you can get ideas.

 

I like your suggestion, however I think it may be hard to get it across the nation in 4 moves.

 

Maybe we could make each bordering state like a first down. For example, you have 3 moves to get it to the next state, if not then the other team can move it the other way.

 

I'm sure the ideas will keep rolling in, I have a web hosting company so I could hang the information off one of my sites.

[+The Frantic Cachers]

I think this is a great idea. Only problem would be monitoring how many moves the bug has made and which side has "posssession".

 

How about 2 TB's starting at the same point in the center of the nation released at the same time. One heads east and the other heads west. Anyone can move the bug in any direction they want. Instead of just making to the respective coasts, which would be a feat in themselves, there would be certain caches designated which are worth different amount of points based on the difficulty of the caches. The closer to the coast the caches are the more points recieved. There also would need to be a time limit on how long a bug could be held, say a couple of days, and can only be transported by ground. When a rule is broken some sort of penalty, like point reduction, would have to be implemented.

 

I dunno, maybe I have too much time on my hands, or not enough to organize it.

[CacheNCarryMA]

Seeing that it took half a year for a bug to get from NY to CA in the TB Cannonball Run and only four of the scores of entrants completed the trip so far, be prepared to wait a year or more for the first touchdown. This doesn't even take into consideration the fact that there will be a lot of back and forth movement in a TB football game.

 

Las Vegas Line:

TB football over-under : 14

[+The Frantic Cachers]

Thats why I feel that the closer to the coast the bug gets the more points it can accumlate. A ceertain time frame could be set and the one with the most points wins. This way the bug doesn't need to make uit to the coast although would get more points if it did but not neceearily denoting victory. To get points certain caches are chosen a designated a value...not just any cache.

[+Eric K]

Seeing that it took half a year for a bug to get from NY to CA in the TB Cannonball Run and only four of the scores of entrants completed the trip so far, be prepared to wait a year or more for the first touchdown. This doesn't even take into consideration the fact that there will be a lot of back and forth movement in a TB football game.

 

Las Vegas Line:

TB football over-under : 14

I think a nationwide scale may be to much. The game will most likely have to be more of a regional game to keep the ball moving.

 

I'm thinking anywhere from 2 to 4 neighboring states.

[+Brenin Tegeingl]

Cachers in the UK have tried playing TBfootball, two caches nominated as goals at each end of the country, teams made up of odds and evens(date you were born on), unfurtunatly the game seems to keep bogging down with the Football(TB) not moving or even moving sideways, by cachers who dont visit the forums. Dave

[+Eric K]

Cachers in the UK have tried playing TBfootball, two caches nominated as goals at each end of the country, teams made up of odds and evens(date you were born on), unfurtunatly the game seems to keep bogging down with the Football(TB) not moving or even moving sideways, by cachers who dont visit the forums. Dave

Do you have a link to the bug and our page for that?

[+Sparky-Watts]

Since moving from one coast to the other in 4 "downs" could be next to impossible, how about dividing the distance from coast to coast by 10, and use that distance of travel in 4 downs to be another 1st down? I think that could work, and you could set up a map showing the dividing lines prior to the game so that the "players" would be able to see how far they've got to go for the next 1st down. Just a thought. I like the idea of TB football!

[+trippy1976]

do a search for this as well... I have heard of at least one other geo-football game that was done with travel bugs. It was over a year ago I believe.

[+thennig]

There's a WI/IL football TB game- check this one out:

http://www.geocaching.com/track/track_detail.asp?ID=44349

[+Eric K]

There's a WI/IL football TB game- check this one out:

http://www.geocaching.com/track/track_detail.asp?ID=44349

I like that idea alot.

I just took a quick glance and will need to re read the scoring rules.

 

I am based out of Ohio so I would like to get a Browns/Steeles game (i.e. Ohio/Pennsylvania game), and a Ohio State/Michigan State game going.

[+Jens]

Travel bug soccer was played in 2002 in Sweden. The bug used can be seen here, but most of the useful information is in Swedish.

 

A similar game, inspired by the Swedish one, is currently being played in Denmark on my initiative. The travel bug used is this one. All of the supporting text is in Danish, but you can see by the sheer volume of the movements of the TB that the game has been a greater success than the Swedish and British predecessors.

 

It is immaterial whether you think of the game as soccer or football. The basic idea is that there are two teams, that the game consists of a series of moves from one cache to another, and that there are certain restrictions. The main adjustments that I made for the Danish game was in the restrictions. The result has been that the Danish game has seen three goals scored so far, and the game is still very much active with five moves during the past four days.

 

Few of you will be able to understand the rules(published here in Danish), so let me summarize our version in English:

 

The playing field is about 55 km long. No move may be longer than 8 km. Once the ball is picked up, the move must be complete and logged on the TB page within 12 hours. Once a team has moved the ball, that team must wait 8 hours (14 hours if the night period from midnight to 6 is included) or until the opponents move the ball before moving it again. No single player may make two moves in a row. No single player may repeat his own previous move. New caches on the field are taboo for 72 hours or until touched by the opponents, whichever comes first. Teams were selected at random based on the month in which the player was born. Any geocacher can play.

 

The current score sees Blue leading Red by 2-1. In the latest move, Blue moved the ball to just two steps from scoring, but a few hours ago Red logged the start of a countermove. Both teams have established communication forums on the net and use SMS communications extensively. The game and its rules has created a thread of over 100 entries on the forum at www.geocaching.dk .

[+Eric K]

The game is setup and ready to go. :-)

 

Use this link to check it out. I need someone in the Youngstown, Ohio area to get the game started. If you stay in that area please contact me.

 

http://www.usageocoins.com/tbfootball/

[+Eric K]

The game is about to start. I'm really interested to see how it goes.

 

The 'football' will be showing up in the Youngstown area soon to start the game.

 

You can visit the website for the game at http://www.usageocoins.com/tbfootball

 

There is a mailing list there you can join that I will use to keep you abreast of the game and how it is progressing.

 

You may want to add the TB to your watch list also. You can get to the TB by a link on the page for the game.

 

Go Browns!

[+Eric K]

The game is under way. The first quarter will go from today to Jan 15.

 

The bug is being started in this cache.

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?ID=63811