GPS Wide Games

[Kudu 186]

A few people asked about GPS Scout Games in the past. Nobody answered.

 

So I adapted a couple of hundred-year-old Wide Games and they went pretty well: A Treasure Hunt and Man Hunt.

 

This weekend we held our second beginners' "back-woods" campout (backpack about a half-mile from the Troop trailer). I purchased a few GPS units from Ebay and watched a "Bennett Media Presents" instructional DVD. I blundered around my neighborhood as I learned how to mark a series of "Waypoints" (or "Points of Interest" --POI-- depending on the model of the GPS) and then later return to the waypoints. Being old-school, this was my first experience with GPS but it was remarkably easy, even on the older, more "analog" units.

 

TREASURE HUNT

 

Last Wednesday I spent the day marking a series of 25 waypoints in a big circle around the camp in a random zig-zag pattern, with each leg of the hike approximately 600 feet long.

 

On Saturday the Troop's two best leaders (plus a 14 year-old new transfer from another Troop, and a 16 year-old intellectual -- last year he was a monarchist, this year an Ann Rand libertarian) then followed my waypoints to pin little packs of Skittles to the trees with thumbtacks. This was the Troop's first experience with Scout-Led with no adult supervision so I picked four-deep junior-leadership for that. This left two 13 year-olds to supervise setting up the Patrol sites, which I had separated more than a football field apart. Their first experience ever with the Patrol Method was strictly intuitive. It worked just fine, maybe because none of them have yet heard of EDGE :-/

 

It turned out that I had made a big mistake when I laid out the course. I had one unit in my hand, and an additional three units in my pockets. So when I marked the waypoints with the unit in my hand it was connected to about nine satellites, but when I did the same with the units from my pockets, I never realized that they were connected to only a couple of satellites.

 

The temperature was about 94 degrees, which combined with the humidity proved to be too much for the four Scouts. One of them declined to lead the first group of Scouts on the treasure hunt, and the other three dropped out after that, so the adults had to step up for the second Patrol's turn.

 

On the first Treasure Hunt the Scouts had taken turns with the unit that had been connected to the nine satellites, while the next Scout in line followed along with the second unit. One of the junior leaders had a third unit just to make sure they were headed in the right general direction. I had a fourth unit (a Garmin Colorado 400T) back at camp so that if they ran into trouble they could radio us and we could head to that waypoint.

 

The second Patrol quickly turned it into a contest between the two Scouts with the GPS units. The first one to the tree got the candy. The loser got the GPS that had been fixed on nine satellites. He and the next Scout then dialed up the next waypoint. Therefore the Scout who had a better mastery of the software got a significant head start.

 

Being brand-new to GPS, I was amazed to see that in many cases the four leaders had pinned the candy to the exact same tree at which I had been standing when I set the waypoint the previous Wednesday!

 

MAN HUNT

 

That evening two of the older Scouts took one of the GPS units and headed out to one of the waypoints, about a half-mile away. They communicated by radio with two older Scouts who each had a GPS unit to lead the two Patrols into the general area. The hiding Scouts each had a laser, which could be seen at least 1/4 mile away, even through the trees! The basic strategy was for one of these Scouts to draw the pursers to him with his laser. When a Patrol got a football field away, the other Scout would then reveal his position with his laser, while the first Scout slipped away in the darkness to reposition himself.

 

The radios did not work very well for some reason, but the cell phone coverage was good enough at the top of the hill for the Scouts to all text each other :-/

 

The three units that I picked up on Ebay were the Magellan "eXplorist 400." One of them failed to communicate with my PC (to update the firmware) even though it still had the protective film over the screen. Because I had purchased map software for each unit from Magellan, they actually allowed me to exchange the defective unit for their newer model, a "Triton 400"! The Scouts love this one because the graphics are more intuitive to electronic game players.

 

As it turns out you can purchase refurbished Triton 400s (a superior unit that comes with a 90 day warranty) for under $90 on Amazon, about the same as I over-paid for the old "legacy" eXplorist 400s on Ebay. The map software is nice, but in Florida where everything is flat I have not yet found a use for it.

 

Next campout we will play GPS Laser Man Hunt on Friday night to tire them out, then GPS "Capture the Flag" on Saturday night.

 

For 84 hundred-year-old Wide Games that you can adapt to electronics, see:

 

http://inquiry.net/outdoor/games/wide/index.htm

 

Yours in the Old School,

 

Kudu

 

[Eagle92 110]

I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks after all . Seriusly though VERY WELL DONE! Just remember to keep teaching the basics, i.e. map and compass. My sister had a GPS unit in her car and I had my trusty map and compass. Long story short, I was telling my wife we missed turns following sis and her GPS.

 

EDITED: just had the map, didn't need the compass. And yes I just laffed every time my sister made u turns(This message has been edited by eagle92)

[SMT224 10]

We pulled out some old walkie-talkies the Troop had in our storeroom and the Scouts played man-hunt with them on our camping trip this weekend.

They loved it! They developed code names and tried to figure out what channel the other team was on. We adults love the game because after an evening of non-stop voices, it's suddenly very quiet around the campfire!

 

We were working on geocaching during the day, but did not integrate into man-hunt. Adding radios was enough! Maybe next time!!