Guided Geocaching is an application for children for guided scavenger hunts. A device developed for this purpose enables them to carry out an interactive treasure hunt in which the focus is on solving puzzles. If a puzzle is solved, new coordinates are unlocked.

Making the compass

Early on we planned our own scavenger hunts and went looking for geocaches. Looking for geocaches is fun, but finding only a piece of paper to add your name to it is somewhat disenchanting. Navigating to your destination is an adventure itself, so why not treat it like one? We wanted to know how we can use the environment as one big playground for children and what riddles can we deduce from it?

Instead of a distracting smartphone screen, we wanted to have a minimalistic compass with a built in touch-screen, to show all the information that is necessary. Different wheels can be attached to the compass depending on the type of puzzle. The wheels can be turned and pressed for input.

Navigation

The player sees their figure in the centre of the display. The surroundings are displayed in a minimalistic but colourful style. the outer circle shows the compass which shows the player where the next quest area is located. After solving a quest the user is rewarded with a gem and further quest areas are unlocked.

Games

The compass provides different rings according to the type of puzzle. In the span of one semester it was only possible to work on three different forms of puzzles: Translating runes, a sound puzzle, and a picture puzzle.

Team

Jennifer Piperek, Nico Brand

Supervisor

Fabian Gronbach

Date

4th Semester
Winter Term 2016/2017
HfG Schwäbisch Gmünd