Geocaching

The 435 course ran a geocache competition this morning. 50 minutes did not appear to be sufficienct time to get to employ more complex communication techniques and strategies because the tasks themselves were so simple. If more time was allowed, then the intitial challenge clues found could include information on a second set of coordinates that the teams would have to work together to solve. Each team's clue would include information on the other teams coordinates, but that information would be described in a way that required some problem solving to get the actual numbers. They would then need to input those coordinates themselves to find the second location and would gain more familiarity with the technology.

Regarding the technology:
The GPS devices seemed dated regarding screen quality and processing power. Zooming in and out as well as scrolling along the map was a relatively slow process with 15-30 second waits after some commands. These were not GPS signal delays but device image processing delays. Getting the GPS coordinates and adding them to the iphone's google maps satellite images greatly increased the speed and ease of navigating. The larger screen allowed for a wider viewing angle with enough resolution to recognize landmarks. The iphone also had the ability to take video and pictures of the clue and it's context and use the Purdue Wi-fi network to quickly send information back to those in the classroom. On a final note, the accuracy of the GPS devices can be improved if they are updated to use Differential GPS(DGPS)
where availible.