Recently Loren has put up a couple of geocaching posts where some Mathworks goodies were hidden. One of these just happened to be in my vicinity, so I went in for the find. Here is a brief account of my findings, some of them pleasantly surprising. And, there might be a pleasant surprise for you at the end of this article…

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Contents

What is Geocaching?

Honestly, I had to look it up. It turns out that this is a fancy new tech word for “treasure hunting.” Only now we’re treasure hunting with satellites, handheld receivers, and sharks with freakin lasers on their heads. For us tech junkies who also like to solve a good puzzle, this is a really great combination.

I must add that hiding things for me to take home is not true geocaching, but it’s close enough for our purposes here. In traditional geocaching, the cache stays where it is and you write your find in the cache’s log and your own log. It looks like these things are all over the place!

Review of the Hardware (pleasant surprise)

While real geocaching seems to be done with dedicated GPS recieving hardware (like Garmin), I could not justify the purchase just for this task (amazing, I know). However, I came to find out that my G1 (google phone) is a fairly capable substitute! It was quite easy in fact to open Loren’s post on the browser, click the geohash link (shows a map of the location with the Lat / Long coordinates), then copy and paste the coordinates into the search box of Google Maps. All this done on the phone on my way over there.

Even if you don’t have a GPS enabled phone, the geohash link can be zoomed in to a pretty close view. Alternately, I think I could have just printed out a large scale map and then a very close satellite view to find it. My conclusion: you don’t really need to make the big purchase to have fun with this. I guess you would only need it to hide things (and get accurate coordinates of your new location).

Life’s a Beach

The location where someone hid the Mathworks laser pointer (I think Sam?) was a beautiful part of Miami Beach, in a park. The “park” part is mostly parking lot, but the Beach itself is the real attraction. As you can see from the photos (at the top and here below), this is EXACTLY why I love Florida in February.

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Funny side-story: as I approached the boardwalk area where the coordinates indicated, there were several people sitting around during a break (the Miami Boat Show just finished and these guys were taking down tents and stages nearby). I was holding the phone up in front of me as I walked, sort of tri-corder style. I won’t lie, I got some funny looks. They casually watched me circle the location a couple of times as I homed in on the exact spot. By the time I finally bent down to uncover the laser pointer, and came up with a little bag, my observers were captivated. I then walked off after obviously having found something hidden. They each seemed to look around, as if to make sure they weren’t sitting on anything! I wish I had hidden camera footage of it - quite amusing.

Many Thanks to Loren and Crew!

Many thanks to Loren for introducing me to this new form of treasure hunting. I’m not sure if Sam is the sponsor behind the prize, or who actually placed the item, but “well done” to everyone involved.

Good things Come to Those Who Go Looking for Good Things

This was really fun, and the prize (for me anyway) was the hunt itself and learning about geocaching. So, in the interest of keeping the fun going, I’m not going keep this Mathworks flashlight / laser pointer. Instead, I’m going to re-hide it somewhere else in the United States. When I do, I’ll post the details here and in a comment back on Loren’s blog so you can go get it if it’s near you.