There were many amazing things at the Faire this year, but the wide assortment of hackish items at the S&T Geotronics booth really caught my attention. The first thing that drew me in to the booth was the replica of a “stereotypical” bomb with a timer attached to it. Although I doubt many modern bombs […]
Check out Flickr user Rumtopf’s fancy take on the reverse geocache box. For those who don’t know, a reverse geocache is a box that unlocks itself when the GPS sensor inside senses that it’s in a specific spot on the globe. Rumtopf used a snazzy doorbell button to wake an Arduino, which checks the GPS and displays the distance from that spot on an LCD. He also used a magnetic child safety lock as a backdoor to access the inside of the briefcase in case of malfunction.
Sean Carney built this arduino gps system, which he was able to take out into the field for some geocaching.
I actually had to send some snail-mail recently and remembered the clever Google map envelope trick from Beste Miray Dogan that made the rounds awhile back. Turns out, a friendly bloke named Stephen has created a handy generator website that lets you input your return address and then automagically creates a printable cut-and-fold pattern.
One of the many very cool things about my job is getting to watch ideas evolve in the community over time. Since I first saw Mikal Hart present the original reverse geocache puzzle at Dorkbot Austin more than a year ago, we’ve seen a number of cool variations and improvements on the theme (see the “More” block, below). This latest twist, from Donald Papp, adds a couple of cool features including reprogrammable “solution” locations, allowing the box to be used over and over again, specifically with the intent that, in an analogy to regular geocaching, it will have multiple users over its lifetime. The idea is that you can solve it, reprogram it, and then pass it on to somebody else. Donald has also added a camera to the box that records a photo every time it is activated for a “hint,” making the journey of the box and its user(s) self-logging. [Thanks, Donald!]
This latest version of Mikal Hart’s original reverse geocache puzzle–a box that only opens in one location on the Earth’s surface–is by Markus. At just 3.75″ on its longest side, Markus’s box is by far the most compact and elegant version of the puzzle I have ever seen. [via Hack a Day]
Brain Dereu of Hollow Spy Coins has done it again. As if the solid stainless steel version of their original aluminum dead drop spike I recently blogged about weren’t cool enough by itself, the Dereu family is now offering the same product machined in solid freaking titanium. Incredibly, they’re selling it for exactly the same price as the stainless steel version.
