Innovation Project

Each year FLL Challenge teams are tasked with creating an innovation project that solves a real world problem. This year the theme was Masterpiece, and teams were challenged to increase participation in a hobby, using art and technology. Our team chose geocaching, and created an innovative Story Quest that you can read about below (and under the tab, Story Quest).

What is Geocaching

Geocaching is a hobby where people hide tubes and containers called caches outside in nature like parks and forests and other people search for them. They enter coordinates into an app and use GPS to find them. 

Problem Statement

We discovered people don’t geocache because they’re unaware of how to start, and those that have gone Geocaching found it was too hard, inaccessible, and not family friendly.

Our solution is an immersive geocaching story quest that uses the art form of sound design and geofencing technology to share a story and engage families, making it immersive, accessible, safe and fun! 

To tell our story we created audio tracks that will play as families search for the 8 caches. Each cache contains a piece of a sword that are used to defeat Geopoxe the dragon! 

We met with professionals in the arts like a voice actress, production company, and sound technicians. We were inspired by how people in the arts use audio and music to tell a story and engage audiences. 

We formed TAG Team Production Company to produce our solution! We wrote a story, recorded the audio, selected music, edited audio tracks, created a sword, and hid caches!  We did further research into geofencing technology as an additional way to immerse our audience.

Our Story Quest is now complete and available at Elm Grove Village Park. Download the free mobile app and go geocaching. We hope you have fun, and enjoy the journey!

It's time for a quest! 

You have been challenged with turning the evil dragon Geopoxe good! To defeat this dragon, you must find and collect all seven pieces of a sword with the help of Sir Garrett. Once all of the pieces are united, you can enter Geopoxe's lair and turn the dragon good!

To start your quest, head to Elm Grove Village Park and use the official Geocaching website or app to access our cache quests. You will be searching for eight caches hidden in the park. They are family friendly hides designed to appeal to people of all ages including children!

We have hid all 8 caches, and they are available NOW in the Geocaching app. There is a link at the bottom of the cache description where you can play our immersive audio tracks to help you feel like you are really on a quest.

If you're not a premium subscriber to the app, you'll have to get the coordinates for the 8th and final cache from your computer, and enter them into your mobile device to do it for free. All of our other caches are free in the app.  

Once you have done our caches, please fill out our user survey! 

Thank you and good luck on your quest!

Team Alpha Geek

Survey: https://forms.gle/a5JuLergRQMAWouC6

Check out our Geocaching Story Quest Flier! 

Check out our How to go Geocaching Flier!