Exercise: Designing an Instructional GPS Treasure Hunt

hunt A treasure hunt is a contest in which teams are given a list of unusual things to acquire in a limited amount of time. It's often used as part of a party and has even been used for corporate team building. The format can be warped into becoming a learning experience if the following guidelines are followed.

The hunt should be about something. There is some information content that you expect the players to know more about at the end than they did at the beginning.
Information about the content should be made available to the players before and during the hunt.
The content of the hunt should be focused on one body of knowledge, not many, and the geographical location of items within that content should serve as a useful context for learning about the content. (E.g., learning about certain types of trees by seeing them in their natural habitat.)
Clues given within the hunt should require reference to the content document.

The hunt can be thought of as a series of puzzles to be solved. The more clever the puzzles, the more enjoyable the hunt. There are several types of puzzles that one might devise:

Given an approximate location to find via GPS, look for a specific item. The item should be unequivocally identifable. Examples might include specific words on a sign, a date on a statue, or the name of a unique object.
The answers to one puzzle may be used to find the next puzzle which is attainable only via the web. For example, if the answer to one puzzle is "1934", then the players might be directed to go to http://someurl.org/1934/ to find their next puzzle.
Puzzles might involve combining two GPS coordinates in some fashion. For example, "The object you're looking for is equidistant from 117.5490W, 37.0498N and 117.5420W, 37.0498N. A line from the location to those two coordinates forms a right angle."
Puzzles should depend on players' familiarity with the content base provided to them. A good puzzle will have them combing through the document looking for hints.

Puzzles might follow the following general format: [Starting point] [clue] [evidence]. That is:

Go to [coordinates within sight of but not directly in front of the target]. Look for [something that they'd have to refer to the content document to know, one of several choices from this vantage point] and find [some number or word that provides evidence that they were physically at the right place].

In implementing the hunt, there are several options to consider.

Players may be assumed to have internet access during the hunt via their phones. They may also designate one person per team who stays indoors ready to look things up as needed and phone answers back to the hunters.
The hunt should have somewhere between 4 and 10 puzzles. The number depends on how long the set time limit is which can only be determined by playtesting it.
In starting the hunt, the huntmaster should designate different starting points for each team. Ideally, the hunters will not be in each others' way very often.
Players may consider spoofing other nearby players by feigning interest in something unrelated to the puzzle.

In this exercise, we're going to create a treasure hunt about the historic buildings of SDSU. Imagine that the learners/players are alums at a homecoming or potential new students on a campus visit. The goal of the hunt is both to teach something about SDSU's early history and to develop camaraderie among the players.

The results of this exercise will be posted here soon.