The cache at the posted coordinates is not.
New container placed and final
coordinates updated 4/10/08.
This is the online geocaching version of a game I often play with
my students.
Your job is to find Yoda, who is located at a point (X,Y), where
X and Y are whole numbers between 000 and 999, inclusive.
To play, go to the Where's Yoda?
calculator. (Note: the link is to a page that contains Javascript,
which your browser may incorrectly identify as a virus. Check your
browser settings if you are unable to access this page.)
For each guess you make, the calculator returns the distance
between Yoda and your guess (in units that are unrelated to the
cache's location or any measurement units on the Earth).
If you guess randomly, that's fine; you only have one million
possible locations to choose from. The goal is to devise a strategy
for determining Yoda's location in fewer guesses than that. One of
my brightest students once devised a strategy for determining,
AFTER ONE GUESS, Yoda's coordinates. Let me know if you'd
like to hear about that strategy.
Once you have Yoda's coordinates, you can determine the cache
coordinates as follows: if Yoda is at (X,Y), then the north and
west minute decimals after N44 58. and W093 14. are (7X - 2Y + 194
, Y^2 - 7(X^2) - 48360). (Incidentally, these equations -- designed
to thwart Google Earth twiddlers -- create a "back door" around the
calculator, but analyzing them is at least as difficult as working
with the calculator. Does anyone see what the back door is?)
The cache is a small clear lock'n'lock container. Please use
stealth as necessary and replace carefully to preserve the hide.
The cache contains TB dog tags for the first to find, and some
other stuff, but not the original Yoda Pez dispenser, which I used
to award candy to the students who could locate Yoda in the fewest
guesses. It did hold candy after all, and I don't want to take
chances.
You can check your answers for this puzzle on
Geochecker.com.
Thanks to
rickrich,
Millah, and
speedysk1 for help with the hosting of the calculator.