Surprise Surprise Traditional Cache
SiandI: So very sad to see this one go....it's been in need of maintenance for too long, so will leave this area for someone else to play with now. Thanks for all the fun and favorite points!
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A cache placed in a tree, in beautiful Green Lake Park. Good to do with kids, since there is a fun climb, and a bit of a squeeze involved. Enjoy!
Surprise Surprise Surprise! Another tree cache is up and running!
I am putting this cache up for my 8th grade project at Billings Middle School, which is just around the corner from were this cache is. Some of you may be thinking “what kind of Final Project involves something as fun as putting up a cache? A final project from my school, that’s what. Yeah, my school is pretty awesome.
My project is on GPS, so I thought I would do something for Geocaching. So far, I have learned a bit about how the GPS system works. Here is a shortened version. There are 24 satellites that orbit the earth about 1200 miles up, that broadcast on 2 frequencies. One is for military use, the other for civilians. The one for civilians (the one that we use to geocache) used to have a dampener on it called Selective Availability. That ended in 2000, and a guy named Dave Ulmer, who was watching his GPS go from fuzzy to crystal clear that day, hid the first geocache! But that’s beside the point ironically.
Each satellite continuously transmits data while GPS receivers decode this information, calculate their distances from the satellites, and use a method known as triangulation to calculate user's positions on the earth. Basically, triangulation is a complex math equation that is used to derive your location from previously known points (the satellites). Apparently you need 3 satellites in order for your GPSr to know where you are on the earth two dimensionally, and 4 to know where you are in 3 dimensions. What I want to know is, if you knew how to triangulate, could you be a human GPS? Is that how you use a sextant? Calculate your position around 3 stars? Just a thought, I don’t know if its true or not, so don’t use that info to do anything important. I just think it would be cool to always know where you are.
Anyhow, the cache is a fat bison tube, hung from a tree branch, high enough you can't reach or see it from the ground, but the tree is actually pretty short. Be careful crossing the street if you come from that direction.
One last thing, I think you should know that I will be printing the logs for this cache and submitting them for part my 8th grade project. If you are not comfortable with this then just say TFTC or something, but seriously, what on the internet is private anyway? If you like my cache and want to help me get a good grade, then hey, BREAK A LEG(not literally Wheatiebits)!!!
The satellites in the sky!------------------------------------>
(visit link)
Additional Hints
(Decrypt)
Gur gerr vf gur bar gung'f yrnavat gur zbfg. Va gur qrafre cneg znqr hc bs fznyy fgvpxf.
Treasures
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