Greg Pidgeon

GPS, or Global Positioning System, was developed by the US Department of Defense. This satellite navigation system was intended for military use and therefore the signals were scrambled, limiting accuracy for civilian use to about 100 meters. On May 1, 2000, President Clinton announced that this scrambling, known as Selective Availability (SA), would be turned off. Civilians were then able to enjoy accuracy on the order of 10 meters.

Since then games using GPS have immerged such as the most popular Geocaching. But more and more are being developed such as……

Geodashing is a game in which players use GPS receivers on a playing field that covers the entire planet. The waypoints, or dashpoints, to be reached are randomly selected. The win goes to who can get to the most dashpoints; that is, if you can get to them at all! Each game has a new set of dashpoints making each game completely different and unpredictable.



Geodashing Golf is a game in which players use GPS receivers to navigate to 18 randomly placed waypoints.

Your score depends on how close you can get to each of the 18 waypoints. The closer you get, the lower your score. Low score wins!

Each game has a new set of randomly-generated waypoints, making each game different and unpredictable.



MinuteWar is a game of capture-the-flag using the whole world as the playing field and GPS receivers for navigation. Every player in the world uses his own local map, but all the maps are combined so that all players compete against everyone else at the same time no matter where they live.

The maps are divided into squares, each one minute of longitude wide and one minute of latitude long. Each square contains a virtual flag. Visit the spot where the flag is located to capture the flag.

The battle to capture these flags is MinuteWar. Your first flag is in a neighborhood near you.



GeoPoker is a GPS game in which players try to assemble the best poker hand by being the first to find a moving container holding a GeoPoker log. Each time the container is found, the finder is awarded one virtual playing card at random. Each finder chooses the next hiding spot for the container and the GeoPoker log.

The finder is awarded his virtual playing card when he logs his find online. This should be done as soon as possible after the find, so other players will know the container has moved and not hunt for it in an old location. The container will be moved fifty two times. Fifty two hunts. Fifty two first-to-finds. After all fifty two cards have been "dealt", the player with the best poker hand "wins."

Information on these games and more can be found on www.gpsgames.org