The new site will be the central repository for all things to do with the Quest Box: stories of great puzzle box quests, instructions and materials for building your own Reverse Geocache, and a nice collection of rare heirloom-quality boxes to purchase. Arduino-specific notes and libraries will stay here at arduiniana.org, and this site will continue to grow.

A wide variety of people should be interested in the new site:

Buyers

People who want to buy Quest Boxes can now do so directly at the Sundial Shop. These really are fabulous. Check them out.

Builders

Builders will be especially interested in the Notes for Builders section, which offers kits and instructions to make the build process simpler than ever.

People who love a good story

The heart of the new sundial.com is the story. These are stories of real people going on real puzzle box quests, many with amazing outcomes. Did you know that as of today at least 14 couples have become engaged with rings hidden in puzzle boxes? It’s true! Read more at the new sundial.com.

Quest Poetry

Two years have passed since Chris’s wedding, and the Reverse Geocache Puzzle still proves a wonderful source of pleasure and diversion.  I marvel at how many surprising twists its story has taken and how far the concept has spread.  Building that first box took so much energy I never imagined I’d do a second, but we now routinely send commissions and circuit boards all over the world—Canada, Australia, France, Slovakia, England, and South Africa in just the last few weeks.  I estimate there are now more than 100 operational boxes in the world, each providing some lucky recipient a potentially rich and unique experience.  And the happy corollary of this wide distribution is that people are starting to invent some marvelous and moving quests.  The box has become a kind of canvas on which a new species of poetry is finding expression—the poetry of the quest.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that these boxes seem well suited to stylish marriage proposals.  You casually present your beloved a strange container which gently guides her to a carefully chosen romantic spot, and when your sparkling ring is finally revealed, predictable magic ensues.  The statistics are pretty good here, so head’s up if you’re single: all nine young men who have proposed with a Reverse Geocache are now married or engaged.  Contrast that statistic with the fact that 40% of adult American women eventually reject at least one suitor.

And I can’t help but be amused by the humorous quests that are starting to pop up, specifically those in which cleverly programmed boxes intentionally lead their “adventurers” astray.  Consider, for example, the wife whose birthday box brought her to the outskirts of a famous Iowa cornfield maze.  Now it’s pretty devious to situate a “magic destination” inside a labyrinth, but the kick here is that hers was actually a few meters behind the rear of the maze—a realization the poor lady came to only after a fruitless 90-minute tour.  Heh heh.  The diabolical husband never told me what “treasure” she earned for her pain,  but we hope it offset at least some of that annoyance.

Small Beauties

But what has really captured my imagination recently is what I call the “poetical” quest.  Is “poetical” the right word to describe an experience that is essentially physical?  Well decide for yourself, but the following tales hold an unmistakable emotional power similar to what you’d find in a profound piece of music or poetry.  I really think they represent an ephemeral kind of experiential art—one that sometimes materializes when its creator has captured just the perfect resonance between treasure, destination, and recipient.  Witness:

Pia and the Red Stripe

Pia's grandfather's favorite

A young South African man writes of a quest he is creating for Pia, a Cape Town woman who recently lost a beloved grandfather.  The dear old gentleman was a popular local figure, known for hiking each evening to a certain scenic lookout with a bottle of Jamaican Red Stripe beer.  He apparently loved that particular brand so much that he had cases of it specially imported, and Pia says that sitting with him on that lookout bench watching the sunset while he drank ranks among the happiest memories of her childhood.

Our young builder is using his industrial design experience to install my electronics in an ordinary cold beverage container, turning it into the world’s first “Reverse Geocache Puzzle Cooler”.  Before he presents this unusual gift he will have locked two iced bottles of Red Stripe inside and programmed it to open at a certain very special place.  You can probably guess where.  He predicts that when Pia opens it and grasps the significance of what she finds, “it will melt her”.  Indeed.  What a lovely memorial experience that will be.

Hand in Hand

I’m curious to hear what you think about this next story.  I find it overwhelming.

Last year a California woman named Jess commissioned one of my old “floral” boxes to commemorate her father’s sixty-fifth birthday.  She designed his quest so that she could present the sealed box while he and her mother were visiting from New England.  When he first activated it the display indicated a distance of more than 2800 miles, suggesting that the programmed destination was probably somewhere near their New Hampshire home.  Or did it?  Could that have been a clever decoy?  Did Jess intend for them to travel to Juneau or Colombia to get their treasure?  That’s the thing about these long-distance quests: it takes a little work to figure them out.

As it happened, that “magic destination” was indeed close to home—though perhaps not so close as they might have guessed.  When the first trial back home showed it to be nearly 100 miles distant, the still-sealed box was reluctantly consigned to a bookshelf where it languished for several weeks.  Eventually the couple did set off with maps and pencils to solve their daughter’s puzzle, but as they drove deeper and deeper into the New England wilderness they became increasingly perplexed about what she might have in mind.  Then suddenly they arrived.  The location seemed such an unlikely choice: a dilapidated old mountain resort where the family used to ski when Jess was a young girl.  They hadn’t been back to this place in decades; why here?

But great quests don’t lead to random destinations, and ten weeks and thousands of miles after he first unveiled the strange birthday box, her father discovered significance of this one.  In the shadow of the old lift, he slowly opened the lid to reveal… three beautifully preserved old photos of him and a happy seven-year-old girl skiing hand in hand, a pair of decades-old ski passes carefully extracted from a family scrapbook, a sentimental letter thanking him for being such a constant and supportive father, and finally, lift tickets for two.  Jess’s mother reports that they both burst into tears as they digested the box’s contents.  It was an experience that neither of them will ever, ever forget.

And this is why I continue to be fascinated by this project.  If a bit of technology and some inventive thinking can create experiences so moving and unforgettable they make 65-year-old men cry, well, I want to be a part of that.

The "Seattle" box in action

Commissioned boxes being tested

Have you got a Reverse Geocache quest story to share?  An idea for one?  Please send me a note.

Happy New Year.  It’s going to be a good one.

Susan's new ring

I. Seattle

Some pretty exciting news came my way last September.  My friends at Groundspeak, the international geocaching organization, wrote that their Reverse Geocache™ Puzzle Box had recently facilitated a young coworker’s wedding engagement!  (You’ve encountered this very box in an earlier post.  I built it to celebrate geocaching’s tenth anniversary—the first commission I ever did.)

So how does a puzzle “facilitate” an engagement?  It’s a marvelous idea that goes something like this:

Wedding bells in mind, the presumptive groom acquires an engagement ring and hides it in a puzzle box.  He configures this box to open at a secret location he knows to be meaningful to his admired one, preferably a place with some deep significance or other fascination to the couple.  This might be the tree outside her dormitory where they first kissed, the cafe they visited on their first date—these are real examples!—or perhaps a dreamy five-star hotel in the Seychelles.

Without any extraneous explanation, he casually presents his beloved the sealed box.   Through a series of distance clues, its trademark blue display gently coaxes her towards the magic destination.  If all goes as planned, her beau steps from the shadows, bouquet in hand, just as the ring is revealed, compounding her amazement and affirming exactly what that dazzling ring implies.  Tears flow, and a lifelong memory has just been created.

In this story, our aspiring groom, Justin, chose the back yard of the beautiful new home he and his bride-to-be were moving to for his hoped-for betrothal.  Just 4.4 miles away, this selection may seem tame and uncomplicated compared to the year-long, 150+ mile adventure my French friends slogged through.  But even small quests sometimes take unanticipated turns.  Justin reports that after he handed over the box, Hailee complained that they were far too behind in their packing to engage in “some frivolous hide-and-seek” game.  She suggested he return the box to the company break room “to let someone who wasn’t so busy play with it”.  For some days his plan seemed about to fall apart, but he did finally overcome her reluctance, and happy tears did ultimately flow.  ”The box was open, and I had the ring in my hand,” he wrote, “but only after I asked ‘Hailee, my best friend and sweet darling girl, will you marry me?!’ did she really grasp what had just happened.”

Adrian's Box

II. Sydney

Justin’s happy note concluded with an interesting and curious question. “Are we,” he asked hopefully, “the first couple ever to get engaged with a Reverse Geocache?”.

As it turns out, this was a surprisingly difficult question to answer.  Just two weeks prior, I had shipped an Engagement Ring box to a young man in Sydney with a very similar vision.  Adrian, the aspiring Aussie groom, conceived the idea that sending his Susan on a short puzzle box quest near her home in Cootamundra might make his forthcoming proposal that much more irresistible.  (For those of you not familiar with Australian topography, Cootamundra is about 90km northeast of Wagga Wagga.)

Following up with him afterwards, I learned that this adventure had also turned out happily.  In the shadow of a famous local monument, so he told me, Susan had opened her box and responded with an emphatic and delighted ‘yes!’.  (Could anyone say no?)  But the question still remained—when did the actual engagement take place?  Was it earlier than Justin’s?  I had to grill both grooms for details, and the results are surprisingly close:

Adrian (Australia): “…just before 1:00pm on the afternoon of August 20th“.
Justin (Seattle): “…at 8:05pm PST on August 19th“.

At first glance, it appears Justin’s engagement wish came true.  But of course New South Wales is not in the same time zone as Washington.  Not by a long shot.  In August, it’s 17 big hours ahead, and factoring that in yields a tasty little surprise:

The first two couples became engaged within ten minutes of each other—more than 7500 miles apart!

This amazed and delighted me.  I did a double- and then a triple-check.  It seemed too good to be true, but it was.  The two engagements really did occur perhaps even as little as five minutes apart, though sadly not in the order that Justin had hoped.  I had to tell him that he and Hailee had missed being first, as it were, by that much.

And that’s when things got really interesting.

Justin wrote back:

Well since it was that close…you forced me to sync my iPhone up to my computer so I could substantiate my claim with a digital timestamp.  When I said 8:05pm in my previous email, I was actually reading Hailee’s analog watch in one of the first few photos I took of the ring.

Attached you’ll find that I have a photo of the final button press at 7:56, and the first photo I have of her with the ring on is 8:01pm.

Amateur forensics: the iPhone timestamp

This brilliant bit of digital forensics pushes Justin’s estimate back between four and nine minutes, meaning… what?  Well, Justin and Hailee got engaged sometime between 7:56 and 8:01, and the best guess for Adrian and Susan is “a little before 8:00″ [Seattle time].  Can we call it anything but a tie?  I think not.  And, as Justin so nicely puts it…

…either way, it’s pretty cool that we were probably down on a knee at the exact same moment on the other side of the globe!

Mikal

Care to add your name to our email list?  We’d love to have you:

And if you have any good puzzle box stories to share, I am avidly collecting them.  There are some remarkable and moving tales out there of people who have proposed marriage with rings hidden in puzzle boxes or traveled thousands of miles to reach a certain memorable destination.  It makes my skin tingle to think of them!

Meanwhile, here are a few answers to some frequently asked questions:

1. Who is that kid in the magazine pictures? 
That’s my nephew Nate.

Nate hunting for "the magic spot"

2. Are you selling these puzzle boxes?
Yes, I built a number of them on commission in 2010 and plan to continue streamlining my processes to make them more affordable.  There are lots of new commissions and exciting puzzle box games planned for 2011.  If you’d like to commission one, they make fantastic wedding or engagement or graduation gifts.  As I’ve told many people, a carefully planned puzzle box quest can yield memories that last a lifetime.  Read over the website and contact me at mikal <at> arduiniana.org.

3. Can you help me build one?
Sure.  Building your own puzzle box is a rather complex task, but ultimately can be very rewarding.  To help out people who think they might like to try, I’ve posted some instructions and a skeletal sample of some source code that might get you started.  If you are building a box using supplies similar to those I mention in the article, another huge timesaving device is my custom Arduino shield PCB.  I have a few extra of these and am selling them to DIY’ers.  I strongly recommend using a custom shield.  It saves a lot of headache and makes for a much tidier, compact design.

Reverse Geocache™ shield (populated)

Mikal

• Inheritance from the new Arduino Stream class and commensurate interface adjustments (added peek(), changed signature for available())
• write() member is now public, following the lead of Print base class
• support for Arduino Mega and Mega 2560 — thanks Brett Hagman!
• new listen() mechanism for switching between Rx instances
• renamed the library “SoftwareSerial” in anticipation that it will soon replace the native library

Note: Not all pins on the Mega and Mega 2560 support change interrupts, so only the following can be used for RX: 10, 11, 12, 13,  50, 51, 52, 53,  62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69

Download NewSoftSerial 11 beta

Mikal

The Anniversary Card

[Author's note: This post is the last in a real-life story that ultimately took a full year and four chapters (1, 2, 3, 4) to tell. Read them all, then browse through the other surprising puzzle box stories that have popped up along the way.]

The Box Opens
The big news we’ve been waiting so long for has arrived.  Nearly a year late, my friends finally opened their last wedding gift – the very first Reverse Geocache™ Puzzle.

A year’s a long time, so let me refresh your memory.

Last autumn I flew to Paris to attend my old college buddy’s wedding.  In my suitcase I carried a curiously carved wooden box, a container I had constructed for the couple’s wedding present.  To add a little spice to my gift, I outfitted it with a GPS and some special circuitry that prevented it from being opened anywhere except on a certain romantic island far away in the English Channel.

The gift was delivered with no explanation about how it might be opened.  Indeed, I never revealed anything at all about it – not even that opening it was the objective.  The box itself was their one and only source of clues.

It didn’t provide many.  When you press the silver button on a Reverse Geocache™, the little blue display tells you basically just one thing: a distance.  Theirs read simply “Attempt 1 of 50: Distance 391km”.  If you find this unsettlingly insufficient, well, you might not be cut out for puzzle quests like this.

When I got back home I wrote an intimate article about my funky little wedding present.  Over the next few weeks I watched with amazement as hundreds of thousands enjoyed the sentimental story of the wedding gift that couldn’t be opened, on my site or in the dozens of newspaper articles, conference presentations, blog postings and podcasts that sprang up afterwards.    Suddenly it seemed alarmingly likely that my friends would simply stumble upon one of these before they had a chance to unravel the puzzle themselves.  It was exciting to guess what would happen.  Could the Internet be trusted to keep the “big secret”?  Or would I one day get a note telling me that the whole adventure had been sadly spoiled?

That note never came.  Instead, the other day I received the following casual reply to an unrelated email:

Funny that you chose that moment to write, because as it happens I was then in Bréhat with a certain mystery box of hand construction among my equipage.  As designed, once properly positioned, it opened with very little ceremony.   Christèle and I were both touched by the contents and hope to make use of the Firebowl and Marble Slab certificates later this year.  The Ishiguro books might be good for the next road trip.  But the real fun, as you guessed, was the puzzle itself.  There’s some pretty cool and clever design in that little box!  I was happy to see that you’d designed a backup power option into the thing, but you’ll be glad to know that it didn’t end up being necessary, even after almost a year of waiting. – Chris

 Not necessary”?  Ha!  If you’ve read my original article, you’ll remember that just hours before handoff that “backup power” proved vital in rescuing the accidentally sealed box.

Dropping the Bombshell
The box finally open, there was little need for any more secrecy.  It was finally time to drop the bombshell and tell my friends that their wedding gift was world famous.  Here’s how it worked out.

About this time I had been preparing a presentation on puzzle boxes for the World Maker Faire in New York.  Knowing Chris planned to visit Texas shortly afterwards, I commissioned a giant “Happy Anniversary!” card from my daughter which I brought with me.  As people streamed through my booth at the Faire – and the experience of watching their eyes light up as I told and retold the story of the magic box is worthy of an article of its own – I asked them to sign it just as if they were best friends.  When you read all the wonderful things people scribbled in and around Rachel’s ornate “Happy Anniversary Chris and Christèle!”, you realize people do think of themselves as intimate friends and supporters of this young couple.  We all do.  There is something about how this little box resonates and plays with people’s emotions that is quite subtle and fascinating.  It draws them together and changes perspectives in ways that I am still at a loss to completely understand.  Grant McCracken expressed it well when he wrote that “[…discovering the puzzle box] is as if something has operated on the tumblers of consciousness.  Something seems to click.”

And so, at a cozy table at the Firebowl Café back in Austin, our year-long saga finally ends.  It’s one of those wonderful October days that Texans look longingly forward to all summer – sunny and clear but crisp and evocatively cool.  When we meet – for the first time since his wedding so many months ago and miles away – Chris looks puzzled, perhaps a little apprehensive.  This is understandable.  I’ve asked for this lunch meeting to tell a strange story – a story, I’ve advised him, which will require “about an hour” of his undivided attention.

It took nearly two.  His response was just what you’d hope and expect: surprise and amazement yielding to quiet delight, and finally the inevitable series of questions and suggestions for how the magic of the puzzle box might be kept alive.  Before we parted, I unrolled the delicious anniversary card on the tabletop.  I got word from France some days later that his wife Christèle, astonished at finding herself the unwitting center of our story, was particularly delighted by the card and the outpouring of happy wishes from a bunch of crazy American strangers.  Thank you, Rachel, for drawing it.  And thanks to everyone at Maker Faire who took the time to sign it.  I think it will be something our friends treasure for some time, right up there on the shelf beside the famous elephant box.

Thanks
Thanks also to Nathan Seidle and the great people at Sparkfun, who have been extremely supportive of this project from the very beginning.

And thanks to all you on this mailing list, too.  It’s the terrific support and feedback from you all that keeps that “magic” alive.

Next time I’ll share some of the amazing quests people have been putting together with commissioned boxes.  Stay tuned!

 Mikal (at) arduiniana.org

"Fretwork" - an October commission

As you may have read, the nice people at Groundspeak dropped by to interview me about the Reverse Geocache™ Puzzle. These were the folks who discovered afterwards that I had hidden their dinner — actually a gift certificate to a local Mexican restaurant — in one of my “elegant black” puzzle boxes.

We had a nice chat, during which they made me traipse around on camera in that field west of the Pennybacker bridge as if trying to solve one of my puzzles.  Afterwards we all went out again for good old Central Texas barbecue.  (We like to eat around here.)  It was a fun couple of days.

When their video was finally published on Groundspeak, I was very pleased.  It’s just so cute and wonderful.  What do you think?

Thanks Eric and Reid!  You did a great job.

Mikal

PCBs

This winter I began developing a new specialized PCB (“printed circuit board”) that greatly improves reliability and shortens build time. What this means is that it no longer takes me several days to create a new box, so those of you who were hoping to get one soon might actually be able to!

The latest revision of the Reverse Geocache PCB

The new PCB has enabled me to build a number of samples. Large, small, ornate or restrained, they are all fun to build, and each has its own unique charm. Check out these samples:

The "Painted Indian"

The "Elegant Black"

A second-generation "Elephant"

The handmade "Engagement Ring"

MAKE Magazine article

In March I was contracted by MAKE to write a feature-length article on the Reverse Geocache™. It was a surprising pleasure to write down my experiences with puzzle boxes and to recreate amazing tale of the very first one (which still isn’t open, by the way…) Look for the article to appear in print in the Fall (October 26^th) issue! (Edit: it actually came out in January, 2011.) Here’s one of the photos I took. That’s my nephew Nate solving a mini-quest using one of the “Elegant Black” boxes.

My nephew on a mini-quest

Travel Advisory

During Spring Break I took one of my “Engagement Ring” boxes to New York to show at the Arduino developers’ conference. On the trip I learned what (and what not) to do with a box at airport security. With the box stashed in my carry-on luggage, I jammed up the Portland (ME) security line for about five minutes and was subjected to some rather serious grilling. Once things quieted down, the security chief confided sternly that I was lucky my box was empty. Had any “mass” been detected alongside all those wires and electronic components, he warned, it would have “shut the place down”!

Trouble at the Airport

Lessons learned:

1. It’s probably not a good idea to send your friends on a quest that requires air travel. Don’t put them into the position of having to bring a suspicious box they can’t open onto an airplane.
2. If you do travel by air with a puzzle box, leave it unlocked in your checked luggage and remove the batteries. (This seems to work for me.)
3. (From the security chief) If you have to carry one through security, first remove any contents and the batteries, place it open on the conveyor belt, and alert the security officials beforehand.

Puzzle Box Movie?

While in New York I had a telephone meeting with a couple of guys who work at a Hollywood production company. They are actively developing a studio pitch for an adventure film based on a mysterious puzzle box that appears in the lead character’s mail. Wouldn’t it be fun if such a movie gets made?!

Mini-quests are fun

Towards the end of March I gave a short talk about my boxes to a crowd at SXSW (South by Southwest) and afterwards sent members of the audience on little mini-adventures to nearby bars and restaurants. One of the great (and frankly surprising) things I’ve learned is that while the first box was designed for a long, romantic adventure, it also works great for tiny ‘treks’ to nearby destinations with modest “treasures”. A short quest to a bookstore or restaurant is easy to put together and great fun for all ages.

Interview with geocaching.com

In April a video crew from Groundspeak (geocaching.com) flew down to Austin to interview Richard Garriott and me. A new website they’re building in honor of the 10^th anniversary of the first geocache (5/3/00) will include about 20 short videos detailing great geocaching stories, of which mine is apparently one! (Garriott is most famous for having paid $25 million to ride the Space Shuttle in 2008, and while aloft hid a geocache on the Space Station.)

After we wrapped up our interview I surprised the crew with a fully armed puzzle box filled with candies and a gift certificate to a Mexican restaurant. They had a blast using the box’s guidance system to lead them to the restaurant, and of course, being plenty hungry after their lenghty search, were pleasantly surprised to discover its contents. If you want to see the route they took to get there, here’s the Google map generated by the box. Eventually, I hope to make it possible to publish any adventure this way.

Eric and Reid's Dinner Journey

The first commission

The last bit of news is that in May I mailed the very first commercial puzzle box to Seattle, fulfilling a commission from Jeremy Irish, the president of Groundspeak. I was actually a little sad to see it go. It was one of my pretty “Engagement Ring” model boxes, designed to comfortably hold a small payload in a felt-lined interior.

Commissioning a box

As I mentioned, I have started building commissioned boxes. If you would like one, I will build you either an “Engagement Ring” model for USD $699, or the “Painted Indian” model for USD $549 plus actual shipping. The “ring” boxes are handmade by my talented artist friend Andy Myers (see his website). The “Painted Indians” are funky modified World Market boxes.

Here’s what you’ll get:

• A handmade Reverse Geocache (requires 2 AA alkaline batteries)
• A one-year warranty
• (Free) Windows configuration software to program new destinations, greetings, number of attempts, and sensitivity radius.

Each box has its own serial number and password, which you need in order to reprogram it. There is already a backlog, so please be patient. I’ll mostly fill requests in the order received, although I know some of you are hoping for boxes for particular events. When you send your request, please send the date you need it (if any) and I’ll try to work that into the schedule.

I appreciate any feedback you may have. Thanks for being part of this fascinating community; I’ve received such interesting emails and letters. I particularly look forward to collecting more great stories of your own quests.

Alas, it wasn’t the famous box that opened – that one is still sitting sadly on a Parisian bookshelf, waiting patiently for its newlywed owners to transport it to their romantic island. No, the box that was solved is the black floral-patterned one from a brand new collection of prototypes I’ve recently constructed. These new models have features that improve on the original without damaging its charm or mystique.

The "Black Floral" prototype box

The new designs sport a discreet USB connector that provides the emergency “back door” access – for those that know the secret password. As the owner, you can open and close the box to your heart’s content and program your own destinations. When your recipient finishes his/her puzzle box adventure, you lock up a new “treasure” and begin another!

I was privileged to be in attendance at the big event, and when that little internal motor whirred to announce the opening, the car erupted with cheers. The experience taught me something interesting. I learned that besides hobbyists, geocachers, romantics, puzzle collectors, and artsy geeks, another population thinks puzzle boxing is pretty fun – kids!

The claimants to the title are in fact children — our two and one of their school friends. Here’s what happened.

I sealed a $20 bill in the “Black Floral” and programmed it to open at P. Terry’s, a slightly chic burger joint not too far from our house – 1.71 miles, in fact, according to the blue display. I modified the greeting to read “Your/dinner/is in/the box!” – customizing messages is another thing the owner can do – and handed it without a word of explanation to my 11-year-old son.

P. Terry's

Well, my kids know what to do with a puzzle box, and soon a van full of youngsters was motoring about town hunting for their supper, yours truly acting as silent chauffeur. As we drove, I discovered that young folks take a vastly different approach to solving this kind of puzzle. Most of my adult readers like drawing circles on maps and performing calculations vaguely suggestive of what we call trilateration, but kids seem to have little patience for pencils and compasses. They prefer to just drive, drive, drive – repeatedly pressing the button and changing course when the distances start increasing. This semi-random-walk technique can quickly get you stuck on a dead-end street in the “wrong” part of town, but I have to say it’s no less exciting than the scientific approach.

After a few faulty turns and considerable head scratching, they finally found their dinner. At one point in the adventure we actually stopped at a light immediately opposite P. Terry’s. I thought the gig was surely up, but even though the display read “Distance 163 feet” – just barely outside the 150 foot radius I had set – the kids still managed to fritter away 20 more hungry minutes navigating a parking lot half a mile further down William Cannon Drive.

Now that I’ve experienced the dual joys of building and delivering Reverse Geocache Puzzles, it’s very nice to actually get to play with them. Today my little nephew Nate was looking a bit forlorn, so I put a tiny toy in one of the small maple boxes and sent him on his own private mission. To boost his spirits I personalized his name into the greeting – “Hi Nate!/ Can you/open the/box..?”. He’s not yet eight, so I just sent him to a neighbor’s house about 600 feet away. When after a few minutes he came trotting back, Piglet style, “his” box open and treasure in hand, the smile on his face belied his happiness.

The Reverse Geocache continues to prove an interesting little puzzle with broad appeal. Whether it’s a romantic engagement-ring trek to the summit of the Matterhorn or a little kid’s 20-minute “adventure” down the street, solving one is a rich and joyful experience.

if (need_to_check_GPS)
{
  NewSoftSerial gpsconn(6, 3);
  ...
} // Object is destroyed/cleaned up here

Another useful new feature is the support for serial devices which use inverted TTL signalling — where “HIGH” is 0 and “LOW” 1. To enable automatic inversion, simply provide a boolean “true” as the third parameter in the constructor:

NewSoftSerial nssinv(3, 2, true); //uses inverted signalling

Could someone please test? I don’t have any inverse logic devices.

Many thanks to Garrett Mace and Paul Stoffregen for their contributions!

Update: Please upgrade to version 10c.  10b was a defective posting.

Mikal