It is 01.00 oxb4clock in the morning but this just can not wait.

Today (thursday 22 february) was a very big day for me. Today was a big aktivity of one of the projects I have been involved at Nxe4tverket SIP. Since January I have been planning this. What is it and for who you might wonder? Well I will all come to that. Just read on.

The project I have been involved in for this is called Mapping Vxe4xjxf6. This is an initiative started by 2 orientering clubs in Vxe4xjxf6, Vxe4rend GN and Vxe4xjxf6 OK. Orientering is a sport where you have to find your way to different locations, with the aid of a map and a kompass and perhaps GPS, usually in a forest. They have been thinking of what inspires youth people to exercise and sport more these days. How can you interest them more for sports. The youth generation of today have grown up with all sorts of technology. They know very well how to use it, they are used to it and they are interested more in something which involves technology like computers. This is how Mapping Vxe4xjxf6  was born. The idea is to incorporate technology more into sports so that the youth it is more interesting to them and more of a challenge.

My job in this project was to make this idea into a reality, by organizing the first activity, combining orienteering and technology. The idea of a treasure hunt really stuck with me, and i worked out a first draft of a game. But the most important thing was to find someone who could take care of the technology. Through Nxe4tverket SIP I came into contact with Ung Kommunikation, a 5 year project where they study the way the youth communicates with the goal to boost the digital competence of teachers and teacher students. A subgroup of Ung Kommunikation, AMULETS had done several aktivities with out door assignements for schools, using mobile phone technology. The technological part of these aktivities were carried out by  CeLeKT ( Centre for Learning and Knowledge Technologies). So I presented Mapping Vxe4xjxf6 to them, and they were very interested in collaborating.

This started it all. From then on it became a rollercoasteride, of thinking out the gameplay, the story, the technology in a lot of meetings. The final versions of the story and the game are like this.

The game revolves around the story of Teleborg Slott and it former owners, Frederik Bonde and Anna Koskull. He build the Castle for her. But not everything is as it seems, Bonde is always outside being very mysterious. He goes crazy and dies. Anna wants to find out what mad her husband crazy, and searches the grounds finds all these locations, codes and she spends the rest of her life looking for the answers to her husbands mystery. But she doesnxb4t find them, and she dies too. But her spirit says and is picked up by the Centre of Electronical Voice Phenomenon. One night in 100 years she can ask for help to solve the mystery.

To help Anna 6 groups of 3 people have to go around Vxe4xjxf6 Universtity campus with their specially modified mobile phones, with maps to find the codes at the locations specified by Anna. At the locations they have to answer questions or do assignments about Anna or Teleborg Slott to go on in the game. At the end location there is a treasure waiting for them.

We had everything worked out with, the technology in the phones, the design, the images, the flash, the props, the participants. The only thing we had no control over was the weather… Guess what weather it was. The whole day it was snowing like crazy, I was almost not sure we could do the treasure hunt.

Just in time it stopped snowing, so there was no problem to do the treasure hunt. Just because of the weather I think the turn out was not as big as we expected. But with a little shuffling of the groups we could go ahaid without any further delay. Once the groups were on their way we moved to the end location to wait for for the first group to arrive. I had arranged sandwiches and warm drinks for everybody to warm up again, after being out into the cold. The groups came in one by one, and the best thing is that once they arrived they went to a room where everybody else was, so no group knew their place until they had entered the right code.

Aside from minor problems with the props and the mobile phones the activity ran smoothly. I think everybody had fun even though it was cold.

I feel really happy now, and satisfied. This was THE big thing for me to finish with and I think I did a pretty good job. I know there are plans to do a bigger event in the summer and I hope I can be involved in it as well, even from the Netherlands. During my EVS here in Sweden I really found out that I like organising stuff, Events, trips, what ever. So I will definitly (how do you write that word correctly any way) look for a job in that department.