Aye, There Be Pirates

The Art of Manliness is a fantastic resource for men, with articles ranging from how to survive in the wild, to how to shave with a straight razor.

They also have great historical articles including 5 Pirates Every Man Should Know and Man Knowledge: A Pirate Primer that I will be using for this project.

I encourage everyone to check out Art of Manliness...it could save your life someday ;-)

Also, here is my first cut at the Pirate Map...where X marks the spot at Bridget Foy's

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Puzzle ideas

I saw some great ideas today on MAKE: for some challenging puzzles.

The first one is the Reverse Geocache Box that will only open when you get within a certain distance of a programmable set of gps coords. There is a display on the box that indicates how far away you are from the destination and you only get a certain number of tries to push the button and see if it will open. I also found this Instructable by Revolt Lab with the same idea

The next one is the Secret Knock Gumball Despenser that will only dispense a gumball when you knock the secret rhythm on the box. This could be modified to do any number of things based on the secret knock. It could even open a tree house door, but that's a project for another time ;-)

Also here is a link to the Destination Maps Pirate Maps Bing App. Also, here is a great link from Geek Dad that gives some great ideas about "antiquing" you map and a great little twist about hiding the real map inside a fake map.

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Elements of the Game

I've been thinking some more about how to craft these ideas into something formulatic to develop them further. the basic stucture of an adventure would have the following game elements.

A rich, detailed back story, puzzles/games/missions to complete, and the Big Payoff (the grand prize for completing the adventure)

I'm leaning toward the pirate theme as the first one to develop beacause it is a surefire hit with the 7 and under set.

I'm looking at the Barbary Pirates who were active in the MidAtlantic before and during the revolution. There was even a story that Ben Franklin was captured by them as he was crossing the atlantic on a return trip from Paris. That could be an excellent story to exploit.

Clues could be hidden on the Moshulu...or in the Independence Seaport Museum..

I need to research any barbary pirates known to this area and read more about what they pirated.

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More brainstorm topics

So basically im going to be brainstorming ideas for a while and then pick one that i fell i can develop into something of substance and then flush that out.

One thing that i'm rethinking is the 8-12 week length. I think it maybe best to stick in the 3-4 week range for attention span purposes.

Todays ideas are a ghost hunting theme....channeling peter venkman

And a dinosaur discovery adventure

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Location:S 13th St,Philadelphia,United States

My Idea

When i was a kid, i always had some sort of adventure going on. Whether I was being a special agent investigating some local neighborhood espionage, or emulating my favorite 1940's antiquities professor as i hunted down some mystical artifacts in the woods behind my house, there was always something cooking in my head that simply embodied childhood whimsy and imagination.

I'm now a few days away from 35, with a two year old son, Finn, and a one year old nephew, Felix. We live in south philadelphia, a few blocks from my sister, brother in law and nephew, and the boys will be growing up together as close as brothers.

So i my idea, which i have several years to develop and implement, is to put together a series of "adventures" for the boys to go on. Basically i'm thinking about a series of loosely structured activites that follow a storyline and involve some sort of problem solving or clue gathering that culminates in some sort of reward. I envision each adventure to last between 8 and 12 weeks, during the summertime, where most major activites would happen over the weekend with maybe some research activites that the kids could do on there own during the week.

Adventure Brainstorm

Since we live in Philadelphia, a natural adventure would have something to do with the american revolution, or have something to do with the founding fathers a la National Treasure.

Another idea could be a pirate treasure hunt a la Goonies. There is a Bing Maps app called Destination Maps that will sketch a regular Bing map into a pirate treasure map.

We could have an adventure that involves a 1920's bootleggers bootie.

Some sort of native american adventure.

A CIA cloak and dagger adventure...where one of the clues is handed to the boys at a Phillies game.

All of these ideas could have some great educational aspects if you involve some local history and be tons of fun.

Thats it for now.

Adam

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Location:S 13th St,Philadelphia,United States