Pict-O-Caches | Trip's GeoAdventures If there was ever a cache that everyone should try once, pict-o-caches would likely be near the top of the list. They take aspects of several different types of caches and join them together to make a cache that everyone can participate in and enjoy. But how do they work? First, we need to establish what they are… Pict-o-caches are a class on their own. Taking cues from multi-caches, on-site puzzles, and visual puzzles, these puzzles definitely require an observant eye. Let’s look a bit closer. Obviously, this image shows a brick wall, so you would want to scan for brick buildings. Examining the photo, you at least now that it is near a window. Now, you can be certain that this is the corner of a building, and along the roof. This is the overall idea of this type of pict-o-cache. But I said that this the above method is just one type of this style of puzzle cache. I have not actually gone after one of this method. Either method provides an interesting caching experience. TripCyclone
Printable Mazes Printable Mazes Here is a free PDF maze generator that can create mazes of various sizes and complexity, including pretty diabolical mazes that include 3-d crossings... Maze Options This form drives some of the options on the maze generator: Programming in PostScript When I was a student at Cornell I was a postscript fanatic. The Source The result is here: a little cgi/commandline program written in about 150 lines of python which takes advantage of the ReportLab pdf generation library to produce its output. If you improve the program, please let me know. Posted by David at October 10, 2006 11:11 AM Very cool. Roger mentioned over email, "If I make a maze 60x60 I get smoke :(". Basically that's because the maze code puts a 36-point margin around the edge of the paper by default, and throws an exception when a maze ends up being all-margin. So how to make really small mazes? this is totally awesome you should find a way to make a maze with the center as your goal Thanks for your program,too easy!
Gamestorming Think back to the last time you played a game. What was the game? Why did you choose to play? Was it a simple game like tic-tac-toe, or something more complex, like Monopoly, Scrabble or Chess? Or maybe it was a game of basketball? Did you play with friends? Games come naturally to human beings. This blog is about games designed to help you get more innovative, creative results in your work. Chris Brogan video review of Gamestorming: “Most organizations would welcome more innovation, a greater ability to change and a more fulfilling and fun culture for their employees. “If you are a business owner or manager who wants to look at things in a new way and sharpen innovation in your company or on your team, Gamestorming is an excellent resource for you.” “If you’re a facilitator, corporate trainer, a team leader or in a creative role within a company, I’d say that this book will be valuable to you and that’s it’s worth checking out. “This is a really smart book.
City Generator Gamification Blog What Makes a Learning Game? Good Questions to Ask Your Girlfriend Good Questions to Ask Your GirlfriendWelcome to Good Questions to Ask Your Girlfriend Asking great questions always opens up interesting conversation. If you can get them telling stories that relate back to the answers you will have endless good times. Strange Interesting Fact QuestionsDo you have any scars I don’t know about? What's your favorite animal? How many pairs of shoes do you own? You wouldn’t be caught dead being seen where? What is your favorite makeup item? Do you have any hidden talents? What do you have in your purse? Can you fake any accents? What's the first thing you notice about guys? Most hated chore on the household chore list? Name two things you consider yourself to be really good at. Which kind of kittens do you hate the most? Name two things you consider yourself to be really bad at. Ever had a membership in the mile high club? Do you like children? Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do under any circumstances? What personality traits do you like in a cat?
Psy et Geek ;-) How Brands Are Using Facebook Apps for Contests and Campaigns Background: Some time back I published a research paper about how brands are using Facebook apps for enhancing their CRM. In this post I would like to focus on the second value proposition that Facebook apps bring to brands – an amazing opportunity to run campaigns. I have been increasingly seeing brands using Facebook apps to give a boost to their marketing. Just as a reminder, in this post I am only focusing and benchmarking Facebook apps that have been used as marketing centric campaigns. Why brands are using Facebook apps for campaigns: Why brands prefer Facebook for marketing campaigns is definitely a million dollar question. Putting campaign where the crowd is – this is the most obvious reason. How brands are using Facebook for campaigns and contests Static content campaigns for awareness: These are probably the most explored type of Facebook applications. Apps for viral campaigns: These are again low engagement campaigns designed to spread a message, virtual product by fans.
Le Social Gaming arrive ! Les utilisateurs des réseaux sociaux qui n’ont jamais entendu parler de Farmville ou de Mafia Wars sont devenus rarissimes. Les Social Games ont su se faire une place confortable sur le Web en quelques années seulement. Mais que sont les Social Games exactement ? Si l’on se réfère à la définition anglo-saxonne : « Games that run on a social network and use that network to enhance gameplay between players ». En d’autres termes, ce sont des jeux au gameplay minimaliste reposant sur les réseaux sociaux, et qui associent les interactions sociales à l’expérience ludique proposée. Selon une étude du Cabinet Parks Associates de 2011, la moitié des utilisateurs de Facebook ont déjà joué à ce type de jeu et les utilisateurs actifs se comptent en dizaine de millions chaque mois. Quels sont les facteurs clés de succès du Social Gaming ? L’utilisation d’un gameplay minimaliste est le premier point qui contribue au succès du Social Gaming. Mais un gameplay seul ne fait pas tout. Du CRM au Social CRM
Octalysis: Complete Gamification Framework - Actionable Gamification - Quora Octalysis: Complete Gamification Framework Gamification is design that places the most emphasis on the human in the process. In essence, it is Human-Focused Design (as opposed to “function-focused design”). Most processes design around function and efficiency – they try to get the job done as quickly as possible. Even though many Gamification techniques were in use long before games were around, games were one of the earliest examples of a holistic approach to implementing Human-Based Design - so now we call it Gamification. In the past few months, I have been digging deep into the formulation of a complete framework to analyze and build strategies around the various systems of Gamification. I first started by digging deep into actual games that are Addicting - such as FarmVille and Diablo 3 – and picked apart the fun and addicting elements within them. In the end, I came up with a system that I feel is instructive, useful, and elegant. 1) Epic Meaning and Calling 4) Ownership and Possession
How Gamification Works - 3D GameLab Instead of courses consisting mainly of textbook learning and lectures, classes built using game mechanics such as badges, experience points, levels and leaderboards, boost student engagement by allowing students to choose from “quests” and progress at their own pace through a series of educational activities. Students are motivated due to personal choice and meaningfulness, real-time feedback, the ability to collaborate or compete, and over time, they learn stay persistent in learning due to prior successes. Quest tasks can range from listening to a podcast, collecting and analyzing real-time data, or watching a short video to partnering with a classmate for discussion or writing a short essay. More on Quest-Based Learning™, Dr. Understanding Quest-Based Learning™ Infographic on the Gamification Education
HOW TO: Use Game Mechanics to Power Your Business Shane Snow is a regular contributor to Mashable and tweets at @shanesnow. This post was co-authored by Phin Barnes, a principal at First Round Capital, SneakerheadVC and creator of the Xbox game, Yourself!Fitness. Before Foursquare managed to storm social media, GPS friend finders and city guides did in fact exist. Common game elements like points, badges, leaderboards, and levels are proven (and increasingly popular) ways to engage customers and encourage profit-driving consumer behavior. Trip Hawkins, founder of game companies Electronic Arts and Digital Chocolate, says that compelling games need to be “simple, hot, and deep.” Legions of online businesses are following this trend right now as they attempt to integrate game mechanics into their products. Many of the “games” being built in this flurry, however, are certainly not going to be fun. "One of the greatest risks is being unoriginal," says Gabe Zichermann, author of the 2010 book Game-Based Marketing. 1. 2. 3. 4.
Gamification: What it means and how you can use it A group of scientists were struggling to solve a thorny problem: They were studying the structure of an enzyme similar to HIV, trying to understand the stability of the enzyme. This is a very hard problem, and traditionally scientists used to run computer simulations to try out various structures to study how stable they were. Since there can be billions of different ways the structure could form, computationally this was a very expensive and very long process. This particular problem had stumped the scientists for over 15 years. Until one of the scientists had a brilliant idea: Evaluating the structure and the stability of the protein was a very intuitive task, something that computers are horribly bad at – but at which humans are very good at. And BAM. Every Product’s Dream This seems like the dream of every product: Getting users to do all kinds of stuff on your website without spending any money. Gamification has applications in lots of areas, including enterprise software.