Aren't you really tired of coming home, heating up some leftovers and watching the TV every night? Wouldn't you rather be part of something bigger than your routine? Involving your friends? A new event called Navigate the Streets promises prizes and serious ego-boo as well. Well, I thought you'd be interested being a Wireless Bandit reader and all.
I recently met Tim Shore, the organizer of Navigate the Streets, a fairly new event to Toronto that started in October 2003. NtS is a bit different -- it's a mix between a scavenger hunt for geographical locales and a foot race. This event combines the best of intellectual, trivia and physical skills. An example of the kind of skills required is available on Tim's Blog. It's not as easy as it may seem but looks like it is great fun. There are lots of strategies involved to figuring out each of the 10 locales that are hidden within the NtS clues.
The objective of the race is to answer all the word puzzles correctly which lead you to a geographic locale. Once you are there you and your partner must take a picture of yourself in front of each checkpoint with a digital camera or a Polaroid. You can only use your feet or public transit to get around but you can use one of 3 general strategies - wired (use phones and other gadgets to find answers and call your friends for help), wifi (use wireless to search for the answers) or old-school (use only paper, your social skills and your and your partner's brain to figure things out). If you plan the WiFi strategy feel free to use Wireless Bandit to find hotspots while you are looking for the next checkpoint. You are allowed to carry gadgets with you like laptops, PDAs and cell phones but you better have your batteries charged up.
Tim ran this event last year to the tune of 150+ participants. The winner was less than 1 minute behind the other 2 participants. The prize was $2000 to the fastest team. And this event is a fundraiser too. This year there are 9 cities where the event is going to happen with the Canadian championship happening in Montreal.
The event was inspired by similar events in the US and the rest of the world. This phenomenon of looking for stuff has gotten quite big. Tim wanted to create his own version in Canada, and he wanted to make it accessible to people that don't have thousands of dollars to train and spend on a high end race.
Everyone can participate, whether you are in shape or not because in the end it's about the strategy you plan to take and finding a the right answers in the least amount of time. It's a team building event as well as friendship - building event. And it taps into a primal need that all of us have to hunt, gather and bring back.
So go ahead... Join the race today... It's really a cool idea. I plan on doing it this year so see you May 16 in Toronto for the first event of this summer.
Wireless Access will be provided as follows:
- Vancouver - FatPort - 1 Month Free
- Calgary - Wireless City - All hotspots free for day of event
- Toronto - Spotnik - Free 1 Day Pass
- Ottawa - Bold Street - Coupon Available for Free Access
- Montreal - tadaa- Signup for 1 free Month
- Halifax, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Quebec City unfortunately as of this date have no wireless Internet arrangements
Subscribe to Feed (RSS 2.0)
Recent Comments