[Az-Geocaching] 2002 Arizona Geocaching Survivor Game - Comments Requested

[Team Cache-Quest]

My son and I came up with this idea for a geocaching contest.  Before I
start it, I'd to see if the Arizona Geocaching Community would be interested
or have comments about the rules.

Basically the game is a series of caches where teams are scored and slowly
eliminated from the game.  We (Team Cache-Quest) would hide the caches and
organize the game, but not play.

We thought we'd start with two 'tribes', one for southern Arizona and one
for northern Arizona. That would give cachers outside the Phoenix area a
fair chance to compete.  Around mid-year the top contenders from the
northern and southern tribe would be merged into a single tribe for the
remainder of the year.

For each cache, points would be assigned based on the order the teams found
the cache. The lower the score the better. There would also be a time limit
on each cache.  If a team did not find the cache within the time limit, they
would either be eliminated or receive penalty points (depending on the
criteria for the individual cache).  I'm thinking there would be about one
cache every four to six weeks and contestants would have about three weeks
to find the cache.  That would allow people to plan around other activities.
Of course, the quicker a team finds the caches the better score they
receive.  Caches would vary in type and difficulty over the course of the
year.  Since the caches are short lived, there would be no exchanging
trinkets.

To make sure the caches associated with the game were not 'raided' they
would all have false coordinates except the first one.  I would list the
cache on geocaching.com and email the correct coordinates only to those
teams still in the game.   For the first cache I would hide one a northern
one and a southern one and teams could find those caches to sign up for the
tribes.  Depending on the number of teams interested in playing, we would
adjust the number of caches and how many and how fast teams get eliminated.

I'd appreciate any constructive comments on this idea and if you would be
interested in participating.

Thanks,
Jerry Neild
Team Cache-Quest