SparkFun Partners with Jameson Koonce to Build a Treasure Hunt Around the Artemis Global Tracker
Wander the globe — or a 65-foot chunk of it, anyway — in search of "treasure," and broadcast your win via satellite.
SparkFun has partnered with computer engineering student Jameson Koonce to put together a rather more fun way for newcomers to get to grips with its Artemis Global Tracker hardware — by building a location-based treasure hunting game.
"This project uses the Artemis Global Tracker [AGT] to create a 'Treasure Game' in which the AGT will randomly select a position in a 20 meter [around 65 feet] radius (designated the 'treasure spot'), and the onboard LED will blink faster as the player moves toward the 'treasure spot' — winning when they find it exactly," the company explains. "In this way, the onboard LED will lead the player to the 'treasure spot.'"
Launched back in December 2021, the Artemis Global Tracker is a standalone development board, which links an Artemis Module to an Iridium 9603N Short Burst Data satellite modem, u-blox ZOE-M8Q Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) receiver, and a TE MS8607 pressure, humidity, and temperature sensor. At the time, the company positioned the board as allowing its users to "do an incredible number of things that used to be very difficult."
The problem with being able to do an incredible number of things, of course, is finding a place to start — which is where the company's partnership with student Jameson Koonce comes in, developing a project that uses the board's features to deliver a defined goal in the form of a simple interactive treasure hunting game.
The game makes use of the board's two main components: the user's location is tracked in real-time using the GNSS receiver, flashing an LED at a varying rate depending on how close the user is to the configured goal location. Success sees the satellite modem come into play, transmitting a victory message regardless of where the game is taking place — so long as there's a clear view of the sky, and so long as the user has paid the $17-a-month "line" rental charge for the service plus usage credits.
The project is detailed in full, including source code, on the SparkFun Learn portal; the Artemis Global Tracker is available for $399.95 before volume discounts, and needs to be paired with a suitable antenna and lithium-ion battery — bringing to total up to $484.35, using SparkFun's recommended component pairings.