Treasure Hunt on Open Street Map (OSM)

Photo by Petr Slováček on Unsplash

Petr Slováček on Unsplash

Introduction

OpenStreetMap is a free map of the world, created by an ever growing community of mappers. Anyone can edit OpenStreetMap. LearnOSM provides easy to understand, step-by-step guides for you to get started with contributing to OpenStreetMap and using OpenStreetMap and using OpenStreetMap data.

We will learn to edit the OSM and add to it features that are of our interest. These are usually reviewed by approved map-reviewers and if approved, become part of the OSM database.

  1. Fire up OpenStreetMap

  2. Create a login ID and login

  3. Hit the edit button at the upper left. Choose the Edit with iD (in-browser editor). Go through the short walk through.

  4. Create a new feature on the Map using the buttons Point, ( or Line and Area< if a specific building does not show up on the map. ) Give the Point a name and fill out the OSM fields that pop up at the left.

Activity: Treasure Hunt !!

Now that you are able to make ( small ) editions to the OSM Map, it is time to create your Treasure Hunt!!

  1. Let us form into two teams of 10 each. 7 people will be out walking and the remaining three will man the on-desktop mapping.

  2. Form a Whatsapp group for your Team.

  3. The Walkers will find specific interesting Points in the vicinity of campus, which are all of a similar category ( e.g eateries or hang out spots).

  4. Send the details over Whatsapp so that the Mappers can map these on to OSM, populating the fields based on your street-side observations.

  5. Come back to class.

  6. As a Team, create cryptic/poetic/literary/pun-based clues for as many of your Points as possible.

  7. See if the clues can create a sequence based on which one can traverse all the Points (nice to have, but not compulsory)

  8. Each Team will share one clue at a time with the other team. Figure out how !!

  9. The Team that first cracks all the Points and places a note on them on OSM will, ahem, get a prize. Yes, from me!!

Flexing with a couple of Examples

Try to crack these cryptic clues!

Some background for both: Think of a typical Apartment Complex, the standard “locations” and “features” within such a complex.

  1. So JRR Tolkien has a quiet car for Gandalf? I can half hear it…
  1. A sub-terranean address? Prime, prime location !!

References

  1. Learn OSM: Beginner’s Guide, https://learnosm.org/en/beginner/
Open Street Map Map Editing Feaures, Nodes, Ways, Paths
Next