This one's going to be out of left field, but last Thursday I launched Countdown Treasure (https://countdowntreasure.com)
It's a real life treasure hunt in the Blue Ridge Mountains with a current total prize of $31,200+ in gold coins and a growing side pot.
I modeled it off of last year's Project Skydrop (https://projectskydrop.com) which was in the Boston area.
* Shrinking search area (today, Day 5, it will be 160 miles, on Day 21 it'll be just 1 foot wide)
* 24/7 webcam trained on the jar of gold coins sitting on the forest floor just off a public hiking trail
* Premium upgrades ($10 from each upgrade goes towards the side pot) for aerial photos above the treasure and access to a private online community (and you get your daily clues earlier)
* $2 from each upgrade goes towards the goal of raising $20k for continued Hurricane Helene relief
So far the side pot is $6k and climbing.
It's been such a fun project to work on, but also a lot of work. Tons of moving parts and checking twice and three times to make sure you've scrubbed all the EXIF data, etc.
love it, this is awesome!
did you do any math around predicting if 'donating' this gold to a treasure hunter would yield an even greater amount to hurricane relief?
Thanks! Yeah, I unfortunately can't shell out a straight $20k donation, but I saved the $25k over the year from my e-commerce business and justified it as a marketing expense if worse case scenario happens and it's found earlier than the math predicts. But if we get past break even then can't wait to write that check to help out the communities around here that are still recovering.
I don't know enough astronomy, but can the angle of any shadows visible via the webcam help narrow down the location?
Maybe some? But the circle today will be 160 miles wide or about the same width as Switzerland and Denmark. So I'm not sure how much shadows would help you pinpoint a specific location in an entire country worth of mountains.