This November 4 & 5, The City of Hoover, Ala. and the Freshwater Land Trust will jointly present the Moss Rock Festival at The Preserve, a classic American neighborhood. TechBirmingham and the Alabama Geocachers Association (AGA) have partnered with the Moss Rock Festival to organize a geocaching event.

In the age of GPS geo-location technology and online mapping and satellite imagery software like Google Earth, a new breed of outdoor enthusiast has emerged that take part in hiding and finding geocaches (hidden containers with a logbook and perhaps some toys to trade) around the globe. There are over 348,000 geocaches hidden all over the world and currently registered at a popular website, www.geocaching.com. All geocaches can be found by using a unique latitude & longitude intersection coordinate that is entered into GPS receivers. Anyone can participate in the fun. Whether it is introducing people to a beautiful view you want to share, some thing or place unique or historical, geocaching is all about sharing places and information. This new technology has brought people together from all backgrounds for the hunt…old and young, families and singles, from techies to hikers to businesspeople.

There will be four introductory sessions from 11am to 2pm, each beginning at the top of the hour. Participants will get a short presentation on the topics, (What is GPS?) (What is geocaching?). They will then head into the Preserve with a guide and a GPS, loaded with the coordinates for locating the various geocaches hidden there. Finding all of the geocaches will allow each participant to enter into special drawings, which will be held during both the morning and afternoon sessions.

There will be 4 sessions from 11am to 2pm, each beginning at the top of the hour. Participants will get a short instructional presentation, then head into the Preserve with a guide and the proper equipment, armed with the coordinates for locating the various caches hidden there. Finding all of the caches will allow each participant to enter into special drawings, which will be held during both the morning and afternoon sessions.

It is widely known & accepted that geocachers are not allowed to disturb the natural environment (i.e. digging is prohibited) during any geocache installation, which is why the festival is endorsing this new game. Geocachers ascribe to an ethic called Cache In Trash Out (CITO) which calls for them in organized group events and as individuals to collect and pack out trash found along the trails while geocaching. The AGA will conduct such an event Saturday from 8 a.m. until noon, when geocachers from all over the South will gather at the Preserve to clean along roadways and trails. There will also be a 24-hour Cache Dash competition to find the most geocaches from 1 p.m. Saturday till 1 p.m. Sunday. Anyone is welcome to join and play… it’s all free!

See http://tinyurl.com/juxrj for details.

On November 4 & 5, experience this new technology & game first hand at the inaugural Moss Rock Festival. With 18 geocaches permanently hidden within the 250 acre natural expanse adjacent to The Preserve neighborhood and festival site, what better way to explore this beautiful natural space? And it’s all FREE!

All visitors will PARK & RIDE to the festival. The FREE festival shuttle will run from the Hoover Met parking lot to The Preserve between 9:30am and 6:00pm. Directions to the Hoover Met: Take I-459 to Hoover/Bessemer exit 10. Go back under freeway. At 3rd light take a right onto Stadium Trace Parkway and follow signs to parking entrance – about 2 minutes. The stadium will be on your left.

Two other videos were made of our trip to New York City with the Conflux Festival 2006:

Want to play Urban Reversi this Saturday at the Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival and not already associated with the Catalyst organization??

It’s simple, sign up HERE. Be *sure* to click the Urban Reversi “interests” tab so we know you’re playing. Ask other members of your team, if applicable, to also sign up. If you are already part of the Catalyst faithful, drop an email to info@catalyst4birmingham.org.

Need to better understand the games of Othello and Reversi? Click here to play online. Don’t worry, though, because the game is more about having fun and the web pages will ALWAYS show you the available moves… just not the most strategic.

See you all on Saturday morning at The Harbert Center!

• THIS WEEKEND’S LOCATION // smack in the middle of SideWalk in the historic theatre district of downtown Birmingham, Alabama
• THE GAME BOARD // a six by six city-block area surrounding the Sidewalk festival
• THE GEAR // you, your (new) friends, and a few Verizon Motorola Q phone/devices
• THE REASON // to have fun and meet other fellow young professionals
• WHAT TO WEAR // something comfortable and good walking/running shoes… costumes are encouraged!!!
• THE REWARD // see your city in a new way

Gather at the Catalyst/Sidewalk table at 2019 4th Ave North in downtown Birmingham (the “Harbert Center” conference facilitiy, not the skyscraper)… registration and team assignments begin at 9:30am with gameplay kicking off at 10:00am.

If you have a Verizon Motorola Q (or other smartphone that can wirelessly browse the internet, has a built-in cameraphone and SMS capability), please bring it along… otherwise, we’ll provide the devices for gameplay.

Can’t make it? Watch the game as it progresses online via the web. Check back on the UrbanReversi.com website to view the gameplay!

If you can’t make it, then watch it on the web at 12n ET (11am CT) at UrbanReversi.com.

Urban Reversi is a location-based game blending a wireless broadband internet network, the coolest Internet-phones on the market, strategy, and performance art. Teams will traverse the urban grid of Williamsburg, improvising scenes suggested by an online random phrase generator. Digital images of the staged scenes will be uploaded to a server to win street intersections in a game modeled after the popular board game Othello.

“Birmingham’s tech-savvy workforce caught the bug last year when we turned our downtown into a digital playground, inspired by past urban games in New York City,” said Curtis Palmer, president/CEO of non-profit TechBirmingham. “It’s exciting to bring our game north out of the Deep South and share the game of Urban Reversi with the city that originally inspired it.”

The Urban Reversi game will take place within a six-by-six-block area adjacent to several of the Conflux festival venues. A map of the zone is available for viewing on the project website. Teams of 4 to 40 people are encouraged to play this free event at the Conflux Festival headquarters. Individuals showing up to play the game will be placed into teams. All the technology necessary to play the game will be provided, but individuals are encouraged to bring their own Motorola Q phones to expand the number of potential participants. There is no limit on the number of simultaneous players or matches.

Members of the Birmingham civic group, Catalyst, will help stage Urban Reversi. “This is a natural fit for us,” said Alan Hunter, founder of Catalyst and former MTV VJ. “We are interested in linking Birmingham’s civic-minded young professionals with opportunities to influence the world around them. This game and the effort in New York City takes our tag-line, ‘hip to be civic’, to a whole new level. With Urban Reversi, it’s now ‘hip to be tech.” The game will be staged again, next week, at the renowned Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival, in Birmingham’s historic theater district.

About CONFLUX Festival:
Conflux is a hub for contemporary psychogeography, the exploration of the physical and psychological landscape of cities. Conflux 2006 will feature a full program of events from Thursday through Sunday, with projects from over 75 artists from across the US and countries including Canada, UK, Spain, Germany, Finland, Sweden, and Australia. Events will take place at multiple locations in Williamsburg, with festival headquarters at McCaig-Welles Gallery, 129 Roebling Street between N. 4th and N. 5th Streets, where maps and a schedule will be available. All Conflux events will be free and open to the public. A complete schedule with event details and additional information is available online at http://confluxfestival.org.

About Urban Reversi:
Urban Reversi is a project of TechBirmingham, a not-for-profit entity focused on growing the Birmingham, Ala. region’s technology economy. Partners in the game include University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Game Development Club, developers of the game, and Catalyst, a young-professionals group making it “hip to be civic.”

TechBirmingham was formed in 2002 by the community to lead, support, and coordinate the start-up, attraction, growth, retention, and expansion of technology-based businesses, investments, and jobs for the entire Birmingham metropolitan region. For more information on TechBirmingham and its other activities, please visit www.TechBirmingham.com. For more information on Urban Reversi, please visit UrbanReversi.wordpress.com. A newsreader XML feed is available for the effort.