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Puzzle School: Lesson #2 Mystery Cache

Difficulty:
2 out of 5
Terrain:
1.5 out of 5

Size: Size:   micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:

The listed coordinates will not take you to the cache (although it will take you to an important location to gather details to solve this puzzle). You must solve the puzzle to obtain the coordinates which is walking distance from the posted coordinates.

This is a puzzle cache series. There will be a final exam!


Welcome to Puzzle School!



This series was originally begun by Mr. iPhone.Cacher and is being carried on in his honor.

We have enjoyed many of the puzzles that our geocaching friends put out. Some of them are easy, some have proven to be very difficult to solve. This series will hopefully show you many of the techniques used in geocaching puzzles in our area. This will be elementary at times, but it's more about helping those new to the sport to understand the techniques that can be used and how to get the ‘smiley’. Hints for each of the posted puzzles will come out sooner rather than later to help those that don’t know what to do. The goal of this series is to show those new to the community how some of the puzzles in our area can be solved. While the early puzzles will be quick work for some of you, for others that are stumped from the moment puzzles caches are posted, this series will hopefully keep you engaged and help you learn some new tricks.

Sharpen your pencils, sit down, class is about to begin.

Lesson #2 - Meet Michael (Mr. iPhone.Cacher)

How often have you arrived at a geocache location for a puzzle that indicated that 'everything you need to solve the puzzle is in plain sight' but you had no idea what to do? Many times, a geocacher will place a custom graphic known as a QR code to provide a link to a web page that provides the final coordinates. If you find a QR code at the cache location, use an application for reading QR codes to scan it. How do you find this application? From your smart phone search your app store for "QR Code" to find free applications that provide this functionality. Once you've scanned the QR code, can you find the coordinates? If not, class is about to begin.

What is a QR code? A QR code is a machine-readable code consisting of an array of typically black and white squares, used for storing URLs or other information for reading by the camera on a smartphone. Typically a QR code looks something like this:

Once you open the application for scanning QR codes, a square frame is provided and you need to focus on the desired code within the frame using the camera built into your phone. When you do this successfully, a web browser will open to the desired URL. In some cases, this immediately shows the coordinates, but in other cases (like here), you have to search on the web site for the coordinates. Now that you know how and what tools to use to find the answers, you should be able to get the coordinates for the final cache.
Perhaps you may also have learned a little bit about Mr. iPhone.Cacher along the way. Happy Caching!

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

Lbh jvyy arrq n "fzneg cubar" gb pbzcyrgr guvf chmmyr. N ovbtencul gryyf nyy.

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)