The NCWP Scavenger Box

Telling the story of the NWCP and the quest to find the wedding ring.

We see a lot of amazing projects at SparkFun. Four months ago I decided to make something for my wife as a present for our wedding. This concept ended up as the NCWP, the non-crappy wedding present. In the end, I created a device which used RFID and GPS to take us on a 300 mile journey across the state and ultimately to the place we were getting married. The whole journey spanned 3 days and included various RFID checkpoints that had to be scanned as well as specific locations which we had to visit.

One of the GPS locations

She was first presented with a locked metal box containing her wedding ring and her task was to find the key to open it. She had to use the NCWP and its various clues to track down the key that would unlock her ring. In the end everything worked as planned and we were married.

The completed NCWP

I wrote a lengthy tutorial that goes into the whole story in great detail. The idea was to use technology to create something special and memorable. I didn't want the focus to be on the technology, but the purpose of it. Technology is inherently impersonal and I wanted to use it for something very personal. SparkFun doesn't sell anything that is particularly exciting or interesting on its own. The ideas and projects that come out of these products is what's makes technology exciting. The human involvement and interaction is what can make technology special.

The happy couple

Thank you to the entire SparkFun and open-source community. I couldn't have done this without you. Hopefully something can be learned from my project. Everyone reading this should give themselves a pat on the back for making all of this possible. Thanks for reading!