Walk-rally support system using two-dimensional codes and mobile phones

‘Walk Rally’ (WR), an orienteering-like recreation game, is common, especially in Japan. Numerous trials to combine WR with educational activities are being carried out by some educators. However, participants are always at the risk of straying and subjected to various accidents during the WR. We developed a WR support system based on mobile phones enabled with a two-dimensional (2D) code reader. Our system can be adapted to the following two cases: (1) WR participants read 2D codes placed at each check point (CP) with their mobile phones. (2) Human checkers having a mobile phone at each CP read a 2D code printed on each WR participant's identification (ID) tag. The WR organizer's anxiety over straying participants will be eased because our system can continuously show the last check points at which each participant has checked in. In addition, our system can incorporate e-learning (m-learning) essences into the WR. We tested our system with three events, which included 100?600 participants. During these events, our system worked successfully. These results indicate that our system has enough potential to be used as a new type of outdoor edutainment (education + entertainment) tool with a better safety of participants.