For Paul "Froggy" Schneider, manager of facilities and teaching labs in the department of electrical engineering and computer science at the Case School of Engineering, hide-n-seek has reached a new level of play-one that focuses on the global community, exploration and sport, he said.

Schneider is a big fan of geocaching, pronounced "geo-cashing," a new high tech sport where players combine a hand-held satellite navigation tool with a passion for back-to-basics outdoor hiking and hit the road in search of hidden treasure.

Geocaching can involve a search for anything from a dollar bill to a random object, according to Schneider. Those who hide the treasure post latitude and longitude coordinates along with difficulty ratings and hints about the treasure's location on Web sites like Schneider's own Froggynet.com or geocaching.com, which is the "official" Web site for geocaching. On these and similar sites, those who locate hidden treasure or "cache" can declare their finds in logbooks.

When geocaching, treasure seekers from anywhere in the world can obtain a topographic map of the location in order to find the closest access trail or can download satellite photos of the area where the cache is located. Coordinates for the hidden cache are manually entered into a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver and stored or downloaded using special software. Links to online maps of the treasure's location also are available online,

"Geocaching is an outdoor sport played all over the world," Schneider said. "Except for buying a GPS receiver, the sport is free. And since most GPS receivers don't work indoors, the hunts are primarily located outside and get people moving."

In 2000, geocaching got a boost after former President Bill Clinton directed the U.S. Department of Defense to turn off lower orbit selective availability on GPS satellites, which the military used to help identify physical location within two meters. Since the change, even a $50 consumer GPS receiver can bring a person within 20 to 30 feet of a cache.

While some caches take months to find and involve intricate puzzles and code-breaking, Schneider takes credit for one of the first simple geocaches in Ohio, which he placed at a hidden post in Cleveland Heights in 2000.

"My hidden cache has been found a few times," Schneider said. "It is a plastic container with odds and ends, and if you visit, you can take one thing. But you have to leave another thing in."

In addition to his geocaching hobby, Schneider oversees and maintains every non-research oriented computer in the department of CWRU's electrical engineering and computer science department in order to ensure the units are being used as intended. He also oversees the electronics store in the Case School of Engineering, serves as staff adviser for the Association Computing Machinery (ACM) and still finds time to study toward a master's degree in computer science.

Despite his busy schedule, Schneider said that he aims to provide undergraduate students with the computer culture he missed as a CWRU undergraduate student.

"I want to help provide undergraduate students with the opportunities I did not have as an undergraduate student," Schneider said. "I like to see students succeed and interact with each other. I'm here to help build a community with a computer culture that betters their undergraduate experience through good customer service and an effective management structure of the computing laboratories."

In 2000, Schneider and a group of CWRU staff and students founded The Geek Empire located online at www.thegeekempire.net. The Web site was created to facilitate growth and knowledge in the area of computer system administration, networking, Web development and other Internet technologies.

"It serves as a working project where students and anyone who is interested can learn how to start a company and keep it running," Schneider said.