Judging

SFU Manhunt is a campus-wide game of hide-and-seek on Burnaby Mountain. Hiders and up to 3 seekers play on their iPhones, the play area shrinks over time, and every hider wears a wrist device we built with an Arduino.

How a round works

1. Lobby: the host creates a game, players join with a 5-letter code, and the host picks up to 3 seekers.
2. Hiding: hiders get a head start to scatter across campus.
3. Hunt: the seekers use pings to find hiders and tag them in person.
4. End: the seekers win by catching everyone. The hiders win if anyone survives the clock.

Game features

• Live GPS map: every phone shares its position in real time.
• Pings: every 3 minutes the seekers see all hiders for 30 seconds (the dots fade out).
• Faster pings: if nobody is caught for 12.5 minutes, pings come every minute. After 15 minutes they come every 30 seconds until someone is caught.
• Shrinking zone: an SFU-shaped border closes in stages toward a final point. Stay outside too long and you're eliminated (with GPS-error buffers so it's fair).
• Off-limits areas: roads and forest edges drawn on the map for safety.
• Tagging: a seeker tags a hider within 30 m, and the hider confirms on their phone.
• Safety: the host can stop the game for everyone and send them to a meeting point.

AI-placed powerups (hiders)

• 🛡️ Shield: you're hidden from the next ping.
• 🎭 Decoy: the next ping shows you wherever you choose.
• 🧭 Border Pass: leave the shrunken zone for 90 seconds (but not the original border).
• The placement AI scores dozens of candidate spots and picks the best one: inside the zone, away from the seekers, about 120 m from hiders so it's worth the risk, and spread out near campus landmarks.

The wrist device

• Hardware: Arduino UNO R4 WiFi, Grove Base Shield, 16×2 I2C LCD, button and buzzer, in a 3D-printed case on a strap.
• Screen: shows the game stage, when the ring closes and for how long, and how many players are left.
• Buzzer: buzzes when the ring starts closing, when a hider is caught, and when a ping reveals you.
• Button: tap to choose a powerup, hold to use it, with no need to take out your phone.
• Connection: it connects through the wearer's iPhone hotspot and syncs its clock with the game server.

How it's built

• Game app: a web app (HTML/JavaScript) that runs in Safari on any iPhone, with nothing to install. Hosted on GitHub Pages.
• Real-time backend: Firebase Realtime Database with anonymous sign-in and security rules.
• Map: Leaflet with OpenStreetMap, using a custom SFU Burnaby campus outline and landmarks.
• Device firmware: Arduino C++ over HTTPS (WiFiS3, ArduinoHttpClient, ArduinoJson).
• Case: a parametric CAD model generated in the browser, with an automatic fit check for every part. Open the 3D case designer

How the pieces talk

Built for SFU. Every number (ping timing, zone speed, powerup rate) can be tuned by the host in the lobby.