Discussion: Boulder Dash maps

Red course day 1 and day 2.

Map and not easy courses by Bob Lux.

Thanks for the prompt upload of the Boulder Dash maps. Congratulations for your runs...beating Balter (44) both days must have been sweet.

I'm noticing that the map links recently added to your website do not display when I'm using certain browsers, such as Firefox. Therefore the maps are unreachable, unless I open your website in Explorer or Opera. But neither of these browsers provide that nice magnifying cursor that Firefox displays for maps.

Have you changed something in your procedure for adding updates to your website since last January? Does anyone else notice this problem?

Thanks for posting (chitownclark, I use Firefox and did not have a problem seeing BoulderDash). Are results up somewhere yet? I didn't see them on the UNO page but maybe I was looking in the wrong place or they will come up soon.

They display fine with Firefox for me too.

Suzanne, I would be surprised if UNO posts them quickly, but with J-J providing them, they should be up this week, as soon as their webmaster gets to them. Patience... :-) No e-punch at this meet.

It was a great area and a great map. The courses were also well planned to make the most of the challenging terrain. Interestingly the long leg on Red Day 1 (6 to 7) was quite similar to the long leg on Red Day 2 (5 to 6), but in reverse. On Day 1 there was a path option, which must have been best. On Day 2 the path wasn't an option, and it became the hardest leg on the course.

No e-punch at this meet.
Not that that makes any difference in terms of speed of getting results posted. Results were ready last night (Sunday night) and emailed to the UNO webmaster, O/NA, and Rankings. (Okay, so they didn't really go out until this morning, but that's only because I spaced out and forgot the attachment on the email last night.) They'll be on the UNO website as soon as the webmaster gets a chance to put them up, which I'll guess is probably tonight.

It pisses me off when people rave about how epunching allows for results to be posted so quickly compared to pin-punching. Epunching has its advantages, but that's not one of them. We've been doing this since 1993, and we get results up at the meet site as fast as anybody, and ditto for getting them posted on the web. In a few cases, I've been able to get results on the web before dinner, depending on how easy it was to get things to the relevant webmaster. That said, I don't have any particular need to keep putting in the effort to work finish/results, and I'm perfectly happy to let other people take over. This could well have been the last pin-punched A-meet in the US, and it's no skin off my nose if that's the case. Just make sure you don't overwork Valerie and Sandy.

[I'm not angry at you, Janet, this is just an issue that has been repeatedly poking me over the course of several years, by means of snide comments from various people.]

To back up what JJ wrote, results out of Laramie--with JJ at the helm at Finish/Results--have always been up the same day (with possible exception of any night events, which usually haven't ended the same day they started.)

The Cote' homebrew results system is the fastest going in orienteering.

J-J, I will be the first to agree that you are as good at processing results as anyone I've ever seen, but I think you would agree that, on average, for one reason or another, results from meets with E-punch tend to appear on the web faster than those from meets without.

J-J, I know you're fast at producing results (we know well, as you were the main part of our results crew for EMPO's Long/Short champs meet in 2006). The remark I made about 'no epunch' was not meant to be related to the quickness of producing results and I shouldn't have put it in the same paragraph as I didn't mean to link them. I intended it as just a statement of fact.

I agree with others that you and your results team are as fast and accurate as epunch and am grateful for all involved in generating results as US a-meets. Thank you for your work this past weekend!

Boris, e-punch results can sometimes get on the web faster than other if the e-punch crew can post them to WinSplits. Otherwise it's all a matter of how busy the webmaster is and how fast he/she can get to a computer to post them, whether e-punch or not (and get the computer/server to behave). :-)

Results are posted as soon as the person (or persons) responsible for the results sees it as a priority to post them. It is completely irrelevant as to whether it is epunching or pin punching.

Please note that results with pin punching using the control-Z method are calculated within a half-second after the runner crosses the finish line. E-punching is much slower as you have to wait for the runner to find the download station.

Thanks, Nancy!

but I think you would agree that, on average

No, I disagree, unless by "on average" you mean stretching back enough years that you're averaging in the days before epunching when results went out in the mail.

Re: maps, I was wondering if anyone at the Boulder Dash besides me had problems because control circles obscured useful navigation information?

Maybe it's just me, but I could have used more visual information around control # 2 on the Green Y day 2 map. Also, I noted on Peter's map that there are many more rootstocks around my control # 9 than I perceived when looking at my own map. I was definitely happy the circle was cut at # 7!

USOF's rules state that the circles should not obscure important details. Maybe "importance" is in the eye of the beholder.

25.3 The control circles shall be numbered showing the required sequence. (Section 23.3) The numerals shall be printed with their tops oriented exactly toward North. The numbers shall be placed in such a way that they do not conceal important map features.

Oops, I mis-read the rules. Only the numbers need not obscure important information.

No question that the guy who prepared the maps (me) for printing could have done more in this regard to make things more clear in the vicinity of the controls. There are two things in particular that would help:
1) Breaking circles and lines that would otherwise obscure important details.
2) Rearranging the priority of the colors so that certain things (e.g. black and brown) print on top of the purple.
I do apologize for this, and note only that I got the map files very late in the schedule (four days before the maps needed to go into map cases), so I didn't have time to do too much before sending them off for printing. But on the other hand, that meant that the maps were better in other regards, because it gave Bob time to make last-minute adjustments. A trade-off.

On a barely related topic, regarding my own personal issue with the meet: did anybody else feel that the directions to the dinner were completely nutty?

My GPS didn't have any problems...

In general, I thought the printing was great and the timeliness of results was amazing. My results were posted by the time I was able to walk over to them, and I didn't waste that much time getting there.

No, the JJ results system is not lacking in timeliness. Or accuracy, or any of the other important stuff. That said, epunching is a really good thing for other reasons.

Rearranging the priority of the colors so that certain things (e.g. black and brown) print on top of the purple

Are you usin 0cad 8? What is the easies way to do it, if you use 0cad course setting mode and map is just a template?

JJ - which directions to the dinner did you follow - out onto I-93 to exit 14, or pick your way through town?

Since I grew up in Concord, it was just a matter of confirming which church it was (There's a lot of St XXXs in town). Oh, the one right next to the state house - fastest way is up the interstate, then get through all the damn lights.

I remember when the entire Exit 14 interchange consisted of a traffic rotary, instead of the traffic light every 50 feet - yes, a rotary on an interstate. This is NH after all.

pin punching using the control-Z method

Can someone describe this in more detail?

Control-Z is a macro/shortcut J-J & team use when doing the results. If I remember correctly, he uses an Excel spreadsheet, and control-Z is set up to record the finish time from the computer's internal memory.

J-J, over the course of compiling the results of over 150 sprints in the course of the last nine months, it became very clear to me that clubs that use e-punch get results to me A LOT faster than clubs that do not. And yes, of course, it can go slowly with e-punch too, but I am just stating what I have seen.

OK. Hard to imagine that there's any causality involved, but if that's what you're seeing, then that's what it is.

Finding the church next to the state house would have been no problem if that was all the information that we had. But we used the directions in the meet packet, which as far as we can tell had two turns that were the wrong way (L vs. R), one turn onto a road that has a different name at that point than what the directions said, and one place where it was sort of ambiguous what you were supposed to do. Plus there was one fairly important street sign that might have been rotated 90 degrees, I'm not sure. What they were trying to do was take us up to 89, down to 93, and then up to exit 14. We were smart enough to override the bogus information, and got there without much trouble.

Control-Z is a finish/results system for use with pin punching that employs an Excel spreadsheet with a handful of macros, and these days we print results using a Dymo label printer. It was originally written in Lotus 123 in the early 90s by Charlie DeWeese and me, and it has slowly evolved over the years as Nancy Koehler and I used it in meets held by various different clubs (I eventually ported it to Excel). Since everything is in a spreadsheet, there's all kinds of flexibility to handle weird stuff. It's called "Control-Z" because the first macro we wrote (on the airplane en route to the first 1000-Day!) which captures the finish time, we assigned to the keystroke ctrl-Z because it's easy to hit with one hand. Later on, ctrl-Z became the standard in Windows for Undo, which is occasionally a minor problem .

It pisses me off when people rave about how epunching allows for results to be posted so quickly compared to pin-punching. Epunching has its advantages, but that's not one of them.
It's a matter of manpower as well as number of competitors. A quick look at the start lists for the event in question show ~200 people, for which there may not be much difference in results processing time. However, come across the pond and try out the JK for size - about 3000 competitors over 2 individual days of competition, plus relays and a sprint race. Not only are results online before dinner, results as they come in are usually updated live online if there is enough mobile reception. Before e-punching, it took a results team of 20 or so people to check and sort out all the punchcards, now it takes 3 or 4 people on download computers. I know what I'd prefer if I were put in charge of results...

No question that epunching offers advantages when an event is over some certain size. No question that epunching offers advantages (in terms of punching) when the weather is cold and rainy. There are various other advantages as well. For events of the size that we have in the USA, it is completely unclear to me that epunching offers any advantage in terms of effort/manpower, or speed of getting results up. Although there's definitely less effort on my part when epunching is used (because somebody else handles it), and I'm not going to complain about that.

hmmm... and to think that all I wanted to know was how my Dad ran:)

Speed of results generation is not a question of e-punch or not e-punch, but whether the time recording process is automated or manual, whether by e-punch or JJ's program, or any other system. Automated time recording will always be faster than copying hand written timesheets into an electronic file for posting. Events not using JJ's program are perhaps still using a stopwatch and a tick sheet to record their times, hence the delays in posting that Boris is observing. And as nancy observed, having the results ready for psoting and actually posting them are two different things.

New England terrain is still very challenging for me - which is why I flew out to the Boulder Dash (while Zan is running around in Turkey, Italy, Sweden, and Fran is teaching in St. THomas VI). However, I am pleased to announce that my performance was good enough that it had no effect on when results are posted :).

Actually, on Day 2 I lost contact with map only once (to #3 on Green X); but reading map, footing, and conditioning precluded me maintaining a pace more than a couple times. Very challenging courses - well done.

I agree that it was a great meet and worth the trip for me to go across the country (Sorry, Tony). We just don't have that type of terrain in California, and it was very challenging to say the least. I thought I was doing poorly during the first day, but when I got, back, it seemed like everyone was having problems. Unfortunately, they improved the second day and I didn't.

The map had an incredible amount of map detail, which I am sure was necessary for this detailed terrrain. However, I had a hard time reading the map, even at 1:10. A portion of that is probably my increasing presbyopia and not helped by forgetting my orienteering glasses as I dashed to the start on Sunday when I realized it was 9:05 instead of 9:15 .

The map was obviously a labor of love by Bob Lux. He said he had spent 360 hours of field work, and another 180 hours on the cartography. Of course there are some minor nitpicks, but on the whole, I thought it was a tremendous job.

The courses were extremely challenging. Even though there was a fairly extensive path network, the path was rarely the best option, which I always feel is a sign of good course setting.

As far as JJ's results, they are superlative, and cannot be topped by anyone, EP or not. The main thing I miss from not having EP is the ability to see everyone's splits. And of course, JJ is exceptional. No one in the US can match his performance in getting out the results as fast and accurately. The average results crew at an A meet does not have JJ's experience or routine down. And, somebody eventually has to check the punches, which is another advantage of EP.

Great job UNO.

But if we had EP at the Boulder Dash, we wouldn't have experienced Ross' smiling face as we handed in our punch cards, telling us what a great job we did (even if it wasn't so terribly great).

Unlike impersonal EP, Ross was very apologetic and sympathetic when he had to DG someone for MP.

it is completely unclear to me that epunching offers any advantage in terms of effort/manpower or speed of getting results up.

I agree with the speed of getting results up. I can't see how epunch might help with it. You can have online web results just like with with epunching, you just might have to accept there may be some DQ results viewed as qualified for some minutes.

But I can't agree with the manpower issue. As we see it epunching saves a lot of manpower compared to pin punch. Both in big and small races and training events. Amount of saved volunteer work is the biggest reason why it is used in all possible events here.

The biggest advantage is during the race day. So the peak of the effort needed is much smaller. It is usually difficult to get lots of people to volunteer on the very same day. With epunch it is not needed so badly. Also workload during last two-three days before the race day is a lot smaller, no need to prepare the pin punch checking things. Just put units to forest several days before the race so there is many days time to do test runs and all necessary checking. On race day morning you just check units still are there.

Of course you should check once a year there is no dead units, but you need to do some checking and maintenance work with pin punches too.

As I see it reliability / fairness issues are the epunching's disadvantages, not amount of needed volunteer work.

Pin punching is not used here almost at all because of the extra effort needed. The other choice for training events is no any punching at all.

Jagge: But don't you think that e-punching has divided the O-community into Have's and Have-not's?

As a new e-punch-capable club this year, we here in Chicago are seeing a fall-off in our attendance at local meets. And we surmise that the fall-off is because the increased technical element: new orienteers don't like our e-punching.

They can no longer grab a map and punch card and go...now they have to pay money for an e-card, and learn the drill for back-up punching, etc. They have absolutely no interest in individual splits when they're doing 30minute k's, all they want to do is find the finish line. When coupled with the complexities of learning to use the compass...well, it just becomes too technical for many people, when all they really wanted was a nice walk in the woods on a Sunday morning.

How about Finland? You poor Finns with your E-mit system right next to big Sweden with its SportIdent system...do you think you're seeing as many Swedish orienteers at your meets these days as you did back in the days of pin punching? Are you guys even discussing a common system?

Edit: Replace "poor" with "independent"

Oh no, do not get Jagge started on EMIT vs. SportIdent!!!! :) :) :)

Um... clearly things in Finland are very different than in the USA. The issues you list about how pin punching requires more work simply don't apply the way we operate here. The only place where we require some extra work with pin punching is that somebody has to check punchcards when people finish, but that's a job that requires no orienteering skill, and anyone can be recruited to do it. At every other point in the process that I'm aware of, epunching requires the same or more work. The way we do things in the USA, anyway.

No, no, no, Boris no.... SportIdent is these days just as easy and light to use as Emit. There is no any significant difference any longer. Old SI units was different story. If you don't think so, read this:
http://www.orientering.se/ostergotland/files/%7B7A...

EDIT, this is the page I ment:
http://www.orientering.se/ostergotland/files/%7BF0...
Everything I mentioned should apply to SI as well as Emit. Some people still believe it takes lots of effort to use epunching, but it is not true any longer, no matter what brand you are using.

fall-off in our attendance ... they can no longer grab a map and punch card and go

Some may see it that way for a while. But if the rest of the O world feel epunch is more fun after all, why not in Chicago? If it is such a big problem, let them run without epunch (you still have pin punch for back up) if they like. If they are doing 30minute k's they don't mind if their finish time isn't so accurate either.

Swedish orienteers at your meets these days as you did back in the days of pin punching?

About as much. Jukola has always been the only race Swedes were used to run and they seem to go there no matter what punch system is used. I guess it is the boat trip...

Are you guys even discussing a common system?

No. We already have common system in Finland. And even better, we can use it in Norway too. And there is already enough SI sticks around here, so borrowing one for a race in Sweden hasn't been a problem for a long time.

...why not in Chicago?...

Well the average new orienteer in Chicago is an overweight guy in his 30's, with kids, who may have finished high school, maybe not. Perhaps his wife is with him and sits in the car, while he and the kids are out in the forest. Afterward they'll have a picnic nearby. The orienteering is only a prelude to the food.

I think we have to appeal to these people, not just the few tech-head geeks that are able to break away from their computers for a couple of hours, so they can go out and collect another database. We have 8 million people within 45-minutes of our meets...but our attendance these days is less than 100. We used to attract 300+.

epunching requires the same or more work

Maybe it was like that with old SI units. But not if you use new units and use them as Swedes described in my second link. You never change the code (re-program the unit), you just sometimes set the time right with Time Master. So you get rid of all unit programming work. And batteries last for years, so no need to change them too often either.

So where and what is the extra work?

Units are a little bit heavier and bigger than pin punch units, so there is bit more to carry, but not much. You plan courses with Ocad/Condes anyway (?) so you get all necessary course data (correct codes for each course) for result system automatically (some result software do it "on the fly", so you don't need any data). You plan the course with ocad/condes, export files to result system, put units to forest well before race (clack drifts only 1 sec per week), and get them back after the race. If SI card number has to be filled in on entry, so no any extra work needed there either.

With pin punch you need check punch cards - a lot of work - and usually push a button every time somebody finishes. And make sure all the time you haven't pushed too many or too few times and you get competitors finishing order right. It was a lot of stress. All that is not needed with epunch.

the average new orienteer in Chicago is

I guess it's same everywhere.

Pin punches require no software ever. The punch is already tied to the control, and you never change the batteries in them ever. And you don't have to deal with distributing and getting back the rental finger sticks. The new SI units may be better than what the clubs in the USA are using, but the ones we have appear to require some maintenance, and I don't know how soon they'll all be replaced.

Pushing a button when each person finishes isn't a big deal when you have only 200-400 competitors. Neither is checking 200-400 punch cards. One person required for each. From what I can see, epunching or Control-Z each requires a person on the computer who has some expertise.

But as I said, I'm not complaining. SI requires a lot less effort on my part (i.e. none), and I expect that most or all significant meets in the USA will be using it from this point forward, and that's fine with me.

This is so fascinating.

Regarding software and pin punching... ctrl-Z seems to be only defined in the context of software. Dispensing with software altogether for results calculations and checking control codes is something I have a lot of experience with. I find it quite quixotic to venerate this.

Anyway, the Chicago experience is really interesting. It never would have occurred to me a priori that there would be a negative correlation between epunching and meet attendance.

I'll let the stats/econ guys out there tackle that one.

All I will say (as an outside observer) is that the notion of running around in the woods and stopping at orange and white bags to take a little do hickey and find a box on a paper card you are carrying around and "punch" it seems at least as ridiculous and arbitrary and contrived as any serious alternative I've seen.

Apologies for ony offense.

You seem to be able to handle finish much more efficiently than we used to do. For 400 - 500 competitors race we had something like:

- a button person
- a person for keeping finishers in right order after finish line
- a person or two for taking away punch cards and keeping them in right order and writing a number on each card and getting them to the computer user
- a computer user, types in the competitor number from punch card.
- a person for checking button press count, card count and backup timing count match. He also may take cards to the person or two who do the card checking.
- two persons for backup timing (clock-paper-pen method)
- one fore taking care of results prints etc
- some reserve persons, so everyone can have a break.

10 person crew wasn't unusual. Today Jukola can be easily handled with that crew, including check-in bar code readers, check-out and all.

Pin punches require no software ever. The punch is already tied to the control, and you never change the batteries in them ever.

This used to be Emit's advantage. You can't do any programming even if you would like to. You can't change batteries, you have to buy new unit if battery is dead. There is no clock inside, so there is no need to set time. And the epunch unit is already tied to the control, you never take them away. For us is just a piece of dead plastic just as a pin punch. All you can do with it it punching. But as said SI is almost as simple to use these days, so no big differences any more.

Rental stick issue is good point. I forgot that, renting one is so rare here.

Most "B level events" for 50-300 person (training events) are done without any computer at all, so no computer skills needed during the event either. There is events organized like this almost every single day in Helsinki area - except wintertime of course. Usually one person handles it all, but he/she may have some friends to chat with. But some use a laptop - you get results to web a little bit faster faster if you do it that way.

As a new e-punch-capable club this year, we here in Chicago are seeing a fall-off in our attendance at local meets.

I'd be really amazed if something as minor as having to use an e-punch turned people off from orienteering. Have people actually expressed that this is a negative? I think many clubs have seen a recent decline in participation, without incorporating e-punching... so, causation or just coincidence in Chicago?

DVOA continues to do a manual punching/no software event of that size every year for scouts. It is a great event but we need at least that many people for finish/results. Without the computer, the jobs are different than what Jagge describes.

Needless to say, it takes some effort to get those results posted.

This weekend, at any given moment, we had:
- One person hitting the button and also typing in bib numbers (happens at the same time, the button is a key on the computer)
- One person dealing with the cards -- the competitors drop them in a box, and this person takes them out, looks for changes (such as changed start time or changed category), and checks the punches. Sometimes we had a second person helping out with this.
- One person taking the printed result labels, sticking them on cards, and bringing them over the hill to post them on the results board
- One person with a watch and a clipboard writing down numbers and times as people finished in case something went wrong. This is something that has nothing to do with what the primary results system is, and during the times when there were few finishers, it was the same person who was dealing with the cards.
- Although we didn't have one this weekend, we also like to have a person who just stands around to deal with problems that come up, such as asking people not to sit down in the finish chute, keeping people moving to where they hand in their cards, getting first aid for anyone who comes in bleeding, etc.

... so, causation or just coincidence in Chicago?

Well we really don't know. We're scratching our heads, trying to decide why attendance is down this year. So far we only put out SI boxes on the advanced courses; the WYO courses have pin punches. But that division only serves to stratify the membership: Haves and Have-nots. Our surmise is loosely based on occasional comments heard at the start/finish areas.

I think many clubs have seen a recent decline in participation

If orienteering attendance is falling generally, has anyone tried to anyalze the reasons for the drop-off? I suppose we could send out questionaires to people who attended just one local meet during a season, asking why they never came back. But I'm not sure we'd get the real answer. After all, why would anyone question a technological advance?

But one way or the other, a lot of people are no longer spending Sunday mornings with us.

Sounds a bit risky. You need to have a person with very good skills to do that computer task. What if it comes a big group of people and you cannot see the bib number or bib number is lost and there comes more people so you don't have a time to check? But I guess you have your ways to handle these issues.

How people carry the card, how can they just drop it in a box? We had to have people with scissors to cut those strings they used.

---

I ran Last sunday ran a typical training event, ~250 people. They had one person for selling maps. I had to write my name and brick number to a list, then I got a card and I had to write my name and course on it. The start was unmanned, I could start when ever I liked. At finish there one man using MTR-4 unit, he asked me to take two split time prints with a tiny thermal printer. I got one, and he took the other one and stapled it with the card I got when I bought the map. He gave it to a second man who stapled it to the result board (a string). So three persons did it all, map selling, registering, start, finish, results board. They didn't have a computer there.

After the event back home someone read the MTR-4 data to a computer. I think they have a database of brick numbers and runners, so they checked and corrected if there was changes and then posted results to web.

Of course you can't do it like this in any serious competition, but this works well for these training events. Sometimes they have about 1000 runners and it works fine, they just have a second person for selling maps.

I think that only serves to divide the membership into WYO vs. advanced. Some people have compases, some people have orienteering shoes, some have ecards, some have GPS, etc...

None of which, to my knowledge, you need to own to do orienteering. You can do without them or I hope rent them from clubs as needed. Now, the ecard may be the proverbial straw, but I'd be surprised. Otherwise, I think this a case of buried statuary.

You need to have a person with very good skills to do that computer task.

Yes, her name is Nancy. But we've trained others to do it as well.

We also had once a "Nancy" who was working as cashier. She could hit numbers so fast and accurately there never too many runners finishing at the same time.

Some people have compases, some people have orienteering shoes, some have ecards, some have GPS, etc...

... some people have pink and green suits with blue pants...

Chitown - if only the advanced orienteers are using EP, then how could this be limiting turnout at events? Our club is also new to EP (~2 years ago). If anything, we've had a slight increase in turnout since the switch despite the accompanying 60% fee increase due to the rental - from $5 to $8. If the attrition you are seeing is not a simple statistical fluctuation, I'd suggest looking elsewhere for its cause.

Around here, kids absolutely love EP (hey, look, I won leg 7, how cool is that?) and I think its actually easier to teach and use. I guess your club is not using EP on beginner courses because of possible theft. I admit, we have lost two epunches in two years which isn't great of course, but when you consider that about seven events a year are park-O's where almost all of the controls are right out in the open, that's not too bad or surprising given that really no precautions have been taken. Really the only problem with epunching that our club has had is that there are so few people who are willing to learn how to run the computer (so far, three!). If none of this core group were to show up at a meet, we'd almost definitely have to revert back to paper punching.

PS My first ever meet was at Deer Grove a few years back.

one way or the other, a lot of people are no longer spending Sunday mornings with us.

Hmm... I see your club web page says most meets take place Sunday morning. I assume you're aware that this immediately eliminates a significant fraction of your potential audience.

Clubs in this area seem to have settled into splitting their local meets roughly 50/50 between Saturdays and Sundays. And start windows are typically either 11-1 or 12-2, which makes it possible for folks with morning commitments to still make it before starts close. Have you considered trying this?

splitting their local meets roughly 50/50 between Saturdays and Sundays.

About 10 years ago we tried this for one year. Found we'd get the "Saturday" people at one meet, the "Sunday" people at another. And of course a few dedicated orienteers who would show up to seek any bag in the woods, on any day. Our conclusion was that Sunday usually out-drew Saturday: more orienteers were shoppers or had kids' leagues. So we went back to all-Sundays, all the time, realizing that a group of folks wouldn't be able to come to our local meets.

But once that decision was made, we felt that the rest of our audience probably had more time on Sunday morning than on Sunday afternoon. So we start people from 10-12, and are picking up the bags by 2pm. Do you think that is too early? Remember, Chicago may be in the CST zone, but tries to synchronize with EST, from our TV schedules to our business hours. We're more "early to bed, early to rise" out here. I think proof of this scheduling is that we get 70% of our starters between 10 -11; by 11:30am our Registration team is standing around killing time.

I personally prefer Saturday, since public transit runs earlier and more frequently than on Sunday.

If none of this core group were to show up at a meet, we'd almost definitely have to revert back to paper punching.

You should be able to use SI and get results without a computer. We would have to go back to pin punch too, if we always would need to have computer and a computer skilled person around. I think we have two persons who can run the it with computer.

Around here, kids absolutely love EP (hey, look, I won leg 7, how cool is that?)

I guess parents in the midwest are more protective. When our registration team suggests to a parent that they allow their kid to go into the woods by themselves, you'd think they were proposing child abuse.

At best, we get groups of kids, only one of whom has a map. Granted, we should develop a program for kids, with training sessions, etc. But despite many requests we've been unable to recruit a volunteer for this activity.

A couple of years ago a very nice Swedish family joined our club. The teenage daughter was an excellent orienteer, and as a new arrival to this country, wanted to make friends...orienteering friends. She tried bringing school mates to orienteering, and they looked at her as tho she was really strange for bringing them. So she tried publicizing an orienteering "club" for kids in families of CAOC members, and got exactly zero interest. So despite the fact that she was an excellent orienteer, and had appeared blonde-headed in a field of golden hay on the cover of ONA, she dropped out of the sport and joined her American friends in their activities. And we haven't seen her since.

Chitown - if only the advanced orienteers are using EP, then how could this be limiting turnout at events?

I don't know. I was merely asking if anyone else had considered that EP might be dividing orienteering in the U.S. into Haves and Have-nots...and making some people feel excluded...or less interested.

I admit to being a closet Luddite: I question our head-long rush towards technology in every aspect of our lives. I used to like the simplicity of orienteering and am sorry to lose it: show up at a meet location at dawn with a bag full of nylon controls and maps, and by 10am you have a fun sport for dozens of people.

So far we only put out SI boxes on the advanced courses; the WYO courses have pin punches.

Put SI out on the White course (beginners and young juniors), and then on the advanced courses if you have enough left over. In Calgary, the beep-beep has been a fun element for our juniors, especially the very youngest. (Beeping boxes have little to do with navigation, but keep the very youngest as interested as the older ones.) The junior program ended up getting its own complete kit, in order to have it for every event.

One sometimes-orienteer who has frequently done results for major orienteering events remarked on how much less work was needed for finish and results with e-punching, compared to pin punching, at our first e-punching A meet in the summer of 2000. He said he was able to do finish and results for the whole event single-handedly, while simultaneously baby-sitting a few young pre-orienteers. E-punching also allows for easier, less fallible starts.

But, I'm not so bothered either way. E-punching is nice, but not essential to my enjoyment of orienteering. Use crayons and milk jugs if you like; I'm keen on a nice day in the woods (or dunes, or fells, or...) with a map.

So we went back to all-Sundays, all the time, realizing that a group of folks wouldn't be able to come to our local meets.

Ok, but if your attendance has dropped from 300+ to less than 100, then maybe it's time to reconsider your scheduling options.

Well there's probably a lot of things we could try: advertising, fee reduction, greater effort to welcome beginners, etc. But I don't think it is scheduling: we've been following the all-Sunday schedule for ten years, and the attendance decline has occurred only recently, during the same time-frame that we've introduced epunching at local events. Hence my initial statement that epunching doesn't seem to be universally popular, and perhaps makes some feel excluded.

The idea I've liked best from this thread so far was JimBaker's: expand SI to all course levels, and don't worry about the cost of stolen White controls. I've gotta admit, such a move would tend to reduce the number of Have-nots, one way or another: either they'd buy/rent a stick and join in the fun, or turn around and leave, never to return.

Electronic timing seems to be pretty popular at road races these days, and that involves taking a weird chip and attaching it to your shoe, which I find kind of annoying... but I don't think anyone turns away from a race because of it. Of course, it's a little different because it's "fire and forget" - there's no punching or anything. But the other difference is that generally the timing chip is included in the price.

Perhaps, instead of charging a rental fee for the e-punches, raise all the prices and offer a "discount" if you have your own... This makes it feel more like just part of the process to use e-punch, especially since I imagine most local, casual orienteers do not own their own.

Chip timing at road races is commonplace around here..usually at larger races. But those guys with the snips at the finish line are like hawks; last week they cut through my shoelace and grabbed the chip before I could stop them. And I'm always amazed that they don't expand the capability of that system by, for instance, placing a timing mat at every mile and providing splits.

But a nice aspect is that if you own your own chip, there is a central database of all your races for the season. I wonder if SI has thought to provide such a database for orienteers?

instead of charging a rental fee for the e-punches, raise all the prices

Hey, I like this idea. Does anyone else do this? We've had $5/$8 entry fees for a long time. With our declining turnouts it may be time to make significant adjustments in our fee structure.

regarding results posting speed...
Martin Flynn in Ireland has developed a system where, using his event management software, it only requires one click after the event to upload results to the Irish orienteering website, another to post them winsplits and a third to splitsbrowser...

so now we have a central results database for all races in Ireland...

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chitownclark, I'm not sure your advertising is directed in the right direction if you are only attracting overweight, uneducated 30+yo guys who don't like e-punching.

I assume not all of the 8 million people who live within 45 minutes of your events fall into this category, so why not try to dissuade the stupid, fat men from coming?

;p

Be careful Neil, especially if you're coming to the Blues Ramble in October. You've just insulted the majority of the fan base for the Chicago Bears and Cubs. :)

After so many years in the USA I am still amaized that orienteering is being promoted as a recreation to majority of population (and to scouts). It is sport and I don't see overweight amateurs playing basketball or soccer much around on weekends. Instead I see more groups of fit persons engaged in a play.

In my opinion we should do more in promoting sport's fitness and challenge sides. Our recruting base is people who are not "physically challenged" and like to exersize brain as well.

overweight, uneducated 30+yo guys who don't like e-punching

But this is the majority of our population in Chicago.

Unlike the Bay Area, or Boston, or Washington D.C. or other educated centers of the U.S. Chicago has been a blue-collar city of poor immigrants from its very inception as a canal port, steel center, railroad hub, and grain stacker...much more so than most other American cities with their Carnegies, Mellons, Rockefellers, Stanfords and Saltonstalls. The Gilded Age never reached Chicago: few wealthy people wanted to live here. But, for a large part, suburban white flight never took hold here either...the people were too poor to leave after WWII!

As a result, an ethic of anti-elitism pervades Chicago: we're a city "that works!" Look at our Mayor Daley. In office for almost 20 years and still can't parse a sentence. It may have taken him 8 tries to pass the Bar exam, but he's remade this city into one of the urban jewels of America, on many levels.

He's an example of the type of guy who shows up at our meets. No nonsense, hard-working, anti-elite, but loads of native intelligence. How do we recruit that guy as a dedicated orienteer? I'm not sure you want to give him an e-punch on top of the map, cluesheet and compass.

He'll show you what you can do with that dauber....

Two data points from the Chicago person selling and renting sticks as well as manning the EP computer for most meets:
1) I have only heard one complaint in two years of ePunch use.
2) The number of competitors on the green and red courses (which use ePunch) has increased. Many runners moved up from orange.
One opinion from this friend of Clark:
1) Clark has strong opinions regardless of their factual basis.

To me, it is absurd to suggest an e-punch unit is a symbol of elitism, or that disdain for e-punch units correlates with the quantity of gilded-age industrialists and similar personages in the local area's history. JMHO :)

And BTW, to answer Sergey, I don't see a problem marketing sports and exercise to overweight people. I lost 30kg, and thank whoever marketed it to me. Fortunately, for my health, they weren't so narrow minded.

I shouldn't post on this thread... I know better.

But if we are going to argue based on anecdotes and hearsay with some undistributed middles thrown in...

Philadelphia in many circles is regarded as a blue collar town. We don't have a "gold" coast. We aren't a major financial center or home to two exceptional universities (we do have one.)

Anyway, Boston has lots of great universities and brahmins. We don't got any of those. New York has lots of wealth, culture, and class. With all apologies to my firends in both those places, it seems as if it were the case that these things predicted orienteering interest they would have far more orienteers than DVOA does. I think it is not close.

I know the Chicago arguments are porbably tongue in cheek, but it doesn't hurt to ask serious questions if we are interested in serious answers. Let's leave the windmills alone.

Apologies for the bandwidth being used for this philosophical discussion, but just a couple of last responses if I may:

2) The number of competitors on the green and red courses (which use ePunch) has increased. Many runners moved up from orange.

True enough expresso. And I don't mean to be unappreciative of all the work you personally put in to bring epunching to our club. But the question remains: where are we losing our attendance? I think it is the beginning classes that have shrunk, particularly the YO classes. And I don't think any of us know why.

But I'm suspicious of the timing of this decline and the timing of the club's introduction to epunching. Don't you think it is possible that these Y and O people don't feel welcome anymore? That the focus is all on the epunchers now? Kinda like the walkers at a 5k road race; they pay the same fees, and walk the same distance: does anyone make them feel included after they finish?

it is absurd to suggest an e-punch unit is a symbol of elitism...

I know the Chicago arguments are porbably tongue in cheek

Well put randy and j-man. Perhaps that was a stretch. Without any facts, I've just been submitting ideas. I don't mean to be negative or argumentative. Please don't take my SI card from me out in Cobb: I like epunching, and look forward to beating evancuster on at least one leg.

But I'm sure there are other old-timers like myself that worry that the sport of orienteering is being co-opted by the techno-geeks. We can remember a time when it was a sport populated more by athletes and outdoors people: people who just wanted to experience the joy and elation of running, in control, through the forest on a sunny morning.

Clark, I didn't take it as you being unappreciative. I just felt that the numbers would clarify the point you were making (and it has).
I agree that we are losing numbers on W,Y,O but there are many plausible explanations. Could it be our lack of marketing? We used to put flyers in many of the running stores and publish our events in all the local sporting event rags. I don't think that we did either this year (but I could be wrong). Could it be a symptom of a societal shift away from outdoor activities as the Nintendo generation reaches their mid-20s? Could it be all the cicadas and mosquitos coupled with the hot and humid weather that we seemed to have every meet?
Finally, I'd venture that most all of us techno-geek sport co-opters experience the same elation running through the forest on a sunny day (or even through logging trenches full of water, swamps and slippery lichen-crusted rock over two weeks worth of rainy days ;-).

surely epunching is simpler than control card punching. There's only one instruction, put the card in the hole and wait for a second. Same thing every control...
With the control card, you ave to look for the right box, punch, make sure the holes are visible, if not then punch again trying no punch in the same place so the whoe thing doesn't become a mess... then there are the correction boxes...

if i were an stupid fat thirty year old i know which i would prefer :)
(hopefully in three years time there will still be epunching!!)

hopefully in three years time there will still be epunching!!

Everybody says that epunching is here to stay, but I doubt it. E-stuff is like, so 1990s. Surely it can't be long before it gets replaced with iPunching. But I have no idea how iPunching will work, or I'd try to get in on the ground floor and make some money from it.

Well, it will probably involve punching using your cell phone and/or mp3 player (sorry, iPhone or iPod), I would think. It will definitely be a proprietary standard and cost twice as much as the existing technology, yet somehow everyone will still get excited about it.