Discussion: New Score O Version

I often have dreams about course setting before I set a course, most of them are that I haven't put out a control and it is 1 hour to the start of the meet. Last night I dreamed of a similar issue but there were BIG streamers that I had set out with the numbers on them. With little time, I figured that the score-O would start with everyone "drawing a control" and the first thing that they had to do was to place that control (they would get double points for that control because they might have to go a long way before they could punch any other). After they placed their control, they could go to others but, most likely all the controls would be placed before anyone started visiting the unplaced ones. If they did, I guess that would be tough luck.

Any thoughts as to this somewhat crazy way to set the course? Anyone brave enough to try it?

Everyone putting out a control would need to know what they were doing.

Have used this as a training exercise on camps before. Everyone places one control, then continues around the 'circle' in order before returning to the central start/finish. Can work really well as long as all in the group are confident enough to place a tape/control in the right spot.

It's great for minimising set-up for training. For an actual event, you might run into some issues, particularly if there are large variations in competitor ability and the possibility of making it to someone else's control before they have put it out.

I would be concerned about the unevenness of who sets what controls. If I as an elite runner draw the closest, easiest control to set out and someone novice draws a difficult control nearby I can almost guarantee that I would get to that second control first.

Perhaps if there's preregistration or simply in the 30 minutes before start you can go through the list of registrants and assign all the controls to the most advanced competitors. Give the hardest farthest away controls to the best and work down the list and this would act as a sort of handicap system.

Did something like this at a meet in Raleigh a few years ago. As I recall, everyone set a few controls, then at a specified time you could begin collecting points by visiting controls (beginning from wherever you were at the time), then at a later specified time you could pick up controls, collecting additional points for each control picked up.

At a Bare Bones a few years ago when we lived in Canada they sort of did the opposite to Peter's idea. They had the controls out from the two previous days and held a 60 minute score event on the 3rd and last day. After 45 minutes you could collect a control and bring it in and hence controls were randomly removed from the course. It made control collection simple and created some fun with people parked on a control waiting for 45 minutes and others running around trying to find controls that were still in place but had been collected. Best advice is not to take it too seriously if you try this or Peter's idea.

Similar to bshields suggestion, you could allow a fixed time (N minutes) for setting, at which time you could begin punching, starting with the control you set. No punch before that zero hour would count. Would require that everyone have a synchronized watch, or that the area be small enough for everyone to hear an air horn or the director's car horn announce the zero time.

Potentially, it could be explicitly allowed (or not) that once you set your control, you could (or not) use remaining pre-zero hour time to move yourself into an optimal starting position, eg at hardest or farthest control. Choosing where to start would add a little different element to a score O.

Lost_Richard's search and destroy suggestion is a fun way to pick up, and you can give extra points for each control collected. The one thing to watch out got in this is that people have been known to take down a control early.

MVOC (Dayton, Ohio) has an annual one hour night score O followed by a search and destroy to collect controls. Coincidentally, it is coming up very soon, on December 14.

For several years it was the way we ran many of our Wednesday evening training sessions at CNYO. Everyone who showed up had one control to set (we used regular control flags rather than streamers), then had an hour or an hour and a half to visit as many of the other controls as possible. Then we would split up retrieval operations afterwards. Of course, occasionally someone would put a control in the wrong place, but usually people were pretty understanding of this difficulty, and aware of the possibility when some less experienced people were showing up. I don't think we ever permanently lost any control flags as a result of the process!

I could see it even being a set route, and use Canadians suggestion of allocating hardest or furthest to easiest controls based on orienteering/running ability, then having to run back to the start to run the course in order. It would add extra mileage and time for those who can handle it, and the newer ones would have easier or closer controls, and then it's a sprint to the finish. I wouldn't see it being a specific race event, but perhaps at a club picnic or fun training night where you want to do something different (but have a race feel to it). [Perhaps the easiest/closest controls would have ribbons so that beginners could participate too, and it wouldn't increase the setup overhead significantly]