Virtual / Social Permanant courses

[Paul Frost]

Following on from the 'Future of Sport' thread.
RJ made a good suggestion about using Strava to create a segment that was in fact an orienteering course. Then you could compare times with others, and as long as you kept the control locations very obvious features you wouldn't need physical markers.

The problem is that the maps in Strava are nothing like good enough to see people's routes, so it's just the times you can compare.

RouteGadget can do something very similar and have the benefit of using proper Orienteering maps as a background. We set up such a virtual event on the Clydeside Orienteeers website a while ago, and whilst it wasn't taken up much it was a proof of concept. The key thing is how to promote it to a wider audience.
One of the problems with a RouteGadget solution is that it can be a bit fiddly to place your uploaded GPS track on the map as it's not geo-referenced. The increasing problems and device limitations with Java is also making RG less universal in it's use.
It would be great if someone with the coding skills to write a web app could come up with a simple solution that allowed an O map image to be geo-referenced when uploaded and then allow GPS tracks to be overlayed.

I think Simon Errington was working on a similar concept a while back but haven't heard anything more.

[Marian]

Josh Jenner is doing something around this - don't think it is quite up & running yet but sounds promising:

http://www.snapnav.co.uk/index.php


Cut & Paste from e-mail from Josh promoting SnapNav:

There are currently over 400 permanent orienteering courses in England. The majority of these aren't being used to their full potential. The sport has evolved to use electronic timing but are restricted to using it at events. Not anymore!

Introducing SnapNav, the unique way to navigate your area. SnapNav is a mobile phone APP that uses existing permanent course plaques to time the user around an orienteering course.

What is involved?
To have your courses featured on the APP you will need to think about the following:
Is the map up to date?
Are all the plaques still there?
To go with the APP I have designed some smart, user-friendly leaflets that will need to be displayed in a visitor centre, cafe or similar. Embedding an existing map into the leaflets will create a good revenue source for the club and make the course stand out.
You will need to plan 3 courses (easy, medium & hard)

How does it work?
Users download the APP for free. Without having to pay a penny, they can gain access to the orienteering world and find out about clubs, events and volunteer opportunities. Users then pick up a map, scan the plaques as they complete the course then upload their result to the online leader board.

Costs?
If your course is currently compatible with the APP then it will be FREE.

[andy]

My iPhone can't find his app in the app store..

[Marian]

don't think it is quite up & running yet

couldn't find it either - but thought that might be because, not having an iPhone, I was looking for it thorough iTunes!

[andy]

don't think it is quite up & running yet

couldn't find it either - but thought that might be because, not having an iPhone, I was looking for it thorough iTunes!

ah yes, I just looked at the website which looks very complete! it's a great idea, hope to see it soon

[Sloop]

I've spent quite a lot of time thinking about how to make Permanent Orienteering Courses interesting to the mobile phone community. In Greater Manchester, we have about 60 existing courses, all equipped with wooden posts and plaques and mostly conforming to a control code being a letter or pair of letters, and the proof of having been there being a geometric shape.

Initially I got quite enthused by the possibilities of QR codes, but (quite apart from the sheer physical difficulty of creating 2000 unique QR codes and adding them onto our posts) I think there's lots of hurdles to overcome on the technical side. Exactly the same applies to NFC codes, which potentially could be much less easy to vandalise, as they'd be less visible.

Josh Jenner's photo-recognition approach avoids some of these hurdles, and for someone creating a new course without the issue of compatibility with other local courses, there's a lot to be said for it. However, for our courses, the cost and effort involved in changing every single control is more than I'd be willing to contemplate.

I'm now thinking that GPS offers the best options for the future:
a) If you don't want splits, a web site like routegadget where you could upload your O-run against the O map would be enough.
b) If you do want splits, you'd need a phone app which would allow you to "punch" when you wanted, and a web site to upload those splits to. This could get very fancy, with downloading the map to the phone, etc, as well.

I suspect that splits are not going to be overly important to this community - just being able to upload their route and total time would be pretty good - so that a huge leap forward for us would be a solution for a) above.

[RJ]

We had an evening event at Wasdale on Thursday. Two of the runners on the long course uploaded their routes onto Strava. There were two segments that Strava recognised and gave them times for. Because it was a relatively short course both of them were running hard and both got KOMs for one of the segments. The person who uploaded second took the KOM off the first person!

Not sure exactly what is going on, but at least it illustrates the potential of Strava. Just needs some definitive segments setting.

[Roger]

Not sure exactly what is going on, but at least it illustrates the potential of Strava. Just needs some definitive segments setting.

Strava automatically detects climbs and creates segments for them. I've uploaded a few orienteering races, partly to advertise the sport to various cycling / Trailquesting friends. I usually delete any auto-created segments because it's pretty unlikely that anybody will run them again. "KOM (1 / 1)" isn't very satisfying.

You can also define your own segments. For a permanent course you could define a series of legs, and perhaps add a segment for the whole course too, but I'm not sure how much mid-segment deviation is tolerated before you're deemed to be 'off-segment'. For the start and finish the tolerance appears to be something between 10m and 50m.

Experimentation needed.

[SeanC]

Permanent courses often get used by groups. I wonder if this new technology could help? Personally I think the big market they miss out on are groups looking to organise their own competition. I occasionally organise a competition using permanent courses for some friends of mine, split about 20 people into 7 or 8 groups, give them all a map and a 60 minute time limit and make it a score format (much better for POC's with inevitable missing posts and a few map problems). They absolutely love it and are always nagging me to do another.

[Paul Frost]

much better for POC's with inevitable missing posts and a few map problems

Which makes someone's first experience of orienteering not exactly ideal. I always find it crazy that beginners tend to start out on outdated maps of poor quality areas (many local events fit that description too). In the ideal world we should not subject newcomers to this, as it leads to frustration if the map isn't near perfect.

[Sunlit Forres]

I always find it crazy that beginners tend to start out on outdated maps of poor quality areas (many local events fit that description too). In the ideal world we should not subject newcomers to this

which is exactly why we should push the boat out with local publicity for major events rather than focusing all our effort on the orienteering community.

I can't understand, for example, why there's a big advert for the Scottish 6 Days in this month's Compass Sport. It's good to support the mag, but surely the advertising effort at this stage should be more focused on attracting newcomers locally. I'm delighted to report that the 6 Days Board have backed a strong local advertising campaign which I'm orchestrating. It will be interesting to see if it has any impact - we'll certainly learn from it if nothing else.

[andypat]

SF
I've had a chat with someone from the Herald about some 6 Day advertising in an outdoor feature mag they are running. I've emailed you what I have so far.

[Glucosamine]

I always find it crazy that beginners tend to start out on outdated maps of poor quality areas (many local events fit that description too). In the ideal world we should not subject newcomers to this

Not much you can do about a poor quality area - though beginners may value secure car parking and loos over TD5 terrain - but are outdated maps partly a problem of the paper-map-pack-at-the-cafe model? (If the cafe is open when they get there ...). Where copyright allows downloadable maps, is there scope for a wiki editable version building on the OpenStreetMap model?

[Paul Frost]

Not much you can do about a poor quality area - though beginners may value secure car parking and loos over TD5 terrain - but are outdated maps partly a problem of the paper-map-pack-at-the-cafe model? (If the cafe is open when they get there ...). Where copyright allows downloadable maps, is there scope for a wiki editable version building on the OpenStreetMap model?

I'm not saying they should be TD5, just accurate. Downloadable is the way to go for many reasons, but I find too many clubs just don't update their maps in the first place. Nothing pi**** me off more than an outdated map.
I recently ran on a map where a bridge over a stream was 100 metres from it's mapped location (and the control was located just by it's mapped location).When I commented to a member of the organising club they said "oh yes they moved it due to storm damage". Moving a bridge in Ocad is a 10 second job, and if you can't be bothered to do that, don't place a control where the bridge would be used as an attack point.

The map is the most important piece of equipment we use, so treat it as such.