Map Scale (again)

[madmike]

The British Schools Champs don't take place in school grounds, they take place in a forest.
Hence 1:10,000 is a sensible scale to use for the maps.

Yes but how many planners have asked for an exemption from this BSOC guideline in recent years?

I seem to recall sending a pretty blunt email to BSOA asking whether they wanted better product or a rigid adherence to the guideline on scale and telling them if the answer was "it is the law not a guideline" we (the planners) would put an apology to the competitors in the final details.

Pretty sure the year before I co-planned it was also on a 1:7500.

[AndyC]

Last years British Schools Score was at Druridge Bay -which does have wooded bits but really can't be described as a forest and the map was 1:7500

[Top cat]

SJC - I'm afraid I don't know who you are so can I ask if you work with year 5 - 8 school groups?

Pupils start in school grounds on 1:7500 or even 1:5000 maps. They progress into parks with 1:7500 or 1:5000 maps before running white/yellow courses on 1:7500 maps. BSOC is often run in parks. If they are in a forest it will have countless paths & tracks for the 4 white & 4 yellow courses. Why would this mean that a 1:10000 is suitable?

These younger pupils are used to 1:7500 and can read the map clearly. With a 1:10000 map the white courses would probably have the control circles overlapping!

[awk]

Just look at the old maps of these areas before the use of OCAD to add all the thousands of irrelevant information that isn't needed.

Well, the really old maps that I grew up on were 1:25000. I can't say they were better than today's maps.

The fact of the matter is that the larger scales are needed, not to add more detail, but to make the map readable to older eyes. Generally, I loved 1:15k maps (sand-dunes etc aside) when I was an M21. Can't see them now, especially on a gloomy day under a tree canopy.

At the British Relays at Tankersley (an area with areas of complexity equivalent to sand-dunes) a couple of years ago, the organisers, who wanted to print at 1:7.5k, were forced by the powers that be to print the map at 1:10k. On second leg in the M50+ relays, I arrived in the extension area across the bridge in the lead. For the whole of that section I physically couldn't see the brown lines with the low light, and lost time in trying to cope with just compass and pacing. Others had a similar problem - it was a major topic of discussion in assembly. There would have been no problem at 1:7.5k. For me, the run and the competition was blighted by the intransigence of bloody minded bureaucracy.

As SJC and others state, orienteering is a running sport. In order for older competitors to be able to see a map on the run, they have to be enlarged beyond what the bureaucrats deem appropriate.

[AndyC]

Someday soon I can see a solution to the problem. Tablets (computers not the ones we use to stop our bodies falling apart) will be robust and cheap enough to take into the forests with a reasonable chance of surviving. Pre-programmed with your course the map can be zoomed to your desired scale (so if you want 1:5000 you see 1:5000, if you want to see the entire M21E course at a glance you get 1:20000 etc.). Fitted with a contactless punching system they record your arrival at the control and inbuilt gps records your route (and spots OOB breaches) but doesn't show on the screen apart from a "I'm lost I'm abandoning show me where I am" button that also terminates the course.
Able to radio the elite's routes to the big screen and injured/lost/late runners location to the officials safety is enhanced as well (parents of youngsters could "shadow" from a good distance as well obviously with a special tablet supplied by the organiser).
Now should I patent this or are you going to find a problem?

[Gnitworp]

Tablets (computers not the ones we use to stop our bodies falling apart) will be robust and cheap enough to take into the forests with a reasonable chance of surviving.

Will I be able to screw 'em up and thumb 'em?

[AndyC]

Tablets (computers not the ones we use to stop our bodies falling apart) will be robust and cheap enough to take into the forests with a reasonable chance of surviving.

Will I be able to screw 'em up and thumb 'em?

Eventually both but initially only the second (and the screen will move as you move your thumb)

[Kitch]

why would you need to move your thumb ?
surely the map will know exactly where you are

[AndyC]

why would you need to move your thumb ?
surely the map will know exactly where you are

No because the you would also know where you are (by that rather than your skills) and that defeats the point of the sport

[buzz]

What we do not need is maps surveyed at 1:1000 including every trivial feature the mapper could find so that the whole thing becomes too cluttered to read at bigger scales like1:7500.

But this is unfortunately what we are increasingly getting. It is turning the events from route choice and running to control picking exercises with controls on tiny features and the ease or difficulty of finding them depending entirely on whether another competitor is standing there or not.

Two of my favourite events of the year were the ultra-sprint races in Sheffield and London which employed large scale maps to great effect creating courses that could be enjoyed by all ages with both physical and technical challenges including route choice and running. These both used areas that otherwise would offer little interest to orienteers.

Personally I think the more variety in orienteering (including in map scale) the better. The only issue is perhaps at the elite end where some consistency is required to enable competitors to train for and compete in specific disciplines nationally and international

[Gnitworp]

The only issue is perhaps at the elite end where some consistency is required to enable competitors to train for and compete in specific disciplines nationally and international

Good point, but technical challenge and fairness should not be compromised by slavish adherence to enshrined requirements that may not give optimal competition - maybe we need more open-mindedness.

[skybluepete]

Someday soon I can see a solution to the problem. Tablets (computers not the ones we use to stop our bodies falling apart) will be robust and cheap enough to take into the forests with a reasonable chance of surviving. Pre-programmed with your course the map can be zoomed to your desired scale (so if you want 1:5000 you see 1:5000,

That day is upon us :

Example : CSC/T next week - one heat has already posted the map and commented in their final details that certain courses would use a specific complex area.
So after producing an image and magnifying to 1:4000 or less it is possible for competitors to have not only printed copies but copies on their phones to take with them.
Looking at the magnified image and detail it would certainly be an advantage - probably to everyone (not only the older competitors).

For a Level B Event, is this a breach of any BO or CSC/T Rules, besides the obvious moral issue it raises?

Should our team captain be handing out copies or emailing or tweeting to our team members accordingly?
Is it any different to using a magnifier attached to a compass?

[AndyC]

I would be concerned that some of those phones (like mine) could have an active and visible gps -using that is definitely cheating (and did I not see somewhere a rule banning phones from the forest for that reason?)

[jac]

So after producing an image and magnifying to 1:4000 or less it is possible for competitors to have not only printed copies but copies on their phones to take with them.
Looking at the magnified image and detail it would certainly be an advantage - probably to everyone (not only the older competitors).

For a Level B Event, is this a breach of any BO or CSC/T Rules, besides the obvious moral issue it raises?

Competitors must use only the map provided by the Organiser during a race.

The use of any artificial navigational aid other than a compass is not permitted.

[DJM]

And Rule 10.3 says

10.3 In addition to the competition map, competitors are permitted to carry with them the following:
 A compass
 A whistle for use in an emergency.
 A watch/other time keeping device
 A mobile phone for use in an emergency.
 A GPS
 A torch

And we also have

10.6 Competitors can only use a GPS device to record data for use in post-race analysis.
10.7 Competitors are not permitted to use mobile phones to assist with navigation. They are permitted to be used to call for assistance in the event of an emergency.

So, phones are not banned from the forest, it's simply that they must not be used for navigation - neither must any other GPS device.

It's hard to police this though ...