How was Foxhill run?

[Guest RXQ]

Does any one know how this contest was run? It can be a standard that others can run their contest.

[Guest makaio]

Daniel (forget his last name), the person who organized the event, is going to post a followup on the event soon. He said it went very well overall. I believe his event will indeed set the standard for organized geocaching and could help with future commercially sponsored events. I like the idea that it was coupled with a major equestrian event as it helps the overall perception of the sport by the general public (imo).

[Guest Dascgo]

You can find the results to the event here:

http://www.foxhallcup.com/geoscores.html

 

And I will be posting my thoughts on our event to list@geocaching.com sometime this weekend - what worked, what didn't work, and how to make our organized event better for next year

 

Daniel

[Guest makaio]

Daniel,

 

If not too much trouble, please copy your post to this forum as well for those of us who don't subscribe to the mailing list.

[Guest bob_renner]

our website actually showed up,

we would have been in trouble.

We used a spreadsheet and a laptop that tracked each player and caches

on each day. The spreadsheet performed the following duties:

- Track where each player is going:

o Cache

o Start Time

- Track when each player returned:

o Cache

o Stop Time

- Provided a main scoreboard for each player:

o Points

o Close caches found

o Medium caches found

o Far caches found

o Total caches found

o Time

- Cache status:

o Active/Non-active

o Number of people looking for it

A good idea would be to use a bar code scanner to quickly scan in the

out code and score code instantly. Manual input did not give us an

accurate time report and if it came down to using time to break a tie, I

would have been uncomfortable about the results.

 

Booth Set Up

------------

We had a small round table under a tent that allowed for people to move

all around us. Next year we will definitely block off access behind

us. When we had a rush of players coming in and trying to track their

information and other people hovering around behind us often left me

inches away from losing my mind from all the commotion. Also, an area to

allow for the participants to keep their coolers, backpacks, etc should

be available.

 

Eliminating Speed

-----------------

Trying to find as many caches as possible turned the event in a

footrace, allowing those with speed and endurance to pull way ahead of

other players. Players seems to want to find all the caches they can, so

a limitation should be set on a reasonable number they could find, based

on distance. If I could revise the 2001 event, I'd limit it to finding

2 close, 2 mediums and 1 far cache. I truly thought some of those guys

would die before they would take a break? seriously.

If we can't find a way to reduce the speed factor to make the game

even, it might be necessary to have different categories: Team, Senior,

Child, Etc. This may mean splitting the grand prize into 5 $1000.00

grand prizes (which I DON'T want to do). There needs to be a way that my

father could compete with a 19 year old. Geocaching isn't a race, and

our event should not reflect that.

 

Team Play

---------

Teams worked great in allowing a father and son or boyfriend &

girlfriend team to play, but gave an advantage when two adults worked

together. One thing we didn't think about that happened was a team

using radios. One player would pick up the next cache location and

radio it out to a player "in the field". That player would find the

cache and meet the player halfway from the far cache to our booth and

hand off the prize card. Reducing the work each team member had to do.

A great idea, but unfair to other players. After finding out about that,

we outlawed the use of radios and made each player of a team be at the

booth for turning in a prize card and getting the next set of

coordinates.

 

If anyone has an specific questions, I'd love to answer them.

 

Daniel Goodwin

MBNA Foxhall Geocaching Challenge / Strickland & Associates

770-319-7400 x 233

[Guest makaio]

Thanks for posting it, Bob.

 

Daniel, sounds like your event was well thought out and an overall success. Like any new event, there may have been problems or things that could have been done differently, but it doesn't sound like they had a negative impact on the enjoyment of the participants. the important thing is that you know what to do differently next time and that others can now use your experience as a guide for future events of this type. You and your crew deserve a big hand for your efforts and for pioneering the organized event aspect of the game.

[Guest JIntorcio]

Reading about the difficulties with the codes gave me an idea?

 

This event resembled an orienteering meet in that participants had to prove they visited a particular location. So? Why not use some of the techniques employed in running orienteering events?

 

For example, at each ?control? on an orienteering course is a punch with a unique pattern that the runner uses to punch their control card. The punches are only a couple of bucks each and are available at orienteering suppliers like Go Orienteering!

 

This could even be taken one step further. High tech orienteering meet are starting to be run using electronic punch systems. The one I know of is from SPORTident in Sweden. Though relatively expensive, I believe these can be rented for events. (Go Orienteering! handles this system.)

 

One possible issue I foresee with the SPORTident system is that the I believe the software expects control points to be visited in a particular order and disregards punches attempted out of sequence. Perhaps the software could be modified for Geocaching use! Or, perhaps requiring caches to be found in sequence would add an additional element?

 

Orienteering meets also try to deal with the issue of having different ages and abilities all trying to compete with each other. The approach here is twofold: course difficulty and age classes. Courses are designated by colors ? a white course for true beginners, a yellow course for novices, an orange course for intermediates, and then red, green etc for true competitors with length an blatancy of the controls being the key factors. An event might feature any number of different courses depending on its scale. Multiple course may share controls (or caches). Participants choose the course they wish to tackle. Within a course, results might be segregated into groups such as M25- (men 25 and under), F50+ (women over 50), or Open classes. It doesn?t solve the issues of splitting prizes but it might offer some ideas?

 

 

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>>> John <<<

[Guest makaio]

The 'punch' method sounds good, although it assumes the cachers are going to go from the start to cache1, then to cache2, etc. finally returning to the start. It sounds like Daniels method was to have hunters go from the start to a cache and back to the start where they turned in their card and then chose their next target. while both methods have merit, I believe yours, John, would include the orienteering skills alot of us use in planning multiple cache hunts (ie, determine best course to hit multiple caches in a day) which lends itself to Daniels 'best cacher vs fastest runner' idea.

 

Again, lots of great ideas from Daniel and others which should make future events of this type much more fun.

[Guest Dascgo]

Prior to the event we gave a lot of thought to using punch cards or stamps. Unfortunetly, the cost to provide unique designs for 80 different caches did not fit into our budget for the 2001 event. Though it may not cost that much, I had to skip paying my bills last month to buy supplies (caches, ziploc bags, cards, etc.) and punches/stamps would have left me with no gas money to get to and from the event during the 4 days (100 miles round trip each day in a gas guzzling Wrangler). Perhaps next year.

 

We're still thinking internally on how to handle the booth>cache>booth>cache... vs booth>cache>cache>cache... problem.

 

I think I am going to turn off all thought on the competition and do about 4 months of geocaching. Hopefully, some quality time on the trails will give me some new ideas.

 

Daniel

[Guest JIntorcio]

Here?s a thought on ?Eliminating Speed? as an aspect in the geocaching event?

 

What if each cache were given a ?par? time? You might assign all ?near? caches a par time of, say, 30 minutes; all ?far? caches a time of 60 minutes. Or you might assign individual times based on actual distance and difficulty. You could then limit the number of caches a hunter could ?score? by not allowing the total par time to exceed the total hunt time for the day. That is, if the total hunt time were 4 hours and the caches were rated as listed, the hunter could be credited for no more than 3 far + 2 near caches ? or any other combination totaling 4 hours or less.

 

If you combined this with points based on the difficulty of each cache, I think you could shift the emphasis from foot speed to crafty target selection and avoidance of serious mistakes that caused you to severely exceed the par time.

 

------------------

>>> John <<<

[Guest Scout]

quote:

---

Originally posted by JIntorcio:

Here?s a thought on ?Eliminating Speed? as an aspect in the geocaching event?

 

What if each cache were given a ?par? time?

---

 

I fail to see how that eliminates speed. Say everyone chooses to hunt the same 3 far and 2 near caches. Isn't the winner still determined by who finds them the fastest?

 

How about this for eliminating speed altogether? Everyone hunts the same set of caches. The winner is determined by the hunter who racks up the smallest total distance traveled to find the caches.

 

This would work, if only GPS units all recorded distance, and if only GPS units could all reliably stay locked on to satellites during the hunts. Of course, we can't count on that, so forget my idea. It was neat while it lasted. ;-)

 

[This message has been edited by Scout (edited 18 May 2001).]

[Guest JIntorcio]

quote:

---

Originally posted by Scout:

I fail to see how that eliminates speed. Say everyone chooses to hunt the same 3 far and 2 near caches. Isn't the winner still determined by who finds them the fastest?

---

 

Well... No. My proposal would give no credit for a sub-par time. As in the competition just held, points would be awarded based on the cache?s distance - and perhaps its ?difficulty?. Of course, finding a cache in much longer than the par time has an indirect penalty of reducing the number of caches you could look for in a given session.

 

Even if you could make the ?minimum distance? approach work, I?m not sure I like it. The ?best? route to a cache may not be the most direct. As in an orienteering event, route optimal selection is more complex than just selecting the shortest distance: it may be more prudent to take a less direct route that, say, follows a trail or goes around the lake, rather than bushwhacking a direct line.

 

Here?s a way to think about this? What attributes define a great geocacher? Perhaps a starting list includes: ability to work his/her GPS receiver, ability to translate data from receiver to surroundings and make proper route choices, a keen eye for hidden caches, etc. Then, what sort of competition would test those attributes? It has been suggested that foot speed should not be one of those attributes. If that?s the case, then anything that credits a short time (or maybe even a short distance) is sub-optimal.

 

------------------

>>> John <<<

[Guest Scout]

OK, my idea of measuring distance was suboptimal, too, for more reasons than one. I was brainstorming.

 

Your idea of assigning "par" times would reduce the emphasis on time. But you face a greater likelihood of ties. Unless you have so many caches that it is very unlikely that two hunters would both find the same number. I guess that's possible in a four day event. So, OK, the idea of par times shows promise for long events.

[Guest Dascgo]

<< What attributes define a great geocacher? >>

 

This is exactly my line of thinking for setting up the Foxhall Geocaching Challenge next year... Does anyone have any attributes to add to the list?

 

1) ability to work his/her GPS receiver.

2) ability to translate data from receiver to surroundings and make proper route choices.

3) a keen eye for hidden caches.

4) ability to hide a cache with accurate coordinates [?]

5) ability to select a great location for hiding the cache [?]

 

Daniel

[Guest Exocet]

st and last. The big advantage that people in the middle (and last) would have is a more clear "trail" to the cache, if that were applicable (grasses, leaves or something to be stomped into a trail).

 

Determining time could be done in a sophisticated, electronic-y device manner or... Running by someone in between caches. I wouldn't want someone with a stop watch standing next to the cache, though they could be as near as 50m away, though, I suppose.

 

At any rate, that's how *I* would do it. It's nice to see that the first organized competition went well and it seems like most people are happy. I look forward to hearing about next year's competiton.

[Guest DungeonKeeper]

Could we learn a lesson from fishing tournaments I wonder? They manage to give a wide range of players equal footing. Speed has a part in it but it is not a pre-req. to success.

 

------------------

the DungeonKeeper

[Guest martinp13]

quote:

---

Originally posted by JIntorcio:

What if each cache were given a ?par? time?

---

 

I kinda like that "par time" idea... maybe make each "stroke" 20 minutes. A near cache is "par 1", allowing 20 minutes, a medium "par 2" (40 min) and a far "par 3 or 4", (60 or 80 min). If you take 0-20 minutes, you score a 1 for the "hole". 20-40 minutes scores 2, 40-60 minutes scores 3, ad nauseum.

 

You could set a daily "round" of geocaching to be "par 20", allowing players to choose near/far caches totally 20 "strokes" (maybe limiting players to 3 or 4 of any one distance; ie, you can't go on 20 par-1 or 5 par-4). It could even be set up like a golf course, with each player going after the same set of caches over the course of the day. Except the starter's table is always the tee box.

 

This reduces the importance of speed without eliminating it. If you get back in 23 or 38 minutes, you still score a 2. Maybe break ties on most long caches?

 

You might also consider having 2 officials' tables. One at the starting line that logs starts, and one out towards the caches that scores finishes. People wouldn't have to run so far once they've found a cache, and they wouldn't want to hang around at the scorer's table because they need to go start looking for another cache.

 

Just my 2 cents... oops... I typed too much... this is at least 4 cents' worth.