2004 Travel Bug Olympics Starting

[+Yamar]

In honor of the olympics, I've created a travel bug olympic system. I've release a few test bugs and its doing fine, so I think it's ready for a greater set of participants. The goal will be to have travel bugs move from one cache to a starting cache as fast or in a straight line as much as possible. More details, including how to enter a bug and what the categories are, are available on the web site describing the game...

 

http://geocaching.sharedlists.com/olympics/

 

I'll be working on it more over time, including adding more games to the system, but it's fully funcitonal now.

[+globalgirl]

Fabulous idea Yamar, and no doubt this 1st go-round a dry-run to work the kinks out. Specifically, I see some serious problems:

 

Looking at the 2 contestents so far, your Frequent Flyer was retreived by BICCachers in Maryland and dropped off in a cache in California (2,237.2 miles away) w/in but 7 days - with no intermediate handoffs. Doesn't take a genius to guess that the bug traveled by air.

 

This vs. Hiker Player, moved 97.6 miles via 2 different cachers w/in Florida (i.e. this, presumably via land transport.)

 

Not sure how you're planning on categorizing "events" (i.e. 100 yd. dash vs. marathon), but clearly in the above cases, those 2 bugs are not competing at all on equal footing.

 

I know, I know, you'll never be able to iron out all the possible "cheat" techniques, but just seems to me that you best at least have the obvious variants in check. For instance, it would seem apt enough to rule out air travel (i.e. require that all travel must be via foot or land conveyance transport). Otherwise, the air traveler's "records" could arguably be akin to taking steroids!

 

Come to think of it, maybe you could better define "events" - set up "track" events for the land travelers, vs..... I dunno, but some other such "event" for air travelers. That way, you'd at least have fair competition w/in events, no?

 

Also, Given that it seems your scoring system (aptly) includes avg. cache difficulty and terrain, it would be nice to be able to see that stat as the bugs progress. Presumably you'll be factoring in all such stats (i.e. distance, bearing, difficulty, etc.) into a single final quantitative score when you award "Gold" vs. "Silver", vs. "Bronze medals, no? So wouldn't it be best to have such all factored in as the bugs move along, so folks could see who's reeeeeeally in first place, etc?

 

Surely don't mean to be overly critical/rain on your parade, Yamar. I think your idea is absolutely fabulous. Indeed, I was all set to drop one of my TB's into one of your Olympic "events", but... once I started investigating just how the competition is set up, I rather lost my enthusiasm.

 

Seems to me, it's just a matter of better defining things and somehow ensuring that within each event, you have reasonably fair competition.

 

Then again, I've only given this but a quick cursory glance, and no doubt you have these things already ironed out somehow. I'd be very interested in learning more about what you have in mind.

[+Yamar]

Well, let me stick to one topic for the moment: Travel types (air, ground, etc)

 

It's a good idea to have multiple types of travel. Right now there is nothing to distinguish that, and certainly if someone could pick up a bug and move it via a SR-71 they're likely to win the speed event. That's ok, however. By any means possible. Note that the speed of the bug that moved from the east to the west coast of the USA only achieved 5mph because even though air travel was involved, the time from drop off to drop off was still many days and thus the speed was actually low. I wasn't trying to mirror exactly the olympics by having parallel categories (EG, the 100m dash per your example). I'd rather have categories that better fit travel bugs and are at least a little bit more difficult to break the rules one (though it's impossible too completely rule out cheating; the goal is to make accidental cheating [someone takes a bug on a plane without knowing it violated rules] more difficult).

 

If there is enough interest in seperate categories of travel, I'll be happy to add them. Enforcing them, however, will be impossible and thus is the reason I didn't bother. I decided to just opt for speed as a whole (note that there isn't an award for time, just speed because it combines distance and time, which I think is more fair).

 

Please keep the good ideas coming. This could migrate into a yearly game if there is enough interest and certainly the more ideas I get for new game types and rules, the better the end result will be.

Edited August 26, 2004 by yamar

[+Yamar]

Also, Given that it seems your scoring system (aptly) includes avg. cache difficulty and terrain, it would be nice to be able to see that stat as the bugs progress. Presumably you'll be factoring in all such stats (i.e. distance, bearing, difficulty, etc.) into a single final quantitative score when you award "Gold" vs. "Silver", vs. "Bronze medals, no? So wouldn't it be best to have such all factored in as the bugs move along, so folks could see who's reeeeeeally in first place, etc?

The scoring system is completely outlined in the documentation. Currently the terrain/difficult aren't taken into account. I have plans for a few more categories like "average difficulty" and "average terrain" from start to finish (obviously, only bugs that finish will be eligible though).

 

I was also thinking about having a seperate category for adjusted speed/etc based on the cache ratings. Sounds like you think this would be good as well.

[+globalgirl]

Still not at all sure just what you have in mind Yamar, it just all seems a bit ambiguous at present. But meanwhile...

 

...a seperate category for adjusted speed/etc based on the cache ratings. Sounds like you think this would be good as well...

 

Well yes, of course. Guess I just don't understand how you're going to choose an overall winner, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, whatever. Surely in order to do that you'd have to factor in such critical elements as avg. cache difficulty, no?

 

Also, this confuses me (then again, arguably I confuse rather easily ):

 

...the goal is to make accidental cheating [someone takes a bug on a plane without knowing it violated rules] more difficult).

 

So which is it? Is air travel against your current rules or nay?

 

And finally (leastwise for the moment 'cuz I reeeeealy need to quit dallying here and assume a semblence of productivity

 

Yes of course you can't mirror the Olympics precisely, but just seems to me that it would enhance the fun if you could continue the analogy as much as possible i.e. you DID after all call it the TB "Olympics", so why stop there?

[+Yamar]

Well yes, of course. Guess I just don't understand how you're going to choose an overall winner, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, whatever. Surely in order to do that you'd have to factor in such critical elements as avg. cache difficulty, no?

 

I wasn't going to choose an overall winner (at least its not defined by the current rules, and if we were going to come up with an equation to create one, we should do it soon). Just like the olympics, there will be one winner per category. Right now there are 5 categories, but there will be more as I put in the math to calculate them...

 

The winner should probably be the bug with the most GOLD medals???

 

So which is it? Is air travel against your current rules or nay?

 

Yay. So is space travel. Or via submarine. or...

 

At least for the generic speed and distance categories that exist now. If people want a by-land-only or by-car-only or by-foot-only category, then that would limit only those categories. Make sense? The current ones, however, are defined to allow anything.

 

Yes of course you can't mirror the Olympics precisely, but just seems to me that it would enhance the fun if you could continue the analogy as much as possible i.e. you DID after all call it the TB "Olympics", so why stop there?

 

Fair enough. All concrete proposals considered ;-)

 

leastwise for the moment 'cuz I reeeeealy need to quit dallying here and assume a semblence of productivity

 

No joke. One of the reasons I haven't put ALL of the time I could into it was that I wanted to make sure the results were going to be used before I went hog-wild and implemented a buch of stuff that wouldn't be used ;-) I have real-work deadlines next week. sigh....

Edited August 26, 2004 by yamar

[+Yamar]

So , as long as we're talking about designing... Anyone have thoughts about what sort of equation to use for a medal that is based on difficulty and terrain as well as distance or speed... I was thinking something like:

 

(avg_difficulty_for_move + avg_terrain_for_move - 1) * distance_or_velocity

 

thoughts?

[+flask]

i'd like to see several events.

 

high jump- elevation gain

relay- travel to contiguous states and provinces, each drop made by a different cacher

 

you get the idea.

 

you could have one bug be your one entry and compete in more than one event, or you could form a team.

 

give medals. have a blast. i'll enter.

[+Yamar]

high jump- elevation gain

relay- travel to contiguous states and provinces, each drop made by a different cacher

 

give medals. have a blast. i'll enter.

Thanks for the ideas!

 

unfortunately, there is no elevation info in the geocaching.com info and thus we'd have to trust the user input for the high jump and similar events? That's acceptable, of course, but right now all the data is gathered automatically so the user doesn't have to put stuff in (and thus can't make mistakes either).

 

I actually am planning on giving medals, though thats not documented yet. I was going to get/make/print/something stickers to be placed on poker chips so they could be worn by the TB if desired (or just kept by the owner).

 

Last comment: a map is now shown on the web page as well. Though the colors aren't linked to the list of travel bugs yet....

 

Please do enter ;-) My bugs are lonely! [and I'm not likely to spend much time on it till I get more entries to make it obvious people like the concept]

[+flask]

if you click on the topozone map one the description pages, you can get the elevation pretty closely. anybody who's interested can get the infrmation.

[+Yamar]

if you click on the topozone map one the description pages, you can get the elevation pretty closely. anybody who's interested can get the infrmation.

Yeah, but it would be a pain to put that in to the system... Right now the rest of the information is done automatiacally. IE, the bug owner doesn't have to do anything to play the game. If I put in elevation then someone (presumably the bug owner or the person moving it or me) would have to extract the information and insert it.

 

Now, that being said, if a bug is willing to take on that responsibility I have no problem implementing it (though some may not like the trust issue associated wtih it).

 

Anyone else have thoughts?