Discussion: NYC Central Park O Map

Does anyone have an electronic copy they can email me? Ill be there next week and wouldn't mind going for a run

Sent.

Me too, will be there in October and a map would be nice.

Me too please Boris!

Can you guys send me an email please so i know your email addresses? Mine is in my profile. Thanks!

Thanks for the map, looks like an interesting park. Are there regular events in Central Park?

You can order the Central Park map at here: HVO map sales. You order early, find your map at your NYC hotel, ready to go.

HVO holds local events in Central Park. The permits are difficult to obtain, there are exacting rules how and where to place controls plus the 'disappearance rate' of controls in quite high.

Local events? Do they happen often? I seem to remember one about 4 years ago or so. I might make a trip in for a meet at Central Park if I knew about it.

Controls disappearing? Try using different controls.
I liked what I saw in Sydney a few years ago. They have an urban mid-week series. Instead of control flags the markers were old plastic buckets like yogurt tubs (hold about 3 cups). They put the tub upside down on the ground marked with a bit of masking tape with the control code and an identifying letter on the tape.
No one in NYC would bother to take anything that looks like garbage. They didn't in Sydney either but just in case the organizer put a secondary strip of tape that only an orienteer would think to look for somewhere very nearby.
Participants carried a map, control card and a pencil to mark the code on the control card.
I liked the idea I have about 50 yogurt tubs saved up for when I might put on an event in a similar situation. The problem here in Canada is that some do-gooder is sure to come along and pick up the 'refuse'.

Sydney has updated their system since then. It's now electronic.

Gord, just a simple slip of paper that says something like "Please do not remove: Orienteering Competition" helps a lot with the do-gooders. As tRicky says we now use SI for all except the smallest night events. To prevent theft we use steel cables and padlocks to attach the units to whatever the feature is.

At the last event we held at CP (JeremyC was ED) it was the Park maintenance staff who picked up a control mid event. I think Jeremy used bamboo canes tied in a triangle with a letter on (I helped with pick up and used them in my garden after to hold up the flowers).
I think the only way we could do another event is to have a control card with questions about each control (e.g. date on statue)

To allow punching with "losable" markers like yoghurt containers, one could attach NFC tags or QR codes, like with the MOBO system. Judging from the drivers that I see everywhere I've lived, everyone has a smart phone nowadays, and people seem to carry them everywhere anyway. Only problem with an urban park might be the interest a smart phone attracts, but even in a high crime place like Rio de Janeiro, people seemed pretty open in their use of smart phones. Few urban parks are dicier than Brasil.

Central Park has (if memory serves) rules that prohibit sticking anything into the ground or tying anything to a tree or bush. (Or pole?) Makes it hard to put any kind of marker out there. Any alternative that you might come up with, they probably have a rule prohibiting it.

I'm sure someone could find a group of children to act as control stands for an event. You'd just have to make sure they didn't abandon their posts for a passing bit of amusement.

Or everyone shows up and there are 2 courses. Half the orienteers go out to act as control stands, while the other half run that course. Then they swap with a different second course. Extra bonus, nobody needs to hang or pick up more than one control.

Or, use GPS orienteering. For improved accuracy, you could implement a poor-person's DGPS solution with a smart phone in a parked car as base station as in this master's thesis: http://www.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf;jsessi.... (Dunno if this works; the author claims DGPS-like results. Apparently various other people tried in earlier years and failed. Maybe modern cell phone GPSs have different characteristics that now make this more workable?)

Of course, for a local event, why markers at all. Let people do the course(s), share results if they want, and argue online over whether they actually found the right spots.

Q&A

GPS orienteering using a phone is already being used

http://smartphoneadventures.weebly.com/

Individual results are uploaded and displayed at a central location, so we all can compare

Why bother with Central Park authorities at all? Organize your race where it is possible to actually use regular controls...

O, to live in Sweden, where you can step outside your house and be on an orienteering map!