Discussion: GPS vs. map/compass

Touching on an older topic by reading through some older threads, about GPS in orienteering brough me to some ramblings to toss about.

A GPS is why I started orienteering in the first place. I wanted to learn to navigate by map and compass since I could not always rely on my GPS.

But throw that aside, and assume GPSs (or whatever electronic device comes next, i.e. head up dispay glasses) are not limited by speed or accuracy, and can even plot a route between CPs based on whatever parameters: straight line, minimize elevation changes, or some other optimize route. So what? The event becomes a race then.

Credit can be given to both pursuits. A solution: create more classes for events: map/compass, electronic, and mixed. It would then be interesting to see the results.

Just because someone likes piano music, does not mean they must learn to play the piano to enjoy the music. Likewise, a musician does not shun listening to music unless he is the one playing.

So that brings forward the question of the means to reach the end, shall we be the musician or just hit the play button? Are not each, both or portions of both, enjoyable?

I believe, for cross country events there will be little advantage (save for relocation) for an electronic aid until it comes to the point where the device can be audible or project a laser to direct the competitor where to go. Why? It will still always take time to take the eyes off the ground and onto a reference be it electronic or traditional, and then mentally translate that back to executing the action on the ground. Again, once the mental focus of navigating is removed, it just become a footrace of a different venue (enjoying the music as the musician or as the listener).

For score events or rogaines, it would be interesting to see how an electronic device would optimize a route choice. But then if one person does it, chances are so will another, and it goes back to the footrace argument.

Both methods of navigation have their place. To each their own, and set up events to cater to or exclude the methods.

I see no reason why people couldn't hold GPS events. I also see little reason why orienteers should be the ones holding them.

but if I want to learn to play the piano, I don't want some tosser coming along with a pianola and drowning me out.

I'm with Cristina (even though I run with a GPS (that I can't use to navigate by)).

Given how useless GPS can be for navigation at speed, any new event format using the GPS would need a rule banning compasses.

"So what? The event becomes a race then."

Whereas before it was...?

i cant see the point at all. for me its two completely different things.

if i want a pure race without using my head i can run track and field or one of those boring street races but if i want to use my head and want a challenge i do orienteering.

and with using my head i dont mean watching a point or arrow or whatever on one of those devices...

they can go hiking or whatever but with an gps showing the way it is definitely NOT orienteering (orienteering in terms of the sport we know).

Yeah--you could shoot a golf ball out of a little computer targeted mortar on your cart and use it on a golf course, too. You still get to enjoy the outdoors and whatever else people play golf for.... no thanks.

SLOC held an event in association with the St. Louis Geocachers a few years back. We also have a booth next to theirs at the annual Parkpalooza event put on the National Park Service. While there is a lot of conceptual overlap, there appears to be very little in actual appeal. Neither club has seen ANY crossover (as in, not one single individual, despite nearly 1000 folks being exposed to both side-by-side).

I don't understand why there isn't more crossover. I suppose it's inertia or perhaps a culture clash*. The point that most posters here seem to be overlooking is that part of the excitement and appeal of orienteering is racing through and exploring terrain that one otherwise wouldn't run through (or often, wouldn't even visit.) In fact, this is a big part of the appeal for me, and it clearly also is for other orienteers, whether they recognize it or not (otherwise, we'd all spend a lot more time playing navigation games on the computer.)

While no other sport that I am aware of delivers this, it is entirely separable from navigating, thus there is a conspicuous cross-over niche waiting to be filled. This no doubt contributes to the success of team adventure runs and adventure racing, where navigation is a component, but one that can be mostly or entirely handled by one or two of the team members.

* Although I'm not particularly familiar with geocaching, it seems to me that it is a technology-centered rather than a sport-centered culture. In other words, orienteers may be nerdy, but we're nerdy jocks.

part of the excitement and appeal of orienteering is racing through and exploring terrain that one otherwise wouldn't run through

Definitely. But you can hold a truly cross-country race without gps, and whetever the method used to mark the course it still need not be orienteers setting it.

Cross country running round here seems to always be on tracks. I assume what has been suggested as a gps event would be off tracks. It sounds like one of my in terrain training runs.. head east through the forest for x minutes, then turn around and come back on the reverse bearing. Its not orienteering, but it is relevant training.

I think a streamered race course through the woods (or a gps-course) would be fun and certainly relevant training (and "truly cross-country"). But again, anyone can do that. Orienteers are good with maps, and we don't have enough training and racing on maps as it is.

I've never really geocached (which I find amusing since I was an intern at Garmin 10 years ago before I discovered orienteering...).

Just for kicks, I googled "competitive geocaching" and I found this this event, which is basically a 3-hour rogaine, complete with topo map with checkpoint locations on it.

I'd love for some serious orienteers/rogainers to descend on one of these events and win it, without any GPS. That would be hilariously awesome!

I'd do it if it weren't so far from where I live. Anybody from OK/SLOC/PTOC up for it? They're even using orienteering punches - heh.

That particular event in the link appears to be for 2009. We have several club members who are avid geocachers (as well as being excellent orienteers). One of the guys find the geocaches without the aid of a GPS device.

April 9-11, 2010: http://www.mogageo.com/Joomla1.5/index2.php?option...

I'm curious what the maps they use are like. The controls are small camouflaged boxes that hold the punches, so could be challenging to find. If it were a 24 hour event it might be worth the travel, but it's only a 3 hour event.

That weekend is also Flying Pig, which I think would be a poor decision to miss.

As a geocacher turned orienteer myself, I like both for getting participants out in the woods and enjoying nature, as well as spending time with family.

The major differences I see between the two sports is that Orienteering is a sport of navigation, where the challenge is getting to a place efficiently and then simply punching the control. Geocachers typically park at a predetermined location and then follow a trail to a point where it is reasonable to "bushwhack" to get to the hiding spot. Once within the area, satellites are accurate to about 30 feet depending on cloud cover etc. So once the general area is determined, geocachers try to find the "geo-beacon" or obvious hiding spot for a cache. The caches are typically "regular" which is an ammo can that can be bought at a military surplus store, or a "micro" which is usually a pill bottle. The person who places the cache tries to hide it atleast well enough to avoid being found by "muggles" or non-geocachers (borrowed from Harry Potter, of course) or hide it according to the difficulty rating they give it. An example of a 1.5 star cache would be hiding it in a hollow stump. An example of a 4.5 star cache (one that had my family looking for over an hour) was a mini-match container that was hidden in a small hole in the tree behind a slab of bark that was screwed onto the dead tree. Essentially geocaching requires little navigation, but rather a knack for finding hidden objects. It doesnt require much physical effort; but those who want to run between the points and then have the additional time spent looking for the cache itself come up with the events that you've found. I personally think it would be easy to convert them to both O'ing and caching.

at the local meet events, we get geocachers that want to use a map and still use a GPS, adventure racers that want to refine their orienteering skills, and hash house harriers runners who bushwack through anything with no second thoughts. Lots of cross-disciplines. In a different setting, a cross-country course with 12 controls was treated as a 12-state multi-cache, where participants with a GPS would find a control, and taped to it, a piece of paper with the coordinates of the next control. The allure of following a direction told by a hand-held device is that the unexpcted can happen anytime, where the everyday otherwise mundane object encountered suddenly becomes an adventure, it being a log over a creek, a steep enbankment with thick rhodedendron, with the exhilirating sense at the find. Geocachers don't want to follow trail, they want to follow the hard way. Controls "cached" [from the french "hidden"] in not-obvious places, like in a deep reentrant, between two cliffs, in a pit, provide similar experiences. btw, at the meets we have, we often have a master map with a few "X" marked on it, pinpointing the geocaches in the park, so when the geocachers are out doing an O-course, they can double the activity and detour a bit and earn a few smileys (lingo for "finding" a cache) as well

It would be fun to 'follow' a world champion orienteers route choice, just go along for the ride a few times. Or do two or three consecutive ones with differing choices and perspectives. A virtual library out in the wild.

If you want to hook technology addicts, I think the obvious next step from geocaching is vhf ARDF. Running around with a yagi rather than a GPS. I have tried it and a few times and found it much more cognitively demanding than orienteering, due to the phased on-off cycle of each transmitter and the reflections.

Essentially geocaching requires little navigation, but rather a knack for finding hidden objects.

Which is exactly why I don't think I'd much like it. Very much the same frustration I get when I've run a leg well and then waste 30 seconds looking around for the control flag that's hidden behind an unmapped feature.

you can hold a truly cross-country race without gps, and whetever the method used to mark the course it still need not be orienteers setting it.

Sure, but why not have orienteers set it, not as a stand-alone event, but as an add-on to an existing O meet? I know the answer, because I tried doing just this at a rogaine a few years ago and got exactly zero GPS category entrants. The answer is that it's a hard market to reach. Still, I think it is there for the reaching, and maybe a tipping point could be achieved...

So, I guess what frustrates me a little about the orienteering community is that we're so insular. Too few of us think in imaginative and entrepreneurial ways, e.g. in terms of reaching new markets or trying new kinds of events. This--what IOF calls the "we for us" attitude--is part of the reason the sport is stagnant: we (as a group, although there are individual exceptions) can't imagine doing anything besides what we've always done, and what we've always done has nothing to do with taking outreach seriously.

Very much the same frustration I get when I've run a leg well and then waste 30 seconds looking around for the control flag that's hidden behind an unmapped feature.

No, it's worse. It's more like the frustration you get when you misplace something important and have to root through several rooms in your house looking for it.

I've enjoyed finding a few easier caches (orienteering-style, by plotting them onto a map, noting any clues, then going for it), but I found a geocaching team event I did to be frustrating and strategically uninteresting. Whereas orienteering--solo or in a team--calls upon a plethora of skills, looking for small hidden containers in dense forest really doesn't. On the other hand, it is challenging to get along with a group of strangers when you're all frustrated by the same mind-numbing and basically unskilled task, so I guess there is a bit of team-building potential there. But the possibilities to do well through role definition and communication are fairly poor, since the task is so simplistic (and rewards luck above skill and effective teamwork).

But maybe the event I did was just poorly designed. I can see the appeal of blind exploration, though. When one is orienteering, one has an idea of what is coming up, so one doesn't get the same sense of surprise (unless one is very poor at map reading) that one gets from following the "go to" arrow on one's GPS.

How about a gps 'map memory' event. Set a course of say 3km with 3-5 controls, control descriptions include georeferences. 10-15 minutes allowed for competitors to view the map and memorise control descriptions and the major features that will take them close to the controls, and program the control references into their gps (no pens/paper allowed to copy anything down), then off they go - without a map. Should give about equal chance to orienteers and gps enthusiasts. You'd have to have a separate class for orienteers who are gps-savvy. Or you could have teams of 1 orienteer + 1 gps'er.