Orienteering help

[morganfam7]

We are seriously thinking about going to the Scout-O Challenge in Bastrop, TX this next weekend. "My three sons" are new Lone Scouts. We don't get **any** contact from council no matter how many times we try so I don't know an O merit badge counselor to ask. I'm going to contact an O club about an hour from me....in the meantime, maybe someone here can help us.

 

We just learned how to orient a compass, take bearings, minus our declination number and that sort of thing from a section in a book on camping last weekend. We have land that the boys can practice on, but we're not sure what to do. Set up a course? We only have a week to prepare them. We have the USGS map for our area, but not an orienteering map.

 

The heart of the matter is this: Does anyone have any suggestions that I can implement over the next week to help them get ready for the Challenge next weekend? How does one choose a route? How can you know if it will be faster to go around than go up or through?

 

The boys have the clear base compasses, and we've discussed maps and symbols and have studied the USGS maps I have.

 

We don't have the o merit badge book, and the council is about 70 miles from here. Is the book worth the drive? I've read Ed Scott's Lesson plans and the stuff at meritbadge.com. I just don't see much there about HOW to choose a course. There is one short page at www.williams.edu:803/Biology/orienteering/rtechce.html

 

Can someone elaborate? Is this something that you learn in the field, or are there more guidelines?

 

The rules for the Challenge are: "Each team will be given one punch card and have four hours to find as many control markers (orange & white nylon bags) as possibe with the markers having different point values based on distance and difficulty."

 

TIA,

 

Marcy

[sctmom]

I'm no expert on this by any means, but from what I have read The Orienteering Merit Badge and running an O-course are different animals. The O-club pages I've looked at say they are not about using a compass and map the way the scouts do it, in fact they recommended a small thumb compass without taking bearings.

Hopefully someone else on this board will elaborate on this.

 

[eisely]

My impression is that very few scout units set up a true "orienteering course", complete with detailed map to meet the first class requirement.

 

What I have done in the past to separate the orienteering from the map reading somewhat because I haven't had the ability to generate a reliable large scale map to go with the course. Here is what I suggest.

 

Take the longest tape measure you have and set up outside a line 100 feet long on the ground. Mark the ends with stakes or a piece of cloth on the ground if the wind isn't blowing. Have everybody in the family pace this off and count their paces. Do it both ways. The idea is compute the length of one's pace by dividing 100 by the number of paces. Most adults are about 2.5 feet in their step. A purist will call a pace two steps, one with the right leg and one with the left leg. It doesn't matter as long as everybody understands and agrees.

 

One of the adults needs to lay out a course for the boys to follow. Make up some tags that you tie to bushes, trees, or anything else. Write random numbers, using two digits, on these tags. This is in lieu of using the special punches that orienteering clubs use.

 

Pick a starting point that is fixed. You know your land so you can rough out a course in your mind avoiding major obstacles that are totally impassable. Take a bearing from your starting point to some object, either on the horizon, or the near distance. Write down the bearing.

 

Start pacing towards the object, counting your own paces (or single steps) as you go. When you come to a spot on your first leg where there is an identifiable object, make this your first check point or station. Write down the number of paces with the bearing. Put a tag on the object. Write down the digits on the tag. The object you select for your checkpoint does not have to be the object you were walking towards. Depending on circumstances I have had legs as long as a quarter mile and as short as 50 feet. In your pacing, if you have to go around something, just do so and try to come back a logical point on the back side of the object and keep counting all the time.

 

After doing all of the above, from you first checkpoint, turn in the general direction you want to go and repeat the process. Select an object on the horizon, take a bearing, pace off, establish your next checkpoint etc. I would write down what type of object you are attaching the tag to. Put the tag in plain view. This is not hide and go seek.

 

Continue doing this until you have looped back to your starting point, or some preselected end point.

 

Go back home, pour a cup of coffee and figure out the distance of each leg in feet. If you and your spouse can do this together you can average your estimates of the distance.

 

Make up a set of instructions giving the starting point, the distances, the bearings, and the checkpoint descriptions. Give this to your sons and see if they can find the tags. They are required to write down the numbers on the tags. This is a check to make sure they are not making up the answers.

 

Be sure to avoid power lines and buried pipelines. Also avoid other metal objects such as gates, metal fence poles and the like. These can all throw you off.

 

One principle in laying out a course is to use a compass that is more accurate than the participants will use. I use a compass with a folding mirror and sight. The typical scout orienteering compass such as polaris is probably accurate to only 10 degrees, even in the hands of an experienced user. The compass with the sight is probably accurate to 2 degrees. It doesn't sound like you have the more accurate compass, so you will have to do the best you can. After you have read through this, ask any questions you may have.

[ScouterPaul]

Sounds like you are going to participate in a Billy Goat where there many markers each having a different point value. The higher the point value the more difficult the route to the marker. You will need to choose your game plan -high number of easier and lower point markers or smaller number of higher point markers. My advice is to have your boys practice taking and following bearings as this will be helpfull during the meet. Also practice reading a map. Also take a good amount of time to plan your route before the meet starts. You'll do this with your map and compass(determining the bearings before will speed things up).

The most important thing for you all to do is have fun. I've taken my Webelos orienteering several times and we have had a blast. Orienteering promotes teamwork (each boy takes a turn in the lead),compass and map reading skills.

[morganfam7]

Thanks for all the suggestions and help! We set up a course yesterday. It was good practice. We figured the length of our pace, and my husband ran the course to make sure it was accurate like eisley suggested. I had them go through some thick stuff and go around dead trees. It was a lot of fun.

 

We're about to leave. I hope no one gets lost - it's 3500 acres and a 200 foot difference in altitude in the park. I'll let you know how it goes!

 

Thanks again,

 

Marcy

[eisely]

good luck

[Weekender]

I've only been over to bastrop once for summer camp at lost pines. What part of Texas are y'all from.

[morganfam7]

We're back and we had a really good time! Our guys weren't used to the steep (to us) ravines, but they found about half of the markers, I think.

 

One mistake we made - we overpacked. They had full packs - layers of clothing, extra water, gorp, scout essentials, ect. We didn't realize that the (easier) area was encompassed by a park road on all sides, so it would have been pretty hard to get lost. If they would have taken fanny packs and canteens only, they could have climbed better and made better time. There were three water stations, which we didn't expect. A pint's a pound the world around....that water was heavy to pack!

 

It was great fun and they made some wonderful memories with their Dad! Maybe next year we'll have a whole troop of boys going! Thanks for the help!

 

Oh and we're in Van Zandt county. Where are you from Weekender?

 

Blessings,

 

Marcy

[Weekender]

Marcy,

 

Glad y'all had a good time. I've been enjoying that type of scouting adventure for close to thirty years and I'm having a great time bringing my boys up in the program.

 

We live over in San Angelo. If you ever come through, or troop meets at Cornerstone Christian School on North Jefferson Mondays at 7:00. Fell free to stop by. Scouters are always welcome.

[Eman]

This is a late post on the subject. If you contact the Silva compass company they have some good aids for orienteering for Scouts.

[morganfam7]

Eman,

 

What kind of aids do they have? We have the protractor style compass. We're going to another meet around Valentine's Day thatis put on by the local Orienteering Club. I'm not sure how that will be different than the Scout O Challenge we just attended. We sure had a lot of fun!

 

Weekender, thanks for the invitation! I'm going to put a print out in our scout file. Maybe we'll make it through there some time. Is your troop a home school troop? I'm interested in starting a home school troop here and would like to email back and forth if you have any information about that.

 

Blessings,

 

Marcy

[Weekender]

Marcy,

Our troop is not a homeschool troop. My two boys and one of the other boys in the troop are homeschooled, all the others are in public school. We have explored the possibility of starting a troop in the homeschool association but the association is not ready to charter a troop. Besides that, most of the kids that are scouting age are already affiliated with other units. And to top it all off, we would only be looking at about 7-10 boys anyway.

We are part of the San Angelo Christian Homeschool Association and the idea of spending our scouting time almost strictly around other Christians is appealing but at the same time we see this as an opportunity to share our faith with others.

[Mike KA5CVH]

My name is Mike Urich and I just stumbled across this msg looking for something else and would like to toss a few things out to y'all here in Texas. As most of you probally know orienteering is big among the HS JROTC programs. LaPorte (Houston area) is the US Interscholastic Champions in Open Division and The Colony (Dallas area) are the ROTC Interscholastic Champions.

 

Major Larry Vidinha, USA-Ret of LaPorte HS JROTC runs a orienteering camp each summer called TJOC, Texas Junior Orinteering Camp. This year, next week to be exact, Jun 3-7 its being held at Sid Richardson Scout Ranch. Usually this camp is held at Bastrop SP but there was a conflict in schedules to use it.

 

If you check the Houston Orienteering Club http://hoc.us.orienteering.org/ and North Texas Orienteering Association http://www.ntoa.com/ web-sites you can find out more info on the major meets.

 

If you have scouts that are interested in amateur (ham) radio a few of us are trying to get radio orienteering or ARDF as its correctly know started here in Texas. You can visit my web-site http://www.ka5cvh.com/ and click on "Fox hunting, ARDF, Radio Orienteering link at the bottom.

 

While I'm not a world class orienteer I have been involved in the sport for 6 years now having a son who runs red and a 15 year old daughter that runs green and placed 2nd at the US Championships.

Please feel free to contact me if I can be of any further assistance or help.

 

Mike Urich, KA5CVH

www.ka5cvh.com

LaPorte TX

ka5cvh@arrl.net