First Class Orienteering Requirement

[SeattlePioneer]

I recently spent 8-10 hours putting together an excellent (if I do say so myself) orienteering course to meet one of the first class requirements. The requirement specifies that it be at least a mile long and involve uses of indirect measurement skills.

 

That's a lot of work.

 

How do other Troops handle that requirement?

 

I'm thinking about taking copies of the map and clues and leaving them at the next Roundtable.

 

 

 

Seattle Pioneer

[bbng]

This troop happens to be near courses that are already in place. One is a day trip; others are used when the troop goes camping.

[packsaddle]

I have set this up for numerous years in an area that is a large expanse of open space surrounded by forest. I vary the course each time and if more than one boy is doing it, I make several courses over the same area. The largest single straight-line distance is approximately 1/4 mile.

This setting is good for this because I can keep all of the boys in sight throughout the whole course (safety consideration) and by keeping track of which boys have what course, I can tell how well they're doing.

I design the sequence so that I will know very quickly if they know what they're doing. If they make an obvious error, I stop them and go over the skills with them. Then we restart with a different course. The boys often start this thinking it is going to be easy. Then after 2 or 3 restarts they begin to take it seriously. It takes most of a morning to lay it out and the rest of the day for 6 or so of the boys to complete it satisfactorily. At the end of each course, I hide a token that earns them a reward (drinks or cookies or something) for their success.

If I didn't have access to this particular property, I would resort to a local golf course that is friendly to this activity.