CHCCS ARDF
2017-09-17, Fall #1, 80m Classic
Event Report

Island Creative Time
The family website of Kelly and Patrick Sears





It was a beautiful day for our fall season opener. Sunny with a light breeze. Perfect for running in the woods. This was the first CHCCS ARDF event of the fall season. It was a short 80m classic held on the West side of Carolina North Forest. Two teams went out. In total, we had 5 participants (3 middle school students and 2 family members). If you find a mistake or need some information changed, please let me know [ patrick (dot) r (dot) sears [at] gmail (dot) com ].

The 80m classic course was a short one to start off the season, 1.9 km. We had the course divided up into 5 levels with the option to know the optimum order for each level. The best level 3 (orange, 1.4 km) order took you through foxes 3, 5, 4, and the homing beacon. The longest distance across the course area was 1.5 km.

There are number of changes for the fall events. Starting with this event, we had a new set of flag strings to provide true start and finish shoots with start and finish signs. It gives a real festive look to our main meeting place. Each shoot is only 15 m long and the homing beacon is just at the end of the finish shoot. So participants can easily check it out before going out. We no longer have a way to practice by just searching for the homing beacon, but that didn't appear to be necessary. We have a large digit clock that keeps in sync with the WWVB NIST standard transmitter near Fort Collins, Colorado, and to which all the foxes are synchronized. Very cool ☺ . We have a new card punching system instead of the finder tags. Each participant gets a card at the start and holes it with a punch found at each control. Just like a real orienteering event! Finally, you may notice that the web page title now includes the type of event: 80 m Classic. We're almost done building a full set of foxoring transmitters. So by the end of the season, we'll be ready for a totally different kind of event. We'll post info about this in the news section of the CHCCS ardf home page as we make progress.

Thanks to all the middle school and high school teachers and staff who helped get the word out to the students: Rachel Hopler (Science Teacher, Culbreth Middle School), Christine Lippy (Science Teacher, McDougle Middle School), Al McArthur (Technology Facilitator, Phillips Middle School), Haley Wamble (Science Teacher, East Chapel Hill High School), SaCola Lehr (Media Specialist, Chapel Hill High School), Libby Diesel (Library Assistant, Chapel Hill High School), Kara Watson (Media Specialist, Carrboro High School). Thanks to Greg Kopsch (Park Manager at Carolina North Forest) for the use of CNF.

Participant Activities

Turnout was a bit low but this seems to be usual for the first event of the season. It was super exciting that everyone was new to the sport. Ben (SMS g7) and David (family) arrived early. They had done some orienteering before and felt quite confident. So, after the learning how the equipment worked, they went out by themselves to tackle the ordered orange course.

Jack (SMS g7), James (SMS g8), and Joe (family) showed up soon after Ben and David arrived. Patrick's class continued for a few minutes as we went into CNF to search for Fox #3, the first one of the ordered orange course. We found Foxes #3 and #5. And a turtle! ☺ After #5, we headed for a major trail intersection on our way to #4. There we saw Ben and David who had also been successful in finding the first two transmitters. They went off ahead as we waited for Fox #4 to come back on cycle. Soon we had found that one also and headed for the homing beacon and the finish.

In the end, we all arrived at the finish around the same time. Kudos to Ben and David for figuring it all out by themselves on their very fist time out! Excellent!

Results

course#participants (school, grade)findstime
3/o 1 James (SMS 8), James (SMS 7), Joe (f). 3 4 5 H 62'
3/o 2 Ben (SMS 7), David (f). 3 4 5 H 82'

The entries are listed first by chosen course and then by the number of foxes found on that course and finally by the time on course. The course column shows the chosen course designated by the number of foxes to find with an '/o' suffix when the optimal order was known. The # column gives the results placement for that course. The finds column notes the controls found: foxes 1 through 5 and the homing beacon (H). The time column is the time on course. Students are listed with their school and grade. We use the following schools abbreviations: PMS Phillips MS, SMS Smith MS, McD McDougle MS, CMS Culbreth MS, CHHS Chapel Hill HS, ECHHS East Chapel Hill HS, CaHS Carrboro HS, f family or guest friend, es elementary school, s chccs student (no school info).

Pictures

Clicking pictures will bring up original full-sized versions. All participants are listed as seen in the picture from left to right. Pictures are generally listed in chronological order trying to keep groups together.

James, Patrick (behind), Joe (behind), Jack. The class is going over orienteering map reading.

Jack, James. Returning from checking out the homing beacon.

Our new start sign and shoot.

Our new finish sign and shoot. The homing beacon control flag can be seen at the end of the shoot.

David returning through the finish shoot just after punching the homing beacon.

Jack punching the homing beacon control.

James, Jack. Hanging out after their time on course.

Ben, James (in background), David.

James, Joe, Jack.

Kelly at the main table.

Kelly. Searching for foxes during pick-up.

Kelly. Collecting one of the fox controls during pick-up.

Patrick. Winding up one of the 80m verticals during pick-up. The verticals proper are 6m long plus another 8m of string to reach the next highest branch and come back down.






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