Miami Valley Jr. Orienteering Championships
and Shamrock Hunt
March 21, 2009 - Germantown MetroPark (East)
Weather: 25° and cloudy early, rising to 55° and sunny by 2 PM.
Attendance: 56 in 51 groups
Thanks for meet assistance:
Registration and computer work - Sharon Bond, Bob Frey, Aaron Rourke, Tom Wentling, and Benjamin Bond.
Starts - Tom Wentling and Mike Minium.
Control retrieval - Tom Svobodny, Gerald Yip, and Joe Smindak.
Thanks to all for attending. The weather was perfect for running around the woods, and it looks like a good time was had by all. Most everyone finished their courses. Great job!
Our electronic punching system keeps track of start and finish times, as well as split times between controls. It checks to see if all punches are correct, and that they are punched in the correct order. I think everyone likes getting a printout of their results within moments after downloading.
Results below are shown by division for the Jr. Champs and by course for the Shamrock Hunt in three formats for each: a standard result list, split times, and chip data.
In the Middle School/Jr. High Individual Division, MVOC's Ben Bond posted the best time.
Meanwhile in the Rookie Individual Division Addison Bosley from Tichenor Middle School set a blistering pace to take the top spot while Piqua High School won the large traveling team trophy with good performances by Eric Lamphar, Pete Argabright, and Nic Monnier. In the Rookie Cooperative Division the group of David Pepple and Claude Martinho from Greenville High School came out on top.
The JV Individual Division was split, with Mitchell Hall from Springboro High School posting the fastest time while the Wayne High School team of Chris Belbrey, Aaron McDonald, and Michael Bilotto winning the large traveling trophy for Wayne. If Springboro had entered only one more in the division they may have taken it. Maybe next time...
In the Varsity Division, T.R.O.L. participant Adam White from Seiche Home School was not to be denied while the Wayne High School team of Jakob Ross, Kyle Kruk, and Elliot Bennet captured the large traveling team trophy.
The split time list shows time spent traveling between each control. For each competitor, the first row shows cummulative time, and the second row shows each leg's split time. Leading times are in blue. For example, in the Rookie Individual Division, Eric Lamphar had the best split time to control #11(code 56), getting there in 1:42, so his split time is shown in blue italics. At that point, although he's reduced his deficit against the leading Addison Bosley, he's still down by 13:44. It's interesting to see how each leg's time affects the overall lead throughout the race. Like how in the JV Individual Division, 5th and 6th place Michael Bilotto and Thomas Chanault each had three of the fastest legs, but a much more consistent Mitchell Hall took first place with only two of the fastest legs.
The chips report is the raw data from the computer chip inside the SI cards (finger sticks). It shows the start time of day, finish time of day, elapsed time (bold), and download time of day (Read at). It also shows each control number punched and the time of day it was visited. This shows where people were and when, as they traveled around their course. It shows if people were following each other. This would be shown by a consistent punch time within seconds of each other from control to control. Following other competitors is against the MV Jr. O Champs rules. If a protest is made to the meet director and the chip data indicates following, the protest will be upheld and the competitors involved disqualified. This may affect trophy standings.
In determining trophy recipients, some times greater than 120 minutes are included in the calculations. Although in standard MVOC meets 120 minutes is the overtime cutoff, for championship events a time up to 180 minutes is allowed. A careful reading of the rules reveals this.
Some were disqualified. The reason for the disqualifications were that the course was run out of sequence. Besides violating the rules, when taken out of sequence controls can be easier or more difficult to locate due to the approach direction; and the leg from control to control does not offer the proper navigational choices and challenges for that course's level of expertise.
With manual punching, extra course design effort is needed to keep competitors away from controls they visit later until it's time to visit them. The return legs are usually set a large enough distance from the outbound legs that it's not worth the effort to punch later controls early.
With the e-punch system this concern is eliminated. If an orienteer punches a control early, the system knows. This allows the course design effort to concentrate only on proper navigational challenges between controls. The result is a set of courses better matched to each skill level, and a better orienteering experience.
On the Shamrock Hunt's red course one control died during the event, #8, control code 63. Looking at the Chip Data report (see link below) we can see it worked for the first couple runners, then Kelly Spurlock found it unresponsive. For later runners it recorded the punch but its clock was no longer syncronized. This produced an inflated split time to the next control, #9 code 59, in the Splits report. We'll have to get the unit repaired.
Matt Bond
Meet Director