Vinton Wolfe – Georgia Orienteering Club
Georgia Orienteering Club (GAOC) used O-Lynx Event as the standalone software for running a meet with 3 beginner/intermediate classic orienteering courses and a varied length Motala. The Motala consisted of 4 loops with runners doing a map exchange and having the freedom to curtail their run after only 1, 2, or 3 loops, if not running all 4 loops. In addition, we used a mass start with randomly assigned initial loops.
I used Purple Pen to create the variations for 4 loops (24 variations for loops ABCD), 3 loops (3 sets of variations for loops ABC, ABD & BCD), 2 loops ( 6 sets of variations) and finally the 4 individual loops (A, B, C & D). I imported these into O-Lynx Event along with the 3 courses and a created a catch-all course for the Motala variations. I set up the loop variations to be invisible and only the Motala course to be visible with its variations box checked. I ended up with 68 individual courses.
I used O-Lynx Touch for onsite registration with the screen displaying the four courses – White, Yellow, Orange & Motala – because of the visible settings in Event.
Unfortunately, our turnout was not large, but the matching algorithm work flawlessly and identified correctly all the loop variations used. We had 12 Motala runners – 8 running 4 loops, 3 running 3 loops, 1 running 2 loops. Two of the runners mispunched, but the algorithm correctly identified the loop order, and the code checking worked correctly, too. In prior testing I had occasionally fooled the algorithm with multiple mispunches in loops having some common controls.
I displayed results using the Score-O panel. I had assigned 1 point each to the loop controls. This allowed the runners to be grouped together by loops run followed by time ranking within these groups. I removed the point’s fields – Score, Penalty & Total – from the panel. I would have liked the ‘Actual’ course run field to have been available to show in the panel. Shown below is a modified version of the results screen.
I placed a SSR radio on the map exchange and picked up the pivot control for each runner during the event. The bonus was capturing the unsent punches from the SIAC Air+ users. Because the map exchange was next to my epunch setup, the SRR O-Lynx radio signal did not go through a relay.
Setting up this Motala with the O-Lynx software was a great challenge, and I was pleased with the results.