A Meet and Greet with Land Surveyors, Geocachers plus a 'Geo-Olympics'
Saturday, August 24, 2013
From 11:00 a.m. till ?
N 39° 22.722' ~ W 77° 13.616'
Geocaching.com Event GC4FEFH
DUE TO THE ONGOING PLANNING OF OTHER ACTIVITIES WE ARE TRYING TO ADD, PLEASE COME BACK AND CHECK THIS PAGE FOR POSSIBLE UPDATES.
The Maryland Society of Surveyors (MSS) has formed a Geocache Committee to find ways to promote Land Surveying to the Geocaching community as well as introduce Geocaching to our “muggle” Surveyors. This is our first event and we are pulling out all the stops to make it a great day. We have reserved a pavilion for the day, so plan to bring the family and friends to stay and enjoy Old National Pike Park. While we are planning to have hamburgers and hot dogs, there will be grills available for your own cooking.
Be sure to stop by the registration table to “log” in and get a list of the days activities. This will also be the starting point for most of the activities.
We have had Surveying Olympics at some our Surveying gatherings and they were always a hit, so we will be modifying some of the events to work with your hand-held GPS units. Here are some of the planned events. Make sure you get familiar with these features in your GPSr so you can join in and win the Gold, Silver and Bronze prizes.
- "Set a flag at the coordinate." This is pretty much what you do while looking for a cache. After everyone places a flag at a given coordinate, we will bring out our "super-fancy," "high-precision" GPS equipment to find where the spot really is located.
- "Measure the distance." You will be shown two or three spots in the park where markers will be placed. You need to use you GPSr to measure the distance between them.
- "Measure the area." You will be shown three or more markers in the park. Using your GPSr, compute the area of the shape bounded by those markers. I have found a cache or two that required this task and many GPS hand-held devices can do it.
- "What's the azimuth?" You will be shown two spots in the park where markers will be placed. You need to use you GPSr to measure a true and magnetic azimuth between them.
- Cameras and video recorders are encouraged to remember this "Once In A Lifetime" event.
Refreshments will be provided and everyone attending the event with leave with something to cherish the day.
For those of you that hunt Benchmarks, Surveyors are one of the few professions that use them as well set new ones. There will be a display showcasing the History of Surveying and will include some Benchmarks.
For more information about Old National Pike Park Click here.
Geo-Olympic Results
“Set a flag at the coordinate” (this event was performed two times)
Golds – bluecrabfan and zorrobarnes
Silvers – eissak and Always Lost 00
Bronzes – cardinal points and cardinal points
“Measure the distance”
Gold – DudleyGrunt
Silver - cardinal points
Bronze – bluecrabfan
“Measure the area”
Gold – bluecrabfan
Silver – Edwin
Bronze – HAPPeMurphy
“What's the azimuth”
Gold – DudleyGrunt
Silver – zorrobarnes
Bronze - cardinal points