Field Activity #13: GPS Navigation Activity

Introduction

The final two activities are combined together because it was a two week process.  This activities involved  the class going back to the priory, see field activity #11 under study area, to navigate the entire 15 point course with a GPS.  The purpose of this activity was to create a map with of the points, a path, and the priory area to be downloaded onto the GPS to be used when navigating.  Again the class was split into groups of three and the goal was to finish the fastest.  This time the navigation came with a twist as paintball guns were provided for us to use and shoot opposing teams when they came close.  The paintball guns were provided by the geography department and Joe Hupy of the University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire. 

Methods

As I mentioned above the first week of the activity involved the groups to create a map of all 15 points to use on the GPS when navigating.  This is a very important step because without a clean map the naviagtion could become difficult when out in the woods.  The goal was to draw lines between each point to come up with the quickest path.  When choosing this path it was important to take into account of distance between points and elevation, figure 1 below, to find the fastest and easiest path.  

Figure 1: This is a map showing the elevations of the priory using contour lines.
We did not include the contour lines when uploading it the GPS because we thought it
would look really messy on a small screen. 

Above it can be seen that the highest elevation is located in the center of the map and the priory building at 310.  And the lowest point located at around 255 in the East and one in the West.  Our beginning point is highlighted in blue and we traveled northwest to our first point.  From there follow the black line as it loops entirely around the area and reaching the beginning blue dot. 

Seen below in figure 2, point 3 is located in a deep ravine so it was decided to knock that one out quickly so we would have a lot of energy to complete the rest of the course.  Points 6b to 2b are all located ontop of the hill, therefore staying up there was key when navigation to save time.  Then points 6a to 6 were located down the hill and back up again.  Our path utilized both the distance between points and elevation between the points trying to stay on lower ground and higher ground when possible, instead of running up and down the hill to save energy.  

Figure 2: Image of the points with labels to help show what I was describing above. 

After creating a path the final image, figure 3, was loaded onto the GPS to be used next week.  The purple areas indicate a no shooting zone because of the chance people not involved in the activity could be located there. 

Figure 3: The final map uploaded onto our GPS, we did not include the contour
elevating lines because we thought it was look clustered on a small
GPS screen. 

The navigation itself was rather easy using the GPS.  Our group would look at the GPS and follow the line until we saw the flag marking the point.  The hard part of the activity was carrying the paint ball gun and watching for opposing teams.  Drew was holding using the GPS and collecting a marker at each point, while Andrew and I would keep guard in case any one was close.  The rules with the paint ball gun were simple; if anyone in your group was shot you must stop moving and wait a 1 minute until proceeding again.  This would slow the navigation down and cost a team vital time.  The other tricky part of the exercise was being paranoid of other groups and becoming very hot because of the heavy and thick clothing that is usually worn during paintball.  During the end of the navigation our group constantly had to stop, remove our masks, and take a breather to cool off.  Even with all these factors our group managed to not get hit with a paint ball and finish the activity 1st out of six groups. 

Discussion/Conclusion

Navigating through the woods is more difficult then I thought.  However, using a GPS rather than a compass and a map is much easier.  Simply by looking at a computer screen and walking towards a point can be easy.  However, I would highly recommend becoming familiar with the map and where you are in relation to it.  If this would have been the first time our class would have been in the woods around the priory this activity would have been much more difficult.  Invloving paint ball guns was a brilliant idea.  It made me think I was apart of a mission team, and our goal was to reach an objective with out being seen or shot.  As a guy that lives to compete and finish first this activity was a blast.  However, I wish we would have ran into opposing teams more often for a mini battle to occur but, because of the larger area and thickness of the woods seeing other teams was uncommon.