GPS Navigation

Introduction

Navigation with the assistance of a GPS was utilized for the orienteering course at the Priory in Eau Claire. Being able to navigate with a GPS is vital to many because not everyone has access to a compass but almost everyone has a GPS in the form of a smartphone. For this exercise the Juno GPS from trimble was used but we could have used a map on a cell phone if needed.

Methods

Before the navigation occurred the first step was to develop a map and a plan for the course. Instead of doing just 5 points like in a previous exercise we were tasked with doing the entire course. The map was similar to what was made for the previous exercise but with all of the flags marked and a path for us to follow was included. The map was then exported to the Juno to be used in the ArcPad application. While doing the course with the GPS we were also supposed to take points at each flag to ensure that we made it to each since this was also a race.

Figure 1. The map used for the navigation. The black line represents the path followed, black dots are the flags, red triangles are the locations recorded of the flags by the GPS, and the green dot is the starting point of the course. Red areas are no firing zones.

Discussion

Using paintball guns during the exercise definitely got the heart rates going but after finding the first couple of flags we didn’t run into any other teams. Navigating by using the GPS was extremely easy. Issues ran into while using the GPS were minor but it did turn off while halfway through the course and reconnecting to the satellites took what seemed like several minutes. This is mostly due to the amount of tree cover we were under but once it reconnected it worked just fine for the rest of the course.

Conclusion

Using a GPS for not only collecting data but for navigating is an invaluable skill. Even though we were using paintball guns to help bring a level of danger to the navigation it proved to be more of a hassle to just carry the gun through the thick brush in some parts of the course. Overall this exercise was straight-forward and easy to apply to other facets of life.