Results Map
Pondering over the top words: 2 Juniors came up with “sunshine” compared to the adults’ “rampage” and “dental” – what does that tell you about the different perspective a few extra age classes gives you?!
Prepare to be boggled! This was a score event like no other…
Instead of controls having a points value, each control has a letter allocated.
The aim is to create words by visiting the controls in correct sequence to spell out your words.
1. 45 minute time limit
2. Visit controls only once
3. 2 points per minute penalty after 45 mins
4. For each word created 1 point is awarded for each letter.
5. 5 points bonus for 5 & 6 letter words
6. 10 points bonus for 7 & 8 letter words
7. 15 points bonus for 9 letter words and over
For example: “HAT” = 3 points, “SLOPE” = 5 points + 5 bonus points = 10 points
Well done to all those who turned up to the boggle O score. Rob Hickling had the best tactics and the overall best score for the seniors, with Naomi Laing holding Calum off the top spot for the juniors. Thanks to Bob, Liz and Helen for their help at registration and collecting controls.
A bit of planning insight to anyone who might be interested…..
The requirement was for something a bit different so after a bit of head scratching the Boggle idea was hatched. I’d picked out about 30 control sites in Countesswells and looking at it I thought it would be easy to get quite a lot in 45 mins (how wrong could I be), but I wasn’t sure how quickly people would manage to work out their words. A quick search on the internet provided lists of the best letters to use that would also provide the maximum possibilities.
I thought people would try to work out words with letters that were close together and confined to 3 different area’s . The first one, the Northern area in the top half of the map, the second area closest to the Rotton o’Gairn car park and the third area close to the start.
If you put the letters I used into a scrabble cheat in google you’ll find that there are literally hundreds of possible words in each area and I did spend quite a bit of time juggling the different possibilities – I wanted to try if at all possible to use letters which would provide orienteering terms, but in the end just made sure that I kept the letters to spell “Grampian” and the rest would have to be a bit of a mix of luck and design.
Judging by the deductions for late returns it would probably have been better to have 1 point per minute deducted and allowed 60 minutes for the course.
Getting all this into Condes was a bit time consuming, but worked out ok in the end. I was pleased that at least some people managed to get “Grampian” and even more pleased when Calum produced “Grampians”.
Dennis
GRAMPIAN ORIENTEERS 
Thanks for the event, Dennis.
Looking at the results PDF, some of you may have wondered what my 9 letter word was! … seeing that the “word” shown there (a) is only 8 letters, and (b) doesn’t exist! It was “CHASTENED”, and I also got “TONAL”. All without running up into the northern Kingshill Woods at all. Even so I worked out that the “course” I ran was 7.3km (as the crow flies).
My only criticism is that 45 minutes was far too short a time allowance. It made it very hard for slower runners and walkers to get anything like a decent score. It would have been better to allow more time, e.g. 60 or even 70 minutes, but apply a maximum of two words.
Dennis, based on a reasonable running speed for a typical club member, did you work out what an optimum result would be in 45 minutes?