course planning resources

"I am still learning."       Michelangelo

Nothing makes so big an impact on orienteers' enjoyment than the quality of the courses they are given to run. To help course planners be good ones, here are some resources to help you set fun, fair, and challenging courses.

Note that although many countries use different terminology & color schemes to refer to courses and technical difficulties, this lack of standardization should not cause any serious confusion for we students of course planning.

From the UK

The British Orienteering Federation's website has a number of good course planning resources on their "Event Information" page. Some of the best include:

• An excellent series of articles about setting junior courses by Barry Elkington.
  • Advice on planning white courses
  • Advice on planning yellow courses
  • Advice on planning orange courses
  • Advice on planning light green courses
• General and thorough overview of the planning process by Graham Nilsen
  • Course Planning Guide (updated in 2006)

Splitting techniques to avoid pack formation

• http://news.worldofo.com/2009/12/21/extensive-report-separating-runners-in-orienteering/

From Adrian Zissos

• My IOF Event Advisor report from the 2008 Canadian Sprint Distance Champs, describing our use of the IOF's experimental sprint rules.
• PowerPoint presentation from the 2008 COF Conference session on Course Planning at the 2008 Canadian Champs in New Brunswick.
• A description of the 2001 Barebones Course Planning Contest with good tips about how to set enjoyable, fair, and challenging courses.

Course Planning Software

• Condes is my tool-of-choice for course planning. It provides superb features that support the entire course planning process, and many different course types (point-to-point, score-O, butterflies, relays, ski-O, mtbO, TrailO). Plus it has great map layout features and allows use of multiple maps (eg: maps created at different scales) for the same event.
• Here is a Condes tutorial in pdf format
• Here is the same tutorial, as a web-based document in the Condes online help.

Miscellaneous resources

• Play a game that can help optimize control pickup planning (you may need to hit "Refresh" a few times).

 

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If you have suggestions for other course planning resources to include on this page, please email them to adrian 'at' barebones.ca