The Great Birthday Challenge Discussion Thread

Following on from comments in the other thread: the task of keeping track of points, bonus points etc for a larger field of competitors is obviously difficult.

I just wonder whether simplifying the scoring next time might go a long way towards making that task easier - rather than having to find an ever-more complicated spreadsheet to deal with it all.

Or: a nice long lead time before the next one so that the spreadsheet can be set up and bomb-tested before everything starts :slight_smile:

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Yesterday, as it was end-of-term and the sheet was safely copied, we did play around and have got an easy way of linking each persons score on the sheet to the photo that generated it.

Any process we use has to be simple and quick so that someone with little or no prior knowledge can add a score by just following a few lines of instruction. And we think we have that model available for next year, :slight_smile:

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Just to verify, I don’t mean adding anything for the just gone comp which was lovely I was thinking for the next one

Overall I don’t have any complaints and thoroughly enjoyed the Challenge.

I confess I, too, was feeling that “gentlemen of leisure” had a distinct advantage. I was lucky I had coincidentally booked a fortnight off work just as things were starting, or I’m not sure I’d have fared so well. But that’s just life, nothing you can do about that. :slight_smile:

I was somewhat peeved at getting gazumped for Drone Scene entries on occasions but again, it’s part of the competition and I think the inclusion of those bonus points was a good thing.

Scoreboard-wise, I would have liked to see points claimed, bonus points lost and points remaining for each entrant. Not too fussed about positional changes because it’s where you are that matters, not where you’ve been. :wink:

Personally I liked the simplicity of the scoreboard this year.

Also - and I believe this may have been mentioned during the course of the competition - huge thanks to the committee member(s) responsible for the photos and pithy remarks that accompanied the daily score updates.

A genuinely entertaining addition to what could have just been a simple link to the score table :+1:

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I don’t need to know the details, if it was reasons beyond normal control, fair enough. To be honest, I didn’t even look at the dates of existing challenges and assumed they had all started on the birthday.

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This is something we have discussed between ourselves. Those of us who have previously competed in the Birthday Challenges had all kept a close eye on their individual scores and those of the other competitors as well. We almost had digital campaign headquarters - a map room (Google Earth, Street View, Google Maps, County rights of way maps and of course Drone Scene) - we had a reference library (Wikipedia, County guides, local guides, vehicle owners clubs etc.) and strategy planning rooms (Excel, calendars, Waze and the like)

We felt that this year’s contestants, if serious, would do the same so a breakdown of the scores by individual points was superfluous. You all seemed to be watching each entry as it was posted anyway so we thought you were up to speed on points lost or gained :slight_smile:

Yeah, it’s something that only crossed my mind about half way through, by which time I CBF to backtrack all the entries. So in some ways it’s borne out of laziness on my part, while still being a “nice to have” in my opinion. :slight_smile:

I’ll know for next year, of course, and be better prepared before I start.

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One thought in the back of mind now though when I find a new location to fly is ‘do I want to add this to dronescene, in case it’s worth a bonus point next year’ :joy:

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Easily sorted - has it got a crane, 6 axles, is it in a line with 3 other blue ones or does it have 12 arches? If not, just post it. :rofl:

Still can’t find four red or blue cars parked side by side :man_shrugging:t3:

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