Statistics for Finds in a Day

[Rabbitto]

Something that I have wanted to do for a while was to analyse my caching habits by looking at how many finds in a day I have had for every day that I have gone geocaching. Note - I post some of my findings merely for those people who may want to do the same for their own statistics as I am sure that my own findings are really only interesting to me but you may be interested in some of the thought processes involved.

The first day we ever went on a geocache hunt back on 2/1/2004, we found 3 caches. On 8/1/04 we found 2, another 1 on 10/1/04, 2 on 11/1/04 and so on. Don't worry, I didn't sit there counting the caches on every day. I ran a text file off of GSAK and used Excel to manipulate the data.

The first thing I looked at was - What is the smallest number of caches that I had never found exactly that number of caches in a day. I was surprised to see that the number was 21. The surprising thing was that we had found 20 on 5 occasions, and 19 on 7 occasions and no other number of caches in a day was less than 7 times. Even more surprising was that we had 23 caches on 8 occasions. All this really means in the grand scheme of things is that we have never stopped at 21.

The next surprsing thing that I saw was that we had found just a single cache in a day on 112 occasions which means that out of the 483 days that we have found a cache, over 23% of those times we have found just 1. I would have thought that the percentage would have been way lower for this as I never try to just go out for one cache. Interesting though that the last 3 years, the rate of one cache in a day has dropped fairly dramaticly with only 9, 8 and 8 in each of those years respectively and they were limited to finds on the way home from work or from another location. I think too, that for us, the days are well gone when we see a new cache listed and race out the door to try to get a FTF. We tend to look at new ones these days and think, meh, we will wait until there is a dozen or so in that area and make a nice afternoon of it.

For interest I also noted that there were 246 caching days of 4 or less and only 236 days of 5 or more, meaning that well over 50% of the time we have found 4 or less. If you had asked me before I worked it out, I would have estimated the 50% line to come in at about 8 or 9.

Another interesting fact was to multiply out the caches found on each day by the number of times that we have found that number of caches. eg 112 x 1 = 112, 59 x 2 = 118, 47 x 3 = 141. Only one day ended up coming out over 200 caches at for us, and that was 10 in a day found 21 times for a total of 210. The mid point for our own caching by summing up all of these was (appropriately) 13 with almost an equal number of finds or 12 or less days to the number of finds on 14 or more days.

As stated, these facts that I have provided as are only relevant to myself and for numbers sake have no interest no anyone else but me, but for your own interest, you may (or may not) wish to make an analysis on your own geocaching habits. If you do, try to estimate what you think your numbers and averages may be before you do the math and see if you end up with a few surprises as I did.

[Alansee]

Interesting, Rabbitto although my interest in stats is a little different to yours, as may be expected, as we are all different.

There is definitely something in the human psyche that gets some of us interested in the way that numbers can fall out. Take a look at the statistics surrounding sports for instance!

And I know that many cachers do take an interest in the way that some caching numbers fall out for them. For eg. the numbers of a certain type of cache that they have done, or the numbers in each state.

One of my little interests is how many of the oldest caches I have done. For instance I only have 5 out of the 60 oldest caches active caches in Victoria to go. I was hoping to go for my current oldest this weekend but the weather put paid to that!

Its all good fun.

[Geodes]

Something that I have wanted to do for a while was to analyse my caching habits by looking at how many finds in a day I have had for every day that I have gone geocaching. Note - I post some of my findings merely for those people who may want to do the same for their own statistics as I am sure that my own findings are really only interesting to me but you may be interested in some of the thought processes involved.


....... Yada, yada, yada

Dean, you need psychiatric help, I'm afraid

[caughtatwork]

Interesting:


You can find this on your cacher graphs pages, near the bottom called Finds in a Day. I will have a play with some of the other statistics suggested by Rabbitto and see what I can come up with.

Alansee:


Geodes:


Mine:

[Geodes]

Woohoo! I win with the most number of 1-in-a-day finds!

(I don't think I like the direction this thread is heading)

[rhinogeo]

Curiously I've never found 19 in a day and have only found >20 on 4 occasions

[caughtatwork]

Woohoo! I win with the most number of 1-in-a-day finds!

(I don't think I like the direction this thread is heading)

I think it's fascinating. I see that statistic as being an "opportunity cacher". A lot of your logs I read are about you seeing a new cache and deciding to head off to it before work. Others (like me) don't get the same opportunity so we get fewer single find days.

Unless of course you mean that "here is another statistic to brag about"?

[Rabbitto]

Woohoo! I win with the most number of 1-in-a-day finds!

(I don't think I like the direction this thread is heading)

I think it's fascinating. I see that statistic as being an "opportunity cacher". A lot of your logs I read are about you seeing a new cache and deciding to head off to it before work. Others (like me) don't get the same opportunity so we get fewer single find days.

Unless of course you mean that "here is another statistic to brag about"?

No he just didn't realise how close to the dark side he really is. Straight jackets for two I presume?

[nomad_penguin]

This *is* fascinating. If you had asked me, I would have said that we rarely go out for only one or two caches, and yet the graph says something completely different . We seem to have an odd fascination with 13 (the unlucky number) and an even fascination with 28 (the second perfect number) . I wonder why? (A rhetorical question!)

[Geodes]

Arghhh - you're all barking mad

I have to stop reading this thread lest it lead me to places I don't want to go

Seriously, I'm quite fond of a certain amount of statistics - but focussing on it too much leads to obsessive behaviour and I have to deal with enough of that already

Unless of course you mean that "here is another statistic to brag about"?

Right, I think we've got more than enough "achievment" vectors for people to use as competitive yardsticks already without having to drag up a few even more obscure ones. Damn, now I suppose I have to keep my 1-in-a-day count up in case anyone tries to pass me

[Rabbitto]

We just filled in our 21 slot today, Bob. Now we'll have to get that 25.

Damn, now I suppose I have to keep my 1-in-a-day count up in case anyone tries to pass me

Oh yes, and watch out, I did a couple of 'one cache in a day' days earlier in the month and I'm only 143 behind you now.

[Geodes]

We just filled in our 21 slot today, Bob. Now we'll have to get that 25.

Damn, now I suppose I have to keep my 1-in-a-day count up in case anyone tries to pass me

Oh yes, and watch out, I did a couple of 'one cache in a day' days earlier in the month and I'm only 143 behind you now.

Ha - I filled in my 23 slot (twice, on consecutive outings recently) - but I've since noticed that EuDes has a very unusual pattern of finds/day (for someone with that many finds, he doesn't tend to have BIG days - but he sure must have a lot of them!) and beats my 1/day count by at least 30 (phew - I can stop worrying now!)

[Alansee]

I just had a good day out caching and did a goodly number.

I'm now going to log them one day at a time so that I get a really high number of one-day finds.

I'm gong to win, I'm going to win!

Sorry sir, what do you mean, I need to put that nice jacket on? And what are those buckles for?

[LazyLeopard]

Strewth! I occasionally wondered how folks managed to build up four- and five-digit find counts. I figure I'm doing well if I find more than one in a day, and I think five in a day is the most I've ever managed...

[pprass]

There's something wrong with our graph - typical GCA - there is no way we have found just one cache in a day on 254 occasions