GeosportZ 2012 - Questions and Clarifications

[Bewilderbeest]

I clicked on the 'Contact an Administrator' link on cachinggames.com, as I wished to get confirmation of the suitability of a couple of specific caches. But there are no administrators to contact.

I will PM my questions to caughtatwork instead.

[quiet1_au]

I clicked on the 'Contact an Administrator' link on cachinggames.com, as I wished to get confirmation of the suitability of a couple of specific caches. But there are no administrators to contact.

I will PM my questions to caughtatwork instead.

It works to just post it here - C@W catches them pretty quickly (even if the news isn't what you may have hoped... )

[caughtatwork]

And if my "closest unfound" on 1st July could also fit another requirement, can I log it agaisnt that event and then find the new "closest to home" for that requirement (which used to be second closest)?

Yes.

[Bewilderbeest]

I clicked on the 'Contact an Administrator' link on cachinggames.com, as I wished to get confirmation of the suitability of a couple of specific caches. But there are no administrators to contact.

I will PM my questions to caughtatwork instead.

It works to just post it here - C@W catches them pretty quickly (even if the news isn't what you may have hoped... )

He also responds to PMs very promptly, he's just a great guy and site admin

[Chwiliwr]

My closest unfound cache is a puzzle that I cannot solve as it requires me to solve 8 other puzzle caches that I haven't yet been able to solve after 18 months. Can I go to the next closest cache?

[caughtatwork]

My closest unfound cache is a puzzle that I cannot solve as it requires me to solve 8 other puzzle caches that I haven't yet been able to solve after 18 months. Can I go to the next closest cache?

Are you sure your home co-ordinates are right?
Really?
Truly?
Maybe they'd just a little bit off.
If you make them really, really right, then maybe another cache might be your closest.

[akkatracker]

Drat...
Just realised that my logs and submissions were dated tomorrow
Could C@W please just either
Put them through
or
Reject them and I'll submit tomorrow

[caughtatwork]

Drat...
Just realised that my logs and submissions were dated tomorrow
Could C@W please just either
Put them through
or
Reject them and I'll submit tomorrow

Fixed.

[themd]

I stand corrected.

Maybe the "2 litre" sistemas really have a greater capacity than that but they label them 2 litres for some marketing reason.

The 20 litres is going to be a lot harder to caluclate (and find) as people's "large" caches these days can be pretty regular in size. I'm planning on carrying around a bucket with 20l of water everywhere I go and I'll try pouring it into all the cache I find that look a bit larger than normal

Hey caughtatwork a "Bazooka" would hold 20 litres surely ??

[caughtatwork]

I stand corrected.

Maybe the "2 litre" sistemas really have a greater capacity than that but they label them 2 litres for some marketing reason.

The 20 litres is going to be a lot harder to caluclate (and find) as people's "large" caches these days can be pretty regular in size. I'm planning on carrying around a bucket with 20l of water everywhere I go and I'll try pouring it into all the cache I find that look a bit larger than normal

Hey caughtatwork a "Bazooka" would hold 20 litres surely ??

Actually, yes it does.
It was calculated to hold 20 litres exactly.

[themd]

[SamCarter]

For the benefit of those needing to calculate 20L in the field, the following may be useful (geocaching-oriented rule-of-thumb-based revision of high school measurement topics).

If the cache is a rectangular prism (i.e., a "box shape"), you work out the volume by calculating length x breadth x height (I suspect most of you will have remembered this). [Make sure all measurements are in the same units.]

If the cache is a proper cylinder (such as a "bazooka", in fact!), then you need to find the radius of the circle part (which is half the diameter (i.e., half the widest part of the circle)). Square this (i.e., multiply it by itself). If you are in the field with no calculator, multiply this result by 3; if you have a calculator (or long multiplication skills and patience), use 3.1415926 instead (actually, 3.14 will be plenty good enough!). This gives you the area of the circular end of the cylinder. To get the volume of the cylinder, multiply this area by the height. (This is the πr^2 x h formula for the volume of a cylinder).

If you have a tapering cylinder, which has a small circle at one end and a larger circle at the other end, then provided it tapers evenly, then the official formula is 1/3 x π x h x (R^2 +Rxr + r^2) where R and r are the radii of the big and small circles respectively. You could get away with h x (R^2 +Rxr + r^2) which will be a slight underestimate of the true answer, obtained by approximating π by 3. Alternatively, you could just use 3 x r^2 x h ; this uses 3 for an approximation to π and just works out the volume of the cylinder that has the small circle as its base, and since this is obviously smaller than the tapering cylinder this simple calculation definitely underestimates the real answer ... but if you get 20L with it, you know your cache is definitely big enough! For those who like to know these things, the proper formula mentioned at the beginning of this paragraph comes from realising that a tapered cylinder is just a big cone that has had the pointy end -- a shorter cone -- chopped off to create what is called a conical frustum.

Now, if you work in cm for all your length measurements, then after working out the volume you should divide by 1000 to get the volume in litres.

If you are too old for cm, and are happier with inches, then you have a miserable final calculation to do, namely dividing by 16.4-ish ... but 16 will be near enough and this can be done in the field by halving four times (halving once is dividing by two, halving again divides the original answer by 4, halving again divides the original answer by 8, and the fourth halving is dividing by 16).

Here is an example: a plastic tub -- of the tapered variety -- has a diameter at the lid of 30cm (and so a radius of 15cm), and a base diameter of 25cm (so a radius of 12.5cm). Its height is 50cm. With a calculator, I'd just work out 1/3 x π x 50 x (15^2 + 15 x 12.5 + 12.5^2) which equals 29779 cm^3 and this is about 29.8 L, which is plenty big enough. In the field without a calculator I might do some rounding to make my life easier. In fact, I might just try doing the 3 x 12.5^2 x 50 approximation, but this is still too hard for my head, so I'll round down the 12.5 to 10 and see what I get with 3 x 10^2 x 50 which is 300 x 50 which is 15000 cm^3 or 15L. At this stage I am not certain that I have a 20L container, but you might be convinced that adding an extra 2cm all the way around my 10cm radius cylinder (to get close again to the 12.5cm radius I am supposed to have) and with a height of 50cm will actually add quite a few extra litres (in fact it adds a surprising 6L (and this too is actually an underestimate), although it is now getting way too hard for me to type an explanation of why). So, provided you're convinced that all the underestimating we did results in quite a substantial underestimate in our approximate value, then you might be convinced that we're close enough to 20L.

You can, of course, add a ruler to your "essential caching supplies" or just learn your own handspan, footlength, pace and other useful benchmarks (e.g., your little finger is probably about 1cm wide unless you are a big burly bloke; your end thumb-joint is likely to be about an inch or 2.5cm; I'm lucky in that I have a metric handspan and footlength of 20cm and 25cm respectively) ... or as someone suggested quite a few posts ago, carry 20L of water!

Here endeth the maths lesson.

[caughtatwork]

[quiet1_au]

For the Aquatics requirement, can you complete a cache that you DO swim or wade to, even though it is not a requirement? ie I could have walked to it on dry land but I chose to plunge into freezing cold water to get to it?

Yes. Photographic evidence is needed either way.

Photo evidence of your aquatic adventure must be included with your log.

Ahh I see why you wanted that photo now? Sorry about that.

Does that include an detour to dip in a heated pool enroute to a cache?

[caughtatwork]

For the Aquatics requirement, can you complete a cache that you DO swim or wade to, even though it is not a requirement? ie I could have walked to it on dry land but I chose to plunge into freezing cold water to get to it?

Yes. Photographic evidence is needed either way.

Photo evidence of your aquatic adventure must be included with your log.

Ahh I see why you wanted that photo now? Sorry about that.

Does that include an detour to dip in a heated pool enroute to a cache?

Find and log a geocache that you swim to or wade to to claim this requirement.

Unless the cache is at the end of the heated pool, I'm afraid not.