Navigation of Priory with Compass

Introduction:

Map and compass have been a suitable method of navigation for many years until the development of Geographic Positioning Systems. However, even when GPS are present they can malfunction or break and leave the user to use traditional methods of navigation. 

In this exercise we where tasked to use our maps made in the previous week of the Priory to navigate to five points located throughout different location within the priory land area. The priory was chosen as a site to conduct the test for it is an area of land owned by the campus but over the few years of owning it the priory has not found much practical use for our student population. because of this we decided that with the multiple terrain types we would be exposed to many challenges with our traditional land navigation. Throughout the priory we had sever elevation changes, multiple vegetation changes, and even small portions of water (pond and a creek). 

Methods:

To conduct the land navigation we needed to make sure we had the proper equipment

• Two maps printed on paper ( 1 UTM, 1 WGS)
• Compass
• Ruler
• Marker

After we had all of the tools we first where given a crash course on how to use the compass to determine our direction in which we wanted to walk. As we where standing in the parking lot Dr. Hupy showed us that to use the standard compass we first needed to find north. this is accomplished by  putting the red arrow inside of the red outline, also known as putting the red in the shed. This shows you where true north is. Once you have found this it is wise to orient your map with the north in the same direction.(Figure 1.1) By setting the anchor point of the compass on the bottom at your starting point you then will aim the directional arrow to the destination point. After your start point and directional arrow are in a straight line to your target you need to put the red arrow back into the red outline. A full tutorial can be found on the USGS website (http://education.usgs.gov/lessons/compass.html).  Once completed the degree marked by your directional arrow is the degree in which you need to walk. Follow getting the directional degree you then need to measure the distance to find how far you need to walk. By using the scale you will know your total distance needed to reach the point. Knowing this distance and the amount of steps it took to walk a hundred meters determined in the previous class as 60 paces equals a hundred meters you can do a simple cross multiplication to know how many paces it will take to walk the distance. 

Once the distance and direction are determined we then needed to take action and pace off our path. We accomplished this in a team effort by having the first person determine a land marker in the direction we needed to keep and the second person would pace off how many steps counting every right foot placement as one to the landmark. The note taker would follow the first person and record how many paces it was. Once the first person would reach the landmark the original compass holder would then pace to the same landmark to reassure the pace count. The process would then be repeated until you reached the theoretical pace count.

Figure 1.1 showing compass similar to the ones used in our activity and orienting the compass north with the map in same direction.

Once in the woods we needed to use our knowledge and best estimate as to how far our actual pace count would be. For example we paced off the direction until we reached our theoretical pace count but if we did not see the destination we then continued to count until we reached the marker. In our test they where trees with pink ribbon around then. For some of the points if we where walking up steep inclines or through thick brush our steps where not as long as the original paces taken on the flat sidewalk and in some cases our pace count almost doubled in length. Since this is the case you need to use best judgment to know if your are stepping the same distance as on the sidewalk. Lastly the only other technique that we needed to use was a mathimatical equation to get around hazardous areas. In one of our paths we would have needed to walk down a steep decline with garbage ( iron tubs at the bottom, however, we avoided the area by walking in a safer direction and then turning 90 degrees to our original land mark noting how far each pace was on the two lines and used a simple equation of a 90 degree triangle a^2+b^2=c^2 figure 1.2. This equation allowed us to get the hypotinus or straight line step without having to put our selves in danger of harm.

Figure 1.2: side a and b are the two sides that allowed us to avoid the hazard, side c was our true path we needed to take to our landmark. This process allowed us to be safe in our task but to obtain the same pace count and direction

Discussion:

Once a the priory we where given our five points in decimal degrees and needed to transfer the points manually onto our map so we could follow the previous procedure of obtaining our azimuth and pace count. We decided to use the back of the priory right where the concrete meet the door so it was a distinctive spot on the map to measure off of. We then calculated all of our points and started our journey. We had a rough start in our process for although theoretical we where walking in the right direction at one point we began to veer north this caused us to end at our final pace count on the bottom of the first elevation drop and about 50 meters west and down hill of our destination point. As you can see in our track log for most of our points we never walked directly to them. (Figure 1.3). We would get into the general vicinity but then need to walk in both directions visually looking for our target.



Figure 1.3: track log of journey including our five waypoints we needed to locate

Conclusion:

In the end the course was very helpful it allowed us to see the difficulties that can arise if your electronics would fail or I you did not have access to any modern techniques. It also enlightened us on useful techniques of mapping with a compass. Although our group was not very efficient at finding the waypoints and did not do our best at making sure we where on a straight path each time we where walking as one can see from our track log. The activity opened my eyes to how challenging and impressive surveying was before the implication of GPS. The difficulty level for us to find the brightly marked trees was superbly difficult now try and find a small point unmarked. This task would be almost impossible without years of practice and patients.

I am  very pleased I was able to participate in this activity for now I can say I have a greater understanding for what I need to improve on in order to better navigate through the woods using a paper map and compass.