.A
couple of days ago Alex tells me of this thing called Urban Challenge that
his son has entered, and that he wants us to help him with. This year there
were between 40 and 50 teams of two people. They are give 12 clues to places
in Salt Lake City (or the other cities they do this in) and a picture taking
cell phone. They have to figure out the clues and get to the 12 places, in
order, and take a picture of them at the places with their cell phone. They're
allowed to use any help they can get anywhere to solve the clues and figure
out where to go, but they are allowed only 2 ways of getting around the city
: by foot or by public transportation. ......The Official Team is exactly what it sounds like - they were the ones running around and taking the pictures. The Advance Team drove around (in my Mustang, following each and every traffic law) ahead of the official team looking for, and for the most part, finding the exact location of the target. The Support Teams were at various locations looking things up on the internet, in the phone book and accessing their vast knowledge.Ok, here's the story from the Advance Team's point of view, only because that's the team I was on. If anyone on any of the other teams wants to write up their view of the event and e-mail it to me, I'll add it on here. Another view from the Advance Team - Alex's story........ ......Alex shows up at my house at 7:45 am, we head out to "race headquarters", the hotel at the corner of the Gallivan Center. While we're waiting for the orientation to get over, Alex goes up to the check-in counter and gets us access to a copy machine so we can copy the clues and then get them on here so the Support Teams can have them. Around 8:45 J&S come out with the clues and we make copies of them, they head off to location #1 and Alex & I get on the phone to call the Support Teams and start them working on more of the clues. At this point things start going fast and furious, Alex at times with his phone on one ear, mine at the other, me driving (safe and careful), so some of the details get lost. Alex was doing most of the talking, so I either can't remember or never knew who solved which clues, but we were all solving different pieces of all the clues at different times, building on the pieces that others solved, so I can't give, and we mostly don't deserve, individual credit. Let's just say that we all did an incredible job of building on each other's information. Period.
This one Support had so well down that Alex & I skipped it and headed straight to the last location. Oh, you noticed. The picture is missing. Well, there's a reason for that. Not a good one, but at least it's a reason. After the whole thing was over, Jeff needed to return the phone to the Verizon guys. Well, I asked him to e-mail me the pictures so that I could get them on here before he did that, and, well, somehow while trying to e-mail this picture it got deleted. Jeff was a little bit stressed, because to count you have to have all the pictures, on the phone, in order. Fortunately, he was able to talk to the judges, convince them that he really had just deleted it and tell them the missing location, and they let it count.
|
On
their way to the first location, J&S ran into the 'Skip' guy. Getting
a picture with this guy allows the team to skip any single location that they
choose. They decided to skip right to #2...
Alex
& I have jumped in the Mustang and were heading to find the book store,
when Jeff told us that they knew exactly where it was, and to head off to
the 3rd location.
While
J&S were headed to the bookstore, and then to the City & County Building,
Alex was in touch with the support teams trying to find out whether or not
Bruce Willis survived the movie '12 Monkeys'. We got to the City-County grounds
just as Alex found out that he lived, so we start to look for the statue of
the children with the flag and constitution. We drove around the grounds,
and when we saw it, we relayed the exact location to J&S and headed out
to Gilgal Gardens.
We
get to Gilgal Gardens and I head into it to try to figure out which statue
they are talking about. Meanwhile, Alex still has his phone to one ear, mine
to the other, talking to the support teams so that we can get a jump on the
next few locations. By the time Alex comes in and we agree on the statue they
are talking about, Support has already figured out locations #5 & 6, so
we head out to my house to get the rest of the clues on the web site. As I'm
concentrating on getting us to my house without killing anyone, or getting
a ticket for following ALL traffic laws, Alex is telling J&S which statue
it is at Gilgal.
Alex
& I get to my house, I go in and start the scanning process and Alex continues
to talk to the rest of the group. As soon as I get the clues on the web, we
let Support know and head out to location 6, which Support has already figured
out. 
We
head straight up there, find the fence and again drive around it looking for
the statue that they refer to. We find it pretty easy, because we notice a
guy in a black SUV that we've seen at 3 other locations there. We kept running
into other Advance Teams pretty much at every location. Heading out to Lindsey
Gardens, Alex calls J&S and tells them exactly where it is. They're already
headed in that direction, but at least they wont have to search the area looking
for the statue.
We
get up to Lindsey Gardens and start looking around for the plaque. I head
out clockwise, Alex heads out counterclockwise, circling the entire park before
we meet at the other side where the plaque is (about 50 yd's from the car
in the opposite direction we walked.) Good, lets get them the location and
head off to location 8..
Here's
one of the two locations that gave us trouble. I figured out the answer to
the Bonus Shortcut Equation pretty quickly, but the real one was giving me
trouble. I, of course, did the math correctly, but made some wrong assumption
and came up with 301 1/2 as the address. Now, that's not necessarily a problem,
especially up in the avenues, 1/2 addresses are not unheard of. We had support
looking into whether or not the address really existed, meanwhile we ran up
there to see if we could find it. Well, at the corner of C St and 7th Ave,
there was a choice between LDS Hospital and a house that faced C St. Now,
the house facing C St., if it had a basement apartment in the back, could
be the right place. There was even a gate at the back, but no sigh that it
was an apartment. We're walking around the area, talking to Support, when
one of the other teams jogs past and takes a picture in front of another house
half a block away. Once they leave, I immediately go down there and get the
address and get Support working on the equation backwards and finishing up
the charts to see if the number works. Just as another team is taking their
picture at the house, we're told the number works, so it must be the right
place. (Please don't tell my principal or the math dept head that I messed
this one up).
So,
we're headed down to Memory Grove, Alex is telling J&S which house to
take the picture in front of, when they tell us that they know exactly where
this one is, and for us to head off for location 10. We've already found out
that Support has figured out the exact locations of location 11 and 12, so
this is the last one we really have to work on.
Is
it me, or do they look tired by now? Anyways, this is mess up #2, major time
waster. We know that we are looking for a park, somewhere between So Temple
and 1st Ave right around State Street. Alex and I head right down there, find
a little park there that has statues in it. Support has already told us that
they have a picture of it, described it a bit, and we think this is the right
place. J&S show up just as Alex & I are going through the park, about
2 minutes before we realize that it's the wrong park. Quick, get Support on
the phone and let's dissect that picture more. J&S head out towards So
Temple, Alex and I are looking up and down 1st Ave. Takes us a couple minutes
but Support gets us right there, Alex gets on the phone to Jeff and Sally.
After about 5 more minutes and a lot of mixed up directions (sending and receiving)
they show up at the right place and we're off. 
The
final stop. While J&S were at the 11th one, Alex and headed off to this
one. Good thing, because it's in the basement of another business, and not
that easy to see. So, we were there, waiting for them when they got there,
and pointed directly at it. Phew! We made it. As they were taking their picture
this other team we had noticed at the orientation showed up. We noticed them
because they were dressed for the Boston Marathon, and we commented on how
they looked like they were taking this whole thing way too seriously. Everyone
else was in shorts, t-shirt and tennis shorts with a backpack of supplies
on their back. well, we were sure they were going to kick ass, and were surprised
when they ended up behind us. And Alex couldn't resist saying to them "You
looked dressed so seriously, we thought you'd be way ahead of us" or
something like that. Now, the only thing left is to make it back to the Gallivan
Center to get their time and place........
Jeff & Sally (and all the rest of us) did it in 2
hours and 20 minutes (20 minutes faster than the winners last year),
coming in 5th out of 40-something teams. Excellent
job for their first year. We're
already analyzing our problems and figuring out how to avoid them for next
year. .