ABC Catalyst films orienteering segment

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Last Updated: Friday, 13 October 2017 16:07

Orienteering will feature on ABC television's Catalyst program early next year after filming a segment at Centennial Park on Tuesday.

Presenter Lily Serna, whom you may remember as the maths genius on SBS' Letters and Numbers show, was looking at how we use numbers in everyday life.

Using a simple puzzle such as an orienteering course to replicate perhaps a courier's workday, or anyone's list of errands for that matter, Lily wanted to compare routes and outcomes using several methods or algorithms.

The first would be 'nearest neighbour' - where you go to the closest control, then the closest one to that, etc, until all have been visited.

The second is the optimal route, calculated by mathematician Chris Brown (pictured left with Lily) - a regular SSS buff who a few years ago produced a Sydney Summer Series Solutions blog post showing the shortest, flattest and optimal routes for each score from 0-600 for that week's course.

The third was by 'human brain', meaning the two participants had to to try to work out the route they thought would be the best.

The ABC supplied three staffers with no knowledge of orienteering and paired them with three orienteers - NSW Stinger Lisa Grant, NSW Schools team member Clare Jessup, and ONSW Marketing & Comms man Ian Jessup.

Each pair was followed by a cameraman and sound guy, which meant regular stops to allow them to catch up and do retakes of strategic conversations and general O thoughts as the pairs made their way around the different routes.

We're not going to reveal the outcome or who did which course (we don't believe in spoiler alerts), so you'll have to tune in early in 2018 to see who 'won'.

Suffice to say, it was a lot of fun for all involved. We gained an appreciation of how a 15-minute segment can take seven hours to film (and many more to edit), and the ABC folk learned about basic orienteering in an informative, entertaining manner. It's also the kind of publicity that small sports dream of.

A big thank you to Robert Newman for doing SI, Barbara Hill for GPS tracking, Chris for his maths input, and the three orienteers for their time. Also a big thanks to the ABC for inviting us to participate, and to Centennial Park for allowing us to film there.