The weather was sunny, 80+ degrees and beautiful for an October weekend in Michigan.  It was great to be a Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Venturing Crew or Scouter (adult leader) with 4,500 of our Scouting friends from all over Michigan and Ohio at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn, Michigan.  That’s where the Great Sauk Trail Council of the Boy Scouts of America held its Fall 2007 Camporee named “Lead the Race.”

There were 86 activities for the Scouts to participate in this weekend, including scuba diving, wall climbing, geocaching, bikeathelons, disability awareness, RC Car racing, FIRST robotics and much, much more.  In addition, there were special program for the Cub Scouts and Venturing Crews suited for their age and capabilities. 

Scouting was described by its founder 100 years ago as “a game with a purpose.”  At Lead the Race Camporee the “purpose” was to have new experiences and fun while developing cooperation and leadership within each patrol.

To make the Camporee more exciting points were awarded to Boy Scout patrols for performing the various activities.  Keeping track of the scores for the approximately 232 patrols was an enormous challenge.  It was decided to use technology and automation to simplify the recording of scores.  Informs, an Intermec Value Added Reseller from Holland, Michigan, graciously donated the use of Intermec equipment and necessary labels. 

A custom application that used bar codes was developed using the Intermec 4440 Printer and 1800 Bar Code Readers.  A network consisting of five laptop PCs was set up as three scoring workstations, a real time scoring projection system, and a database server.

Each patrol received a booklet that contained a bar code of their patrol identification number.  As the patrols performed activities they earned points represented by a label for that activity that was placed in their booklet.  The number of points was based on the time duration required to perform the activity at the rate of about 10 points per minute.  In addition, some of the activity scores were based upon performance where one of three point scores were given; for these activities only the highest score for the activity was counted for a patrol.

As the scouts performed activities they periodically stopped at the scoring station to register their scores in the scoring application’s database.  At the scoring station the patrol ID was scanned and then each unscanned activity label.  Scanning the activity label associates the points represented by that specific scoring label to the patrol.  Once a label is associated with a specific patrol it could not be scored again.

The activity labels contained a bar code of a unique identification number that was related to a specific activity.  In addition, a secret base-36 check-digit was encoded into each bar code, making it difficult to randomly guess a scoring identification number.  Normally bar codes must be scanned; however, in administrative mode the activity identification number could be typed bypassing the check digit in case a label was damaged.  

To further encourage the sense of competition bonus multipliers were give to those scoring labels scanned early. For example, scores registered between 9:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. received a 3-time face value bonus, between 1:00 p.m. and 3:00 p.m. a 2-time face value bonus, and after 3:00 p.m. a 1-time face value bonus.  This added the element of strategy to the games to take advantage of the high point scoring activities to maximize the multipliers.

A real time scoring rear projection screen was set up to continuously rotate through the list of patrols.  On every pass through the patrols’ scores the new standing would be computed and displayed by sub camp.

At the end of the day reports were printed and awards given to the top finishers in each sub-camp.

According to system designer Daniel Katanski, implementing the use of bar codes made the task of recording scores easy.  There was no end of day panic to enter hundreds of scores from hand written scoring sheets.  We’ve done that before at smaller events and wanted to avoid the work with so many Patrols.

The Lead the Race Camporee was over three times the size of other similar events – automation was the only way to go.  Daniel had used Intermec equipment in the past and was confident that it would meet expectations.  The scored part of the Camporee lasted only 7.5 hours, and at 4:30 p.m. the scores had to be ready and had to be right.  And they were.

The challenge in the use of automation was preprinting the approximately 232 patrol Identification booklets and 10,000 scoring labels for the 86 activates the day before – that is, to have them all ready for Saturday morning for the fun to start.

There was rarely anyone waiting to record their points earned at the scoring station.  The process was fast and easy.  This meant that the Scouts came to the scoring station, scanned their patrol IDs and scoring labels, and went back out to have fun.