Brian Greeley

Brian Greeley Waypoint Hunt

Purpose: To locate an object (in this case a pole) with the aid of a GPS receiver and given coordinates.

Procedure:  My partner Julius and I were given a target object (a blue pole) with the coordinates of 40.33860, -74.66497.  Starting out, we mistakenly converted these coordinates to 40º 20’ 49.0” N and 74º 40’ 30.0” W.  From our starting location across from Fine Hall, we trekked north on Washington Road until we passed the Frist Campus Center. From there we headed northwest towards Nassau Street. We traveled west on Nassau Street and then southwest along Mercer Street until we came upon Marquand Park, where our GPS receivers told us the pole would be at.  At Marquand Park, we thoroughly searched the grounds to no avail. We then assumed we had miscalculated the coordinates. We made a recalculation and traveled half a mile north on Elm Street, where our GPS receivers were now leading us (We had not realized that we had already passed the boundary lines placed by our professor).  The search on Elm Street proved fruitless, and, convinced the pole would be in Marquand Park, we traveled back. After another searching of Marquand Park (this time around the perimeter) we sat down and thought we had made a discovery that had been causing our error. We had calculated the coordinates in Degrees/Minutes/Seconds but the units in our GPS receivers were set to Degrees/Minutes/Minute remainder.  After switching the units, we traveled north along Elm Street yet again, as our GPS receivers were leading us in that direction.  Another fruitless search commenced, and my partner and I decided to call it a day and walked back to Princeton University.  Our second attempt, as luck would have it, would be after one of the biggest snow storms in decades. However, we were this time armed with the correct calculation of the pole’s location: 40º 20’ 19.1” N and 74º 39’ 54.2” W.  From our start location in Forbes college, we went north on Alexander Street, and then west on College Road. After an unsuccessful search for a shortcut through the Graduate College, we continued west on College Road and then south on Springdale Road until we came to the Graduate School parking lot.  After borrowing a shovel from a nearby snow-plow, we uncovered our pole from underneath a snow bank. It had taken 7 miles of walking and several hours, but we had finally arrived at our waypoint. Our first attempt at finding the pole is shown in blue. We actually ended up searching Marquand Park (Southwest portion of blue) twice while heading up Elm Road twice as well. On our second visit up Elm Road, we called it quits and left via Cleveland Road to the east.

Our second attempt is shown in red. We thought we could swing a shortcut by going through the Graduate College, but we were, of course, mistaken. Eventually, we reached the parking lot directly opposite the golf course from Forbes and found the pole underneath a freshly plowed snow bank. The ‘hunt’ was interesting, to say the least. Picture of Julius with the pole (top left) Picture of me with pole (top right) Picture of pole (bottom) Conclusion:

My partner and I concluded that it is imperative to both obtain and convert to the correct coordinates. Our problems stemmed mainly from our miscalculations with our conversions and using the wrong set of units with our receiver. After calculating the correct set of coordinates, finding the pole was a breeze, though a bit rough in 18 inches of snow.