Marching With GPS
Catagory: world-drumline-news
Modern techno gadgets are going to change the way you take the field
Issue 4
It wasn’t long ago that, in order to plot drill, directors and show designers used a slide rule, grid paper and a heap’n pile of American #2 pencils. The computer age slowly brought those days to an end. Today, design software, such as Pyware, cut hours from show development time and even allows staff to preview a show in motion from the comfort of their comfy desk chairs.
According to future technology expert Dr. H.T. Floater, the world of drill design and instruction is about to be turned upside down.
“Musicians will no longer spend months, or even weeks, learning drill sets from paper dot books. Floater tells WDN, “Instead, the marchers will utilize advanced navigational tools that, until today, have only been available to courageous explorers and the owners of high end luxury cars.”
Dr. Floater believes marching musicians will use Global Positioning System or GPS to locate assigned drill sets. The technology has only been available since the early 1990’s when the United States Air Force launched the 24th Navstar satellite into orbit. This satellite system allowed a person, with the aid of a GPS unit, to accurately identify his position on earth. Only recently though have the costs of consumer level GPS units reached a point that is economically feasible for wide spread marching use.
In Floaters version of the future, each member of a marching unit will look to GPS in the way today’s musicians look to a dot book. GPS will guide musicians from set to set. As it does, the GPS will calculate such information as elevation, average speed, and number of steps. The advanced GPS technology will direct musicians to within millimeters of their proper field positions.
Floater believes that two basic GPS systems will find their way into wide spread acceptable use: Hand Held Field Navigation (HHFN) and On Board GPS Yard-line Navigation (OBGYN).
Hand held units will work much like the current, industry standard, paper drill charts. However, instead of a three ring binders filled with charts, musicians will hold a simple GPS unit (about the size of a cell phone). Sets will be uploaded to the GPS by means of a base station. Each of a musician’s dots will be saved as a way-point. Musicians will advance from set to set by simply pushing a button and following the displayed directions.
This system has limitations though. The hand held GPS units will only operate on a home field. To rehearse on a second field the GPS will need to be uploaded with a new set of coordinates.
It is the OBGYN system that most excites Dr. Floater.
The OBGYN can be mounted on a helmet or instrument. It is this system, according to Floater, that will become the Primary platform used by top level marching units such as those in DCI and DCEX.
OBGYN will allow a director to make real time changes during a performance. Imagine, a director will be able to adjust the movements of a single musician or an entire line of musicians at the touch of a button. New coordinates will be instantaneously uploaded to the OBGYN units. Musicians will receive the changes and follow a displayed line to the next revised set. The reduction in injuries to both judges and musicians makes this system ideal.
No matter which system takes hold, GPS technology is certain to change the activity forever.