Game for birding group trips. (1 Viewer)

[JRP01]

In the trips of my local birding group, we try to entertain people with bird id talks of the species we are going to see. This trip is in winter and we don’t have a lot of sunlight time so we will have to stay at the hostel from 6pm. This time we are going to try a game I have written the rules for. I’m going to share the rules here if anybody is interested. It needs a laptop or ideally a projector.

Rules
First the group is divided into teams.
Each group can only try to guess each bird once.
Each bird is spliced in 3 images that will be shown in 3 different rounds.
A correct id of the bird in the first round will award the group 5 points, in the second 3, and on the third one 1.
If a group chooses not to id on this round or wrongfully id the bird the next group in order can try to id the bird or choose to pass.

Example round:
For this example round there are 4 teams.
Round 1
This image is shown:

Team 1 chooses to id the bird and miss.
Team 2 chooses to wait for the next clue.
Team 3 chooses to wait for the next clue.
Team 4 chooses to wait for the next clue.

Round 2
This image is shown with the last image:

Team 1 can no longer try to id because they already did it
Team 2 chooses to wait for the next round.
Team 3 chooses to id and get it. Team 3 is awarded 3 points
Now the full image is shown and the game runner teach everyone how to correctly id the bird.

Now the next bird will be showed and team 2 will have the oportunity to choose to id first.

This example is really easy but this game can get really difficult for a group of experienced birders with rarities, inmature seagulls, awfull quality photgraphs... .

If anybody tries the game I will love to hear about your experience, suggestions or rules changes that you have made.

 

[earlytorise]

If anybody is tech-savvy and has time, it should be possible to create a website for this game. I imagine the way to automate this is to get the program to go through eBird images with the desired parameters (location etc) of at least three stars, recognise what the outlines of the bird are through AI, and crop a small square from the photo that are either within the outlines or on the outlines.