Rallying with the Curta. 12 Days of Curtsmas 8

12 Days of Curtsmas Chapter 8: Road Rallying with the Curta.
Get the Road Rally Handbook by Clint Goss here:
www.roadrallyh...
This is a Curta Type I, built in 1952. Stay tuned for episodes every other day, December 3 - 25. Thanks as always to the person who gave me the Curta.
End song inspired by "Hotter than a Molotov" by The Coup. • The Coup: Hotter Than ...
Jingle bells sound from www.freesoundsl..., CC-BY-4.0

[@Nilpferdschaf]

Shoutout to the teenage navigator! That phrase really cracked me up for some reason.

[@petrkryze]

For a minute I thought there is gonna be a meeting of Curta owners when you mentioned a rally.

[@Salsmachev]

Yeah I was expecting a "who can curta fastest" race

[@BravoCharleses]

A meeting of curta owners? Think of all the top hats and monocles!

[@kumoyuki]

I'm starting to think that a Curta might be the ultimate Math-stimming toy for autistic/ADHD math nerds...all the clickies and twirlies and numbers and machinery...SO SATISFYING!

[@philippes.42069]

The holy grail

[@Ravlen1]

I always wondered how it could possibly be useful for road rallies, but this made it perfectly clear!

[@BrianTRice77]

This is a nice surprise! This is exactly why I got fascinated by using slide rule or rather slide rule interaction patterns for EV travel. Making a schedule work when traveling in an EV involves managing one’s pace but also planning for the rate of charge you get at each and every charging station!

[@BrianTRice77]

To state the worst problem most clearly, on an electric motorcycle, drag is bad enough that there is actually a driving speed beyond which your rate of travel actually goes down. It depends on side on the drag coefficient and weather, and on the other by your EV’s current charging limits and whatever station you plug into!

[@BrianTRice77]

Basically, going faster beyond a certain speed means you waste more time at your next charging station than you saved by driving there more quickly! AND it depends on the weather and the charging rate of the destination station. WHEW!

[@BrianTRice77]

I have an online code notebook with data visualizations just to work all this out and illustrate why I’m solving the drag problem in my moonlighting project.

[@MattMcIrvin]

@@BrianTRice77 That's a really interesting optimization problem!

[@unspeakablevorn]

Man what a landmark. I can't believe that sign - and the hotel, at that - is still there, I remember it looking dated when I was a little kid in the 80s.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Newly renovated! I’ve never been inside.

[@haramanggapuja]

Oh, does that bring back memories. The petrol I wasted & the tires I wore down and the lousy scores I got. I needed a Curta. And nice to know you finally got yer mits on one. ;-)

[@pierQRzt180]

I didn't know the challenge "use exactly that much time". Pretty neat, could be done even with the bike with a nice pace.

[@gabedamien]

I'm mad, because: 1. not only was I bandying around the idea of making a playlist of short Curta explainer videos, which you have now scooped (and with well-made vids to boot!), but also 2. with this video (#8, Rallying), your playlist now includes something mine wouldn't have had, namely, a closer look at the way that the Curta was used in rallies. Well, thanks for teaching me something new at any rate! 😅

[@legofreak5769]

loving this series!

[@wompastompa3692]

Reminds me of the predict races in my area. You're given the distance and rough map of the course and the goal is to write down the time you think you'll run it in. No watches allowed, ranking is based on how close you are to your prediction. Best I've done was within 10 seconds.

[@zeke7237]

wow .. that's my old neighborhood! I lived about 1/2 mile from the light at 136. I live in Florida now 😢

[@MattMcIrvin]

The one similar machine I could see being used in this way is the Alpina portable pinwheel calculator that Stephen Freeborn demonstrated a while back. Though that was probably not quite as rugged a device, with all the plastic in its construction.

[@AradijePresveti]

3:34 Oh those teenagers and their cranking.

[@richardthunderbay8364]

This is a great series of vids. Thanks for doing it.

[@PovlKvols]

Awesome! Thank you for sharing!

[@umi3017]

This kinda reminds me VOR or NDB approach without DME... wonder if any pilot would use Curta for that...

[@ompizz]

Decimal aged navigator using a decimal clock.

[@stephenfreeborn]

Pretty slick. Is road rallying popular?

[@Ravlen1]

I've heard that it's popular for classic car enthusiasts. Cars that you want to take around (usually in Europe) and "compete" with, but not exactly thrash around a rally course. Think 1960s sports cars.

[@ChrisStaecker]

As far as I can tell, no. I tried to find a real one nearby but couldn’t.

[@MattMcIrvin]

The easiest way to do it with electronics would probably be with a specialized phone app more or less written to work like a Curta.

[@MattMcIrvin]

...Of course you could interface with GPS and take a lot of the observation and calculation work out of it, but that seems contrary to the spirit of the thing.

[@AradijePresveti]

Is it normal for me to be this excited about some dude on the internet making videos about a weird calculator?

[@Agnes.Nutter]

I assume there must be some sort of rule such that it doesn't work/make sense to simply overshoot and drive slowly near the end?

[@ChrisStaecker]

I wondered about this too. Apparently a real rally competition will have unannounced and even hidden checkpoints so you can’t game the system in this way.

[@vinesthemonkey]

I thought my hobbies were obscure

[@getjaketospace]

Curta

[@rallymodeller]

Hah, I do TSD for fun.

[@ChrisStaecker]

I would definitely do it- don’t seem to be any near me though…

[@rallymodeller]

@@ChrisStaecker My nearest club is about a two hour drive away; my son and I make a weekend of it.

[@colinstu]

Wow, rallying, never expected to see it here! What other surprises are next with the curta.

[@hughobyrne2588]

How about, race to a meter before the finish line, then move that last meter at the right moment?

[@ChrisStaecker]

I wondered about this too. Apparently a real rally competition will have unannounced and even hidden checkpoints so you can’t game the system in this way.

[@JustSomePasserby]

Thanks for sharing info on a niche, calculator-adjacent hobby. Though I feel you missed an opportunity to edit the video to be exactly nine minutes long.

[@TomCarlson]

An Astro Addiator would handle the minutes and seconds, but at the cost of a counter.

[@TomCarlson]

Mounting a tally counter to the dash would ameliorate that somewhat.

[@ChrisStaecker]

Yes- the counter is the real killer feature for this.

[@Laundry_Hamper]

I wonder if you could sell a carbon fibre Curta to Audax cyclists 🤔🤔

[@johnsrabe]

I love you and your channel, and I wish you the best, but I bailed on this one at about three minutes. It’s just too much math on only one cup of coffee. I’ll be back for the next one though!

[@sebvgmailcom]

"Teenage Navigator" is a great name for a band.

[@ChrisStaecker]

feat. Lil Doink

[@maxmn5821]

„Knurled wheels“

[@Salsmachev]

First album "That's a Lotta BOWNES"