The Urban Straight Line Mission (SLM) is an adventurous challenge that tests participants’ problem-solving skills, adaptability, and urban navigation prowess.
The fundamental goal is to traverse a city by following a predetermined straight line from a starting point to an endpoint, with minimal deviation from this imaginary path. BTW, we can blame GeoWizard for all of this nonsense…
Urban SLM Challenges
While both urban and rural SLMs share the core concept of following a straight line, urban missions present unique challenges and differences:
- Built Environment: Buildings, walls, and fences create physical barriers that often cannot be directly crossed. (Well, the wall to the open park shouldn’t be a problem, right?)
- Infrastructure: Roads, railways, and bridges must be navigated safely and legally, often requiring significant detours. (A railway line or highway in the city has at least three meters high walls anyway, it’s pointless to climb over. But you can swim over the river. Maybe… Perhaps not.)
- Legal Constraints / Restricted Areas: More complex legal considerations regarding trespassing and restricted areas. Private property, construction sites, and secure zones are more common and must be respected and avoided. (To be honest, I’m not gonna sneak past some guards or so.)
- Dynamic Obstacles: Traffic, pedestrians, temporary events (street markets, protests, …) and weird guys add unpredictable elements.
- Navigation Challenges: Requires intricate knowledge of city layouts and alternative routes. Grid systems and city layouts rarely align with the chosen straight line. (There’s always a street that’s been dug up. Also, GPS is sightly f*cked up because of all the walls and buildings covering the sky.)
- Safety Considerations: Requires heightened awareness of traffic and other urban hazards. (Weird guys, I tell you…)
- Environmental Impact: Typically has less direct environmental impact but requires more consideration of local residents and businesses. (You don’t have to carry your garbage with you, you can throw it straight (!) into the bin.)
- Obstacle Density: Generally presents more frequent and varied obstacles. (After all, it’s a housing area, isn’t it.)
Strategic Elements
An Urban SLM is not merely a test of physical endurance but a complex strategic challenge:
- Route Planning: Participants must study maps, satellite imagery, and street views to anticipate obstacles and plan potential routes within the allowed deviation. (Hell of searching.)
- Real-time Decision Making: As urban environments are dynamic, participants must constantly reassess and adjust their route. (Ok, f*ck it, let’s go that way.)
- Problem Solving: Creative solutions are often required to overcome or circumvent obstacles while minimising deviation. (Taking a tram is not one of them.)
- Legal and Ethical Navigation: Participants must balance staying on course with respecting laws, private property, and public safety. (Just deciding to becoming a criminal or not to.)
Measuring Success
Success in an Urban SLM is categorized based on the participant’s ability to minimize deviation from the straight line:
- Platinum: Maximum 50m deviation to either side (100m total width)
- Gold: Maximum 100m deviation to either side (200m total width)
- Silver: Maximum 150m deviation to either side (300m total width)
- Bronze: Maximum 200m deviation to either side (400m total width)
- Successful Completion: Maximum 250m deviation to either side (500m total width)
The “Successful” category matches Ally’s 500m wide corridor, which seems to me like a reasonable benchmark for completing an urban SLM. And “Platinum” is really platinum, you know.
Documentation and Verification
Participants typically document their journey using:
- GPS tracking to record the exact path taken (phone or some better gadget)
- Video or photo evidence of the journey (phone or some better gadget)
- Written or recorded logs explaining significant deviations or obstacles encountered (Better clarify your intentions. Or not. It’s up to you. Like all of this sh*t.)
The thing is the Urban Straight Line Mission challenges participants to see and navigate their city in an entirely new way. It combines physical endurance, strategic thinking, urban knowledge, and adaptability into a unique adventure that transforms ordinary city streets into an extraordinary challenge. Whether completed solo or as part of a group, an Urban SLM offers a fresh perspective on urban spaces and tests the limits of one’s problem-solving abilities in a familiar yet suddenly alien environment. Sounds cool, right? Honestly, it’s just a walk across the city, but you pretend to yourself to be a child again…
