The Canonn Organic Scanning Challenge is underway and having made a few attempts its clear that its possible to get good times without too much in the way of preparation. At the time of writing the best time is just under 25 minutes. I’m going to give you a few tips that should help you to win one of the prizes on offer.

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Speed Scanning Challenge

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Lets consider what a perfect run might look like. Each species has biodiversity range. When you scan a specimen you won’t be able to scan another until you have moved further than that range.

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Species	Range (m)
Aleoida	150
Bacterium	500
Cactoida	300
Concha	150
Frutexa	150
Fungoida	300
Osseus	800
Stratum	500
Tussock	200

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Your perfect run might start with Aleoida. You would travel 300m to get the next two Aleoida and then scan a bacterium at the same location as the last Aleoida and so on. So the total distance covered after scanning all of the species would be 6,100m or 6.1km.

To put this in perspective the best run so far was 43.21 km. So assuming you can locate the right distribution of species it would be possible to significantly reduce the total distance traveled by doing a bit of reconnaissance up front.

Your ideal route should be a straight line to avoid turns that will cost you speed and I would recommend that you look for canyons to help you navigate. Its much easier to plot a pre-planned route if you have some memorable landmarks like canyon walls to guide you.

As you can see below the route that I picked was a bit of a random walk and should be easy to improve on.

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Of course finding the species in the right distribution is easier said than done. Some species are more abundant than others. The biggest challenge has been finding Osseus. Most Osseus are a few kilometres from each other. Frutexta shrubs are more abundant but are small, difficult to see and can be mistaken for Tussocks. If you are making a casual attempt at the challenge you would do well to identify your Osseus locations and start with them. Povided you know where to look, all the other species, even Frutexa are not hard to find. If you pick a location with adjacent terrain types then you won’t have to travel very far.

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Species	Range (m)	Terrain
Aleoida	150	Sandy plains and hillsides
Bacterium	500	Mostly on the flat ground in sandy areas.
Cactoida	300	Mainly in the sandy areas but can appear on crevasse floors in the broken rocky ground
Concha	150	Mainly at the bottom of crevases next to the steep sides
Frutexa	150	At the top of dark rocky broken ground.
Fungoida	300	On the flat tops of dark rocky broken ground
Osseus	800	On rocky outcrops in sandy areas
Stratum	500	Mainly on flat sandy areas
Tussock	200	On the flat tops of dark rocky broken ground.

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Planning Your Route

You should record the coordinates of each species and the bearing to head on to get to the next sample. I used a speadsheet with a couple of formulas that are able to calculate bearing and distance but you can also simply record the details by reading them off your hud.

Min Distance Km	Species	Latitude	Longitude	Bearing	Distance km
0.8	Osseus Fractus – Turquoise	-22.73721	32.86746
0.8	Osseus Fractus – Turquoise	-22.98813	32.70829	210	5.39
0.8	Osseus Fractus – Turquoise	-23.03964	32.62777	235	1.67
0.15	Aleoida Coronamus – Teal	-23.03869	32.62695	322	0.02
0.15	Aleoida Coronamus – Teal	-23.19796	32.63186	178	2.96
0.15	Aleoida Coronamus – Teal	-23.18751	32.71719	82	1.47
0.3	Cactoida Cortexum – Yellow	-23.1875	32.71725	80	0.00
0.3	Cactoida Cortexum – Yellow	-23.08171	32.69777	350	1.99
0.3	Cactoida Cortexum – Yellow	-23.00679	32.93829	71	4.34
0.5	Stratum Excutitus – Emerald	-23.0128	32.95129	117	0.25
0.5	Stratum Excutitus – Emerald	-23.05994	33.064	114	2.11
0.5	Stratum Excutitus – Emerald	-23.09377	33.1623	111	1.79
0.5	Bacterium Aurasus – Lime	-23.11331	33.19917	120	0.73
0.5	Bacterium Aurasus – Lime	-23.01474	33.02295	301	3.52
0.5	Bacterium Aurasus – Lime	-23.0147	33.22254	90	3.41
0.2	Tussock Caputus – Yellow	-23.07292	33.01957	253	3.63
0.2	Tussock Caputus – Yellow	-23.11502	33.01267	189	0.79
0.2	Tussock Caputus – Yellow	-23.15629	33.02001	171	0.78
0.15	Frutexa Acus – Green	-23.10738	33.01133	351	0.92
0.15	Frutexa Acus – Green	-23.13127	33.01559	171	0.45
0.15	Frutexa Acus – Green	-23.15657	33.03437	146	0.57
0.3	Fungoida Stabitis – Magenta	-23.12795	33.10952	68	1.39
0.3	Fungoida Stabitis – Magenta	-23.19619	33.18305	135	1.78
0.3	Fungoida Stabitis – Magenta	-23.15036	33.20686	26	0.94
0.15	Concha Renibus – Peach	-23.17107	33.15763	245	0.92
0.15	Concha Renibus – Peach	-23.19687	33.16342	168	0.49
0.15	Concha Renibus – Peach	-23.23271	33.19973	137	0.91

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As you can see from the video the route I planned did not have memorable locations and subsequently I got a little lost. So I was not able to get as fast a time as I would have liked, But this will give you an idea of what is possible. None of the times in this attempt are record breaking but at the time of writing this is the fastest anyone has completed a run. I recommend watching it with the sound off.

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