Part 1 – The Google Maps Bit

(Finally got my finger out – here’s part 2).
I’ve been inspired by some of the stuff that Ollie Bray has been doing with Google Maps, and I’ve been meaning to put the following together for a while. Can the tools with Google maps lend themselves to other curriculum tasks – like data handling.

Before you can do any of the following you’ll need a gmail or googlemail email account. If you’re trying any of this from inside EMBC or some other RBCs you’ll need to log in as an adult to get the correct filtering.  

Start at maps.google.co.uk and – in the location window – the one on the right – make sure you’re somewhere near the right location.  

Let the fun begin..  

Firstly make sure you’re logged in to your googlemail / gmail account  

Then – to get your google Apps in to play – select My Maps  

If you haven’t used MyMaps before, have a browse to see what else is there  

  

We’re looking for Path Profiler - so find that one and click it and ‘Add it to Maps’. You’ll now see Path Profiler in your ‘My Maps’.  

Click on path profiler and select the options.  

In this case, I’ll pick up a training run (yes, even old people can try half marathons!). This run actually starts with a path through Bradgate Park to another car park – so to start with untick the ‘follow roads’ option. (A photosynth of the park is here)

Click on the first point on the run, then the second which is the end of the path. Then click on the ‘follow roads’ as we’re now back on roads. Notice the difference when you put the third point in  – the profiler follows the road.

Keep clicking on points until you’ve reached the end of the lap, then click on the popup tab on the mymaps window.  

To give -  

Now the tricky bit starts – we want to play with the data, so CAREFULLY select the data lines and press ctrl-c to copy it to the buffer.  

If you try to paste it into Excel, you’re in for a nightmare ..  

The challenge is that the data presented from Google Maps is in 2 lines and is not delimited in any way. We could make a macro to mess this about, but let’s try a way that doesn’t need macros..  

Start by pasting the copied text into Notepad, to see what we have – (I also ran the file through debug, but there are no special characters to work with)  

Now – from notepad – save this as a txt file, then go back into Excel on a new sheet. (Excel 2007) click on the data tab and from text  

Then select the file when prompted.
Note that Excel struggles here – it thinks the data is on a fixed filed length – it isn’t – the data is separated by spaces. (Tip – look at the letter W – it doesn’t work!)  

So – select the delimited option, then select space and ‘treat consecutive delimiters as one’  

The next option specifies the start point of where your data is loaded to in to your sheet  

Now that was a pretty tough run – but not long enough to give me a clue on stamina, resilience or – more importantly – stupidity! So – let’s make a figure 8..  

Repeat the previous procedure – to get the data in via notepad – but this time be careful of the location where the data will go  

When the data is in Excel, you have some serious tidying up to do. On the run I recorded my times, and Excel produced this – after bits of tidying up and use of chart options  

This sheet shows a few things. 

I am officially stupid
I am officially slow
I ran faster downhill than uphill
It took much longer going on the park path to second car park second time around because I was slightly cream crackered and the park was much busier