Planes, trains, automobiles, and a map

I remember taking Spanish from Mr. Fuentes in high school. When he introduced the Spanish word for map, mapa, he took great pains to tell us that it takes the masculine indefinite article el rather than la. So when referring to a map in Spanish, it is el mapa, not la mapa. Thus began a long series of exceptions to rules that we'd have to learn.

That's the most interesting story I've had about maps. Until now.

There have been a number of great photos posted to the forums this week showing models from last weekend's model show in Moson, Hungary. I’ll write more about the exceptional models being built by European modelers, but in the meantime I wonder how many contest organizers noticed this great idea from the Moson organizers.

Thanks to Gabor for use of the picture.

They post a map of Europe on a cork board, and as attendees register, they're asked to put a pin on their hometown. The result is a interesting view of just how far attendees travelled to enter the contest. Aside from the simple fun factor for the attendees, it gives the organizers insightful demographic information about the value of their contest, showing the extent to which people will go to attend.

I'd love to see organizers of regional and national contests in the United States follow Moson’s lead.

P.S. You can find photos from the Moson show on iModeler.com and Luftwaffe in Scale.