What is Dead reckoning?

What is dead reckoning? It’s when you guess where you are by counting how far you’ve gone and which way you went.

Imagine you’re playing a game of hide-and-seek in a big park. You run 10 steps forward, then turn left and run 5 more steps. If you count your steps carefully, you can figure out where you might be, even if you don’t see the person who’s hiding.

Dead reckoning works just like that! It means using what you know about how far you’ve moved and which direction you went to guess where you are now.

Think of a robot exploring a room. It doesn’t have a map, but it knows how many steps it took and which way it turned. So every time it moves, it adds up its steps and turns, like counting in your hide-and-seek game.

Even sailors used dead reckoning long ago! They’d keep track of how fast their boat was going and which direction the wind was pushing them, all to guess where they were on the ocean. No map needed, just smart counting!