Live from the Leaderboard: Super Catcher caprarom Reports In 🏆
Two weeks into our Global Catchathon for Stall Catchers' tenth birthday, the leaderboard has turned into a real race. Luckily, we have a correspondent on the case.
Mike Capraro, better known as super catcher caprarom, is a longtime volunteer. In 2018 he became the first catcher to reach a billion points.
For our fifth anniversary, Mike toured the Cornell lab where our vessel movies are made and beat Pietro in a 10k trail race. By a lot.
For our tenth, he made a sharp observation about the standings, so we asked him to write it up. This is the first of a few dispatches Mike will send before the Catchathon wraps on October 30.
He plans to watch the team rankings, provide commentary, and to keep tracking his unofficial skill metric. Want a shoutout in his next report? Now's the time to climb. Take it away, Mike!
Super catcher caprarom, reporting for duty.
Guest Blog for SC Oct. 2026 Global Catchathon
OK, I don’t even remember what the “B” in Blog stands for, but after making an astute observation (i.e., opening my big mouth), I was invited to write an entry for ours.
Anyone paying attention to the “Challenge” top-ten listings to the left of the vessel movie workspace and/or to the official event “Live Leaderboard” knows we have something of an epic battle going on for top honors with “starider” and “Hasret” leaving the rest of us in their dust.
Most of the top-ten names will be familiar to our regular catchers. Others you might not see by name can show up in the top-ten teams. As I write this, they include our good friend KarisFraMauro from team “Canada,” the indomitable Patty_Wu of team “aaaasaa,” while our esteemed colleagues from Microsoft are represented by NadiaFortini et al ... Whoops! They are a dynamic bunch those Microsoft folks! Now represented on the Leaderboard by Mark Hawver et al of MS Give LLE Team.
One metric that is not directly included in the Leaderboards is accuracy or skill. I personally like to track that one. Dividing a given catcher’s “Score” by their number of “Research Vessels” provides (I think) a pretty good measure of their skill.
Most of us, myself included, have taken a hit on skill level lately by stumbling over some of the new and/or reactivated calibration movies that were recently added into the mix. There might be one exception, however. The Score/Vessels skill metric for nine of the current top ten catchers ranges from about 833 to 1237.
Currently in command of third place in the individual scoring, however, Norstan stands head and shoulders above the rest sporting a very fine 1281. Way to go, Norstan! (Yes, I might be gunning for you, buddy.) Good catching, all!
Mike Capraro (caprarom)
Catching up on the Catchathon
Stall Catchers launched in October 2016, and we're celebrating ten years with a Global Catchathon that runs October 1 to 30. Here's how to get in on it:
- Join or make a team and rally your friends, coworkers, library, school, or troop. Crack the top ten teams and Mike may give you a shoutout.
- Catch all month for a shot at a Stall Catchers 10-year t-shirt. The top 10 catchers win one, announced at our celebration on October 30.
- Host a pizza party of five or more people and we'll reimburse up to $50 of pizza. Email caroline@hcinst.org at least 24 hours ahead to clear it, then send us a photo of the group and add your meetup to SciStarter as an event. Full rules are on the pizza party form.
New to Stall Catchers? You watch short movies from mouse brains and mark each vessel as flowing or stalled, which helps Alzheimer's research at Cornell University. It works on a phone, tablet, or computer, and no experience is needed. Start at stallcatchers.com, and get the full story in our kickoff post.
Follow along
Mike's next dispatch is on its way. Until then, catch the latest on Instagram, X, the Stall Catchers Facebook group, the HCI Facebook page, and YouTube. You can also swap tips with fellow catchers on the forum.
See you on the leaderboard! đź’ś
P.S. Mike, we looked it up: "blog" is short for "weblog," so the B is a leftover from "web." Mystery solved.