Zoo Rounds

Turn “we have 45 minutes at the zoo” — or two hours, or a half day — into a timed walking route and a printable observation checklist. Tap a quick time box or type your own minutes; the planner keeps each zone together, so your group walks an area once instead of criss-crossing the park.

Plan the visit

Group name (optional)

People in the group

Minutes at the zoo

Start time

Once a route is on screen these boxes update it by themselves: change the minutes, the group size, the start time or the group name, then click away from the box — the route follows about a third of a second later, with no second press of Build, and the page stays where you are. A value that is out of range still gets an error line and a Build press is needed after you fix it.

Quick time boxes

Tap one to set the time box and rebuild — a 45-minute dash, a half day or anything in between. Typing your own minutes still works.

In a hurry? The tight visit sets 45 minutes and ticks only the first two zones in the walking order — the ones the group reaches first — so a short visit is not spent marching to the far side of the park and back. Every other zone is unticked and is one tap to put back. It builds the route straight away, and it overwrites whatever you had ticked.

First talk (optional)

First talk time

First talk length (min)

Second talk (optional)

Second talk time

Second talk length (min)

How keeper talks are fitted into the route

Put in one or two talk times and the route becomes a fixed clock: the group waits nearby if it arrives early, spends the length you set at the talk (15 minutes by default — feeding slots are often 10, talks up to 30), then carries on to the next stop. Two talks are always handled in time order, whichever box you filled in first; if the route would reach one late, that is said under “Your route”. A talk time that needs more minutes than your time box has is reported instead of being forced in — a 45-minute dash rarely fits a talk. Leave both talk times empty for a plain route — each length box is only used when its own time is set. Talks are read when you press Build, so change a talk time and build again.

Zones and stops

Untick a whole zone to leave it out, or use Select all / Skip all inside a zone to tick or drop every animal there in one click — useful when a class wants to skip the whole reptile house. Single animals can still be unticked one at a time, and in a short time box that is the quickest way to make the route fit.

The small box next to each animal is how long you spend there: it starts at the built-in number for that animal (5 to 12 minutes, the page’s own guess and not a real zoo’s timings), and typing your own (1 to 45 minutes) is what the route then uses for that stop. Nothing is saved, so a reload puts the built-in numbers back.

Zone totals, the walking order and the two gate walks

Each zone header also carries a running total, for example “3 stops · 34 min viewing”: it counts the stops you have ticked in that zone and the minutes in their small boxes, without the settling, the group extra or the walking, so you can see which zone is eating the time box. A zone you leave unticked reads “no stops ticked”.

The ▲ and ▼ buttons move a zone along the walking order, so you can match the way your park really runs; the order starts as the built-in list, Wetlands first. Walking time comes from a zone’s place in that order: the next zone along is a 4-minute hop, every zone you walk past adds 2 minutes, and no single walk is longer than 14 minutes, so moving a far zone nearer shortens the hop. A walk of 10 minutes or more is flagged in the route.

The route also ends with the walk back to the gate from your last stop, worked out with the same rule, so the finish time is when the group is back at the entrance rather than at the last enclosure. It opens with the walk in from the gate, the same rule from the entrance to the first zone you keep: that row sits above your start time, so the timed box still begins at the first enclosure and the row tells you when to be at the entrance. Once a route is on screen, any tick, untick, move, viewing time or setting change updates it straight away, with no second press of Build.

Set your minutes and group size, pick the zones and stops, then build the route. A 15-minute box and the 45 min quick box are both fine.

Your route

Name: _______________________________ Date: ______________

Observation checklist

One question per stop you kept, in route order. Hand it to a helper, or print it for each child — in the checklist-only view each sheet also carries the blank name and date line.

Plain-text version (for an email or a note)

The route and the checklist above as plain text, ready to paste into an email, a message or the lesson note. It follows whatever is on screen, so tick a zone and the text updates with it, and the heading names your group when you have typed one in the box at the top, so a pasted plan says who it is for. Nothing leaves your browser.

Print carries whatever is on screen at that moment: the finish line, the route, the checklist and the two warning notes, plus one line naming your group, your start time and the finish time. The setup form, the walking rows, the plain-text box and the About notes are left off the paper on purpose. So build the route and tick your stops first — an unbuilt page prints almost nothing. In the checklist-only view below, the route, the finish line and the two warning notes are left off the paper as well, and a blank name and date line is added instead, so that print is the questions alone with the group name and the times at the top. These two buttons stay switched off until a route is on screen, so a half-built page cannot be mistaken for the plan; they come back as soon as you build.

Printing for a class usually means one sheet of questions per child, not the whole plan on every sheet. Checklist only, for printing hides the route, its summary line, the finish line, the two warning notes, the plain-text box and its copy button, the setup form and the About notes — on screen and on paper — so the next print is just the questions, with the group name and the times still at the top of the sheet and a blank name and date line for the child to fill in. Print this page stays on the page in that view, because printing the sheet is the point of it, but Copy the plan as text goes with the text box it copies from, so copy the plan before you switch this view on. Press Show the full plan again (or Escape) to bring everything back. The button stays switched off until a route is on screen, and the view switches itself off if the route is refused or reset.

About

Zoo Rounds is a static page built by an AI agent. Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is saved between visits: every plan is worked out in your browser from the list of animals built into the page. Stop times are estimates, not a real zoo map — check your own park’s opening times and keeper talks before you go.

Assumptions used in the timing: 4 minutes to walk to the next zone along the walking order, plus 2 minutes for every zone you walk past (so a zone you skip still costs walking time), capped at 14 minutes for one hop — a hop of 10 minutes or more is flagged as a long haul. Then 2 minutes to settle between stops, the viewing minutes in each animal’s own small minutes box (the built-in number, 5 to 12 minutes, is only a starting guess; you can type any whole number from 1 to 45, and the route uses that box), up to two pinned keeper talks, each a fixed slot of the length you set (15 minutes by default) and always handled in time order, and extra minutes at every stop for a bigger group — nothing up to 10 people, then +1 minute per stop up to 20, +2 up to 35, +3 up to 60, +4 beyond that.

The walking order starts as the built-in list (Wetlands first) and the ▲ / ▼ buttons on a zone move it along that order; like everything else here, the order and the viewing times are not saved between visits. Nothing in the timing changes with the length of the visit, so a 45-minute dash uses exactly the same rules as a half day: it simply fits fewer stops.

The Tight visit button under the quick time boxes is a shortcut for those same rules, not a different set: it types 45 into the minutes box and ticks only the first two zones in the walking order, unticking the rest, then presses the same Build button you would and says in the status line which zones it ticked and which it left out.

Each zone header carries a live total — how many stops you have ticked there and the minutes in their small viewing boxes, for example “3 stops · 34 min viewing”. That total is worked out by a separate small file (zonetime.js) that only reads the zone blocks on the page: it counts ticked animals and the numbers in their viewing-minute boxes, so it leaves out the settling minutes, the group extra and all walking, and it is a way to see where the time box is going rather than a second timetable.

The finish line under “Your route” is read straight off the last time in the route list, and the last row of every route is the walk back to the gate: the same 4/2/14 rule applied from your last stop, which sits at a known place in the walking order, back to the entrance one place before the first zone. So the finish time is when the group is through the gate, and it is the same number in the route list, the plain-text plan and on paper. The first row of every route is the matching walk in from the gate: the same rule from the entrance to the first zone you keep, shown as minutes that end at your start time, so the timed box itself still begins at the first enclosure and that row is the one that tells you when to be at the entrance. Both of those rows are added by separate small files (gate.js and startwalk.js) which read the route rows and the zone order on the page, so they can never disagree with the planner above them.

The plain-text box is a copy of what is on screen, headed by your group name when you typed one; the printed sheet carries the route, the checklist and these notes, and another small file (printhead.js) puts one line at the top of the paper naming your group, your start time and the finish time — the first two read from the boxes on the form, the finish time read from the finish line under “Your route”, so a helper holding the sheet knows which visit it is and when it ends. Printing reads the same elements the screen shows, so the paper cannot disagree with the page, except in the checklist-only view below, where a stylesheet leaves the route, its summary line, the finish line, the two warning notes and the plain-text box off the paper on purpose.

The copy and print buttons are switched off until a route is on screen by one more small file (emptyguard.js), which watches the route panel and reads nothing else, so on a fresh page there is no press that does nothing.

The checklist-only view is one more small file (checklistonly.js) with its own stylesheet: it reads the route panel to know whether a route is on screen, adds a single class to the page body to hide the route, its summary line, the finish line, the two warning notes, the plain-text box, the form and these notes, and hides the note and the button again when you leave the view. The row holding the two buttons stays on screen there, but the copy button is hidden with the text box it copies from, while the print button stays, since printing the sheet is the point of the view. A blank name-and-date line, which that same stylesheet keeps off the page in every other view, appears with the questions in this view, both on screen as a preview and on paper, so a class sheet can be handed to one child. It prints nothing itself and touches no timing — it only changes what is on the page at the moment you press Print.

Pressing Build the route also moves the reader to the top of the route panel (one more small file, focusplan.js), so a keyboard or screen-reader user lands on the plan instead of having to hunt down the page for it, and the page scrolls there too. A build that is refused, or a tick change that rebuilds on its own, does not move focus: you stay on the form next to the error line or the box you just touched. Neither does a setting that rebuilds the route for you: when the minutes, the group size, the start time or the group name update a route that is already on screen, the page stays where you are, so nothing pulls you away from the form while you are still filling it in. The Tight visit button, which presses Build for you from the form, still lands you on the route.

A single-animal tick rebuilds the route, but the planner’s own status line only says how big the route is now, never which stop changed. One more small file (tickstatus.js) puts the name in: it waits a little longer than the planner’s own rebuild, then writes one short sentence in front of the planner’s message, for example “Humboldt penguin: taken off the route. Plan built: 12 stops in 5 zones.” It stays silent for zone ticks, viewing-minute changes and errors, where the planner already says what happened, so it never overwrites the planner.

The longest notes on the setup panel — how talks are fitted in, and how the zone totals, the walking order and the two gate walks work — sit behind a short summary line you can open, so the form stays short on a phone. The words are all still on the page; only their display changes (collapse.css), and the setup panel is left off the printed sheet either way.