[NSRCA-discussion] Quick question re: cellular data service at the fields where you compete

Thu Dec 8 14:03:57 AKST 2011

I guess most of you don't know me, so it's probably worth an introduction
:-)  I've been writing software professionally for the past 25 years and
have spent the last 10 building cloud-based services for small businesses
and helping 3rd party developers interact with our cloud services.  On the
pattern side, I've flown RC for almost as long as I've been writing code,
and always told myself I'd get a pattern plane "when I can afford it" --
well, now that my daughter is older and I've got 25 years under my career
belt, I can afford it and bought a 62" Osiris to test the waters, fell in
love instantly and had the confidence to start competing in Sportsman this
year -- now I have 2 Osirii and 1 Vanquish with another one on the way for
my backup.  So I'm pretty new to competing + judging, not new to watching
competitions (I guess I'm one of those weirdos who likes to watch paint dry
:-)

Completely agree on the keystroke, wouldn't even want to have a typical
number pad with everything too close together.  I like the deduction
clicker, but would provide a preference-based interface to also use a
simple touch interface. It would *definitely* keep scores in local device
memory until the judge had reviewed the whole scoresheet and decided to
"send" the scoresheet.  I would never do a keystroke to the cloud based
interface, it would be too slow and unreliable as marty notes.

This all started in my head when I noted how scoring/timing was done at my
daughter's swim meets vs. the manual pain of entering scores into PACSS,
etc.  I also want to be able to offer some cool services for the pilots to
analyze their data over time, long after they've forgotten who the judges
were for round X of event Y.  I can look at the raw scores for the
competitions I've been a part of and I *think* I've been improving over the
past several months, but that's not clear from the scores because the
judges have been very different.  I expect over the next year I'll be in
front of the same people more times and I'll be able to start seeing a
trend + or -, etc.

Reading about the Nats + Worlds drove it home for me even more, we can do
better by leveraging technology (when it's available) and this is a way for
me to contribute to the pattern community the way Gene has with PACSS, etc.

I've also spent the last 10 years at a company that is almost obsessive in
their attention to the customer, the user of the software, so I know I
won't get it completely right the first time and I'll have to get input
from y'all -- my "customers" for this in order to make this a truly
workable system, that's already started with some of the feedback I've
heard in this thread :-)

Which brings me back to the question at hand: how many fields have you been
to in the last 2 years where data service was NOT available for your
smartphone (if you have one)?

Peter+

On Thu, Dec 8, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Marty King <mking46516 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> Spending the past 23 years in IT and doing scoring at the both the
> district level and Nats I have to chime in.
>
> I have found, that since I use both a tablet and Iphone for all my
> communication these days, you can not be 100% sure of a consistent
> keystroke on a touch screen.  And if you miss just one well placed digit,
> it distracts you and sets off a lot of unwanted fumbling. Unless the device
> wrote to a file that could be checked by the judge for correctness prior to
> being sent over the wireless, there would be a lot of issues. As a point of
> history we moved off of Scantron sheets at the Nats so we could do several
> things. One big one was to try and put the judges eyes back on the
> airplane. Second was to lower the expectation of what scribes, if used, had
> to do (we were using outside scribes) Then third was to have three eyes
> checking the data, the judges to make sure the score sheet was filled in
> completely, the data entry person to input and a data verification person
> to check the data.
>
> I think the wireless aspect (especially a secure 2.4 or 5.8) may have some
> merit, especially if used at the Nats, we could send and import a judges
> complete score sheet per pilot. A scratch pad would still be used for the
> raw scoring, but as now, it could be transferred instead to a wireless
> device instead of a score sheet and sent to the Host scoring PC or server.
> This would alleviate the second check of the data at scoring, as no data
> would actually be keypunched. You also would not need runners and scoring
> would take place even more timely than it already does now. If any
> questions would arise (as they do at the Nats) we could go back to the
> judges scoring pad on site for final verification. Right now we simply pull
> the score sheet and handle the issue.
>
> We had similar issues with ones writing directly on the Scantron score
> sheets, not watching the plane, loosing their place.... Before we changed
> to hand written score sheets in 2005, I went through the 2003 & 2004
> Scantron sheets and there were a LOT of errors and NO's on them.
>
> If the cell system was perfect ( can you hear me now.....) and it isn't by
> a long shot in many areas of the county, sending individual keystrokes
> would be a challenge.
>
> One other system some of you may be aware of is in the field of Education.
> There are classroom systems out that allow students using handheld clickers
> (think of a small TV remote) to enter answers in real time. The data is
> collected and displayed, how many right, how many wrong etc. This is based
> on both Bluetooth and 2.4 ghz at the present time and prices for systems
> range from 500.00 up to 2495.00.  The problem still is hitting the correct
> keys consistently. When testing the first systems in 2005 we had students
> that said they answered correctly, but the software said otherwise. Either
> they lied or maybe press the wrong button. There was no way to check, as
> the clickers do not hold a file, they were real time.
>
> Real time data entry is fast. However, in competition consistency and
> accuracy is a must, but it is hard to achieve both in real time. You need a
> way to double check and verify. I know competitors want true and accurate
> scores. Otherwise, there is no reason to fly in front of judges.
>
> Just a few thoughts,
>
>  Marty
>
> D4
> NSRCA 2551
> AMA 9945 CD LM
>
> Marty King
>
> 574-304-5781
> 56632 Boss Blvd. Elkhart, Indiana 46516
>   ------------------------------
> *From:* Phil S. <chuenkan at comcast.net>
>
> *To:* General pattern discussion <nsrca-discussion at lists.nsrca.org>
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 8, 2011 3:02 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [NSRCA-discussion] Quick question re: cellular data
> service at the fields where you compete
>
>  Jim is correct -- I spent the last 10 years of my career studying driver
> distraction (for the FHWA) in a driving simulator.  I have said for a LONG
> time, that eyes-on-road and hands-on-wheel (with the "hands-free methods)
> does NOT mean mind on-driving-task.  I have used the van Putte method, and
> it WORKS.  People can NOT multitask, any more than a single-core CPU can,
> and while one task is swapped out, it task will suffer, no matter how short
> the swap-time is.
>
> On 12/8/2011 12:32 PM, J N Hiller wrote:
>
>  Hear we go again!
> Keeping 'eyes on airplane' is of little benefit when the brain's
> concentration or thought is elsewhere. The distraction incurred trying to
> operate a remote devise will likely outweigh the benefits, at least for
> many of us willing to admit it. I find writing numbers in a line along the
> edge of a clipboard to be the least distracting.
>
> Jim
>
> --
> Phil Spelt, KCRC President
> AMA 1294 Scientific Leader Member
> SPA 177 Board Member
> (865) 435-1476v, (865) 604-0541c
>
>
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