PDA Match Scorer: Beta Now Available for testing

ckc123 said:
Yes it has.. but.. 1) it won't have all the features that I'll be doing. 2) it's a replacement for MSS so you have issues about using a non-official scoring program (mine is built on top of MSS, and is only a way to extend the collection to the PDA. MSS still does the scoring). 3) ASS, won't have integration to classifications, score posting real time, or on the web.

The list goes on.. ASS does exists, but a better mouse trap is being built.
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They already have an interface with the US EzWinscore. ASS works as either a stand alone scoring system or a simple replacement for paper and manual Stats entry. I prefer the interface with EzWinscore since their system is about 5 billion years ahead of MSS

As for the cost I agree its way to high and I mentioned it to Peter more than once, but he is paying for a professional programmer with support. So down the road if their are changes or enhancements required since he owns the program he can get them done.

USPSA is following the same model, they own and pay for the development of their program.
 
Peter was light years ahead of everyone on this...and I bet if you asked him what he has invested in development over the years...he'd probably fall over and die.

The kicker is...it's not been officially recognised by IPSC (there was a big to do on GV a while back about this) so he hasn't sold near enough to even start getting his money back. To add insult to injury...once he sold his first official production license...he then had to pony up to provide support.

More recent improvements in mobile technolgy have made it easier...and less expensive to develop these types of apps...but hats off to him for getting the ball rolling...
 
ckc123 said:
yes, they are pull down combo boxes.. and if you have more then 8, it will scroll down the screen.. the "D"'s are disappearing targets..
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I think that making them into buttons can be more convenient for entering scores, so that you could tap once or twice on a button.
For example to enter 2A you can tap twice on button in A column, or to enter A,C,Penalty you can tap once on buttons in A column, C column and Penalty column.
To prevent errors and allow easy corrections tapping 3rd time on scoring button should erase first tap, for example if you entered 2A, and correct score is 1A,1C - tapping on C column will change score to 1A, 1C.
(Something like that can be also done for penalty scores).
 
iouri said:
To prevent errors and allow easy corrections tapping 3rd time on scoring button should erase first tap, for example if you entered 2A, and correct score is 1A,1C - tapping on C column will change score to 1A, 1C.
(Something like that can be also done for penalty scores).
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I've looked at the button idea, unfortunatly it's not that easy..

Take a COF that requires 4 hits on a target.. then the 2 hit's per target calcualtion does not work. I'm going to be testing out different screen layouts (Eg full screen pull downs, "wizard stye" screen) to see which is quickest and easiest to use.
 
Walter Hornby said:
probably a dumb question, but if it is on a window mobile platform does that mean it will not work with a Palm?
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There are three major mobile hardware platforms out there 1) Windows mobile (ipaq, phones) 2) Palm PDA's and Palm OS phones 3) Blackberries

each has it's own operating system, and applications written on one, are not transferrable to the others.

to try and account for this, what I have done is tried to seperate out the Interface from MSS (which runs on the PC) from the PDA app.

you should still be able to leverage a lot of the "infrastructure" , by just replacing the PDA app with a different language (eg writing one for PalmOS).

you can write the App in Java which "in theory" runs on all three, but you don't get the flexibilty, and each one handles the hardware differently. and the UIs are harder to write.
 
No offense is intended with the following comments but I thought I would throw in my 2 cents worth.


I like the idea but I dont know if its actually that good of an idea to use PDAs that is.

Some shortcomings that come to mind are as follows:

Battery life / Power requirements. - Most PDAs these days tend to use an internal Lithium battery so your going to need power at each range to keep the PDAs charged as I doubt they will last a day on the range on just one charge.

Weather - We shoot come hell or high water, I dont know how well PDAs will hold up to cold, rain, dust, etc.

Shooter score verification - I think most shooters appreciate having their copy of the scoresheet so they can verify their scores at the end of the match. With a PDA thier copy wouldnt exist so they would have to take extra time double checking all the figures in the PDA before signing off, I think this would slow things down on the range and shooters may still not trust the accuracy of the technology.

Small Screen - PDAs have small screens and I dont know how simple life will be for a score keeper or competitor to read the thing, especially on say a bright sunny day.

Cost - PDAs are not cheap, if a club or organization was to go this route I could easily see their bill for PDAs and spares and assorted bits and pieces to exceed $2000 or more.

Durability - I dont think PDAs will hold up to the abuse that they might be exposed to on a shooting range, dust, the elements, user neglect, and such I think would cause these devices to fail fairly quickly. Also, what would happen if a PDA being used on a range has been dropped and damaged/broke/unable to power back on before its been synced with the master pc running MSS? Without scoresheets that means all the shooters would need to reshoot the stage as their data was lost.



Just my thoughts, my 2cents worth and some points that I am sure you have already considered.
 
buckshot said:
No offense is intended with the following comments but I thought I would throw in my 2 cents worth.
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No offense taken.. I'll respsond as I see it

Battery life / Power requirements. - Most PDAs these days tend to use an internal Lithium battery so your going to need power at each range to keep the PDAs charged as I doubt they will last a day on the range on just one charge.
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Actually, it's not that bad.. a lot of PDA's have a sleep mode (that takes less then a seocnd to get out of) . you don't need to leave the PDA "ON" all the time. just hit the power button and it goes into sleep mode until the next competitor is ready to score.. you can last about 2-3 days like that depending on the model you have. Also there are now "batter packs" you can by which you put in AA's and it plugs into your pda for backup power (cost $20. approx).

Weather - We shoot come hell or high water, I dont know how well PDAs will hold up to cold, rain, dust, etc.
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That is a very valid concern, and being a touch screen, then PDA can be operated in a bag ;) (unlike a paper sheet which you need to take out to write on ;)

Shooter score verification - I think most shooters appreciate having their copy of the scoresheet so they can verify their scores at the end of the match. With a PDA thier copy wouldnt exist so they would have to take extra time double checking all the figures in the PDA before signing off, I think this would slow things down on the range and shooters may still not trust the accuracy of the technology.
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Thats true but I haven't seen any L1 or L2 which do this, only L3's which use the papers that give the shooter a copy. for L3's you can have a portable printer ($250 give you a bluetooth, wifi battery printer you can have on the range). and you can print the shooter sheet right then and there.

As for the "verification" there is verification that can check the "Stage definition" to make sure that all shots are accounted for on the screen before the person signs it.. no mathmatical errors that can get through.


Small Screen - PDAs have small screens and I dont know how simple life will be for a score keeper or competitor to read the thing, especially on say a bright sunny day.
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There are different sizes and prices of PDA's you can get something like the Nokia PDA which is about 3X larger then a PDA phone, and you can see it very easy.

Cost - PDAs are not cheap, if a club or organization was to go this route I could easily see their bill for PDAs and spares and assorted bits and pieces to exceed $2000 or more.
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I'm going to put together a buget for costs. but you also need to consider TIME is MONEY as well, and saving you 2-3 hours in a good size match is worth how much? also the costs call depend on a LOT of factors.. eg if you have a computer at the club, and a member with a smart phone, then your start up costs (for an L1 - L2) is NOTHING.

Durability - I dont think PDAs will hold up to the abuse that they might be exposed to on a shooting range, dust, the elements, user neglect, and such I think would cause these devices to fail fairly quickly. Also, what would happen if a PDA being used on a range has been dropped and damaged/broke/unable to power back on before its been synced with the master pc running MSS? Without scoresheets that means all the shooters would need to reshoot the stage as their data was lost.
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Again a very valid concern, and this can be mitigated two ways..
1) is you use the storage card for all "intrim" scores, then you can just take the SDIO card out, and take it to another PDA or to the computer, and no data (that was already scored) is lost. also depending on if you want to use Wifi, then your scores can be sent IMMEDIATLY to the PC in the club house after you have signed it.. no need to "collect" The data on the PDA.

the abuse concern is very valid as well, and different manufactures are better then others. the more you want to spend, the better they tend to be. (abuse wise)

Just my thoughts, my 2cents worth and some points that I am sure you have already considered.
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Everyones 2 cents are very welcome and valid (or I would not ahve asked everyone for input in the first place.) the more things that are brought up for consideration, the better the solution will be..
 
I think I saw something similiar being used in Vermont at the Aware match....? Maybe someone from that club could offer some advice....?
 
Comments thus far (I'm testing it on an HTC 6800 mobile phone)

Combo boxes won't be a speed issue. It's actually pretty fast. Question - Can the combo boxes be defaulted to 2 (shots per target) and be modified if required for specific targets (for an el prez for example)

Are the stage and shooter profiles generated in WinMss and imported into the PDA App?

Battery Life - TBD. It really depends on the device. For example, if you're using a PDA Phone...and your outside of the digital corrider...the phone will be in Analog and that really drains the power (even when the device goes to sleep)

Verifiction was addressed (Blue tooth pronter on the range...

Small screen - I'm interested to see what it's like in bright sunlight...but the size on the 6800 (not huge) isn't an issue.

Potential loss of data - Can the system be configured to automatically save the data to the memory card (in real time)?

So far...it looks great...and is pretty intuitive. I'll post more comments once additional functions are included in the test version of the app.

Cheers
 
Quigley said:
Comments thus far (I'm testing it on an HTC 6800 mobile phone)
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I'll add a few as well if people what to know what's in it (or whats been considered)

Q. how do you stop an RO fro changing the score after it's been signed
A. There are different job functions with different passwords to allow them. Also all changes are time stamped, and any change to a score after a Sig will "invalidate" the sig.

Q. Can this be tied into the Timers with RF
A. Unfortuantly the timers use a proprietery radio signal for this, so no..

Q. How are the scores "verified".
A. After a stage is been shot, the totals are compared against the stage definition to make sure targets are not missed, and the target hit count meets the stage.

Q. if i'm scoring a stage, how do I know which target matches which entry.
A. Just liek todays scoring, the targets do not have to be in any order (they can be if you like).
A.A. (As a bonus I've considerd an "order on the spot" so that you can set the order of the targets on the page as the RO wants to see them, but this is a nice to have an probably won't be part of the first release) (Eg order 2 paper, 2 plates, then 6 paper, then 2 disappearing in that order)

Q. What about security of the data
A. The data is encrypted, and the RO needs to provide a password to load and decrypt the stage settings.
 
it all sounds good and looks good ... my only question and I don't think it's been answered is.... If/can you use multiple PDA's let's say 1 per stage/R.O. and when it's done will it be exported to master PC as a file or is it actually inputed to the program so it is up-to-date once the transmittion is completed... That way there is no need for a person to manipulate the data in the stats shack... that would be the best so competitors can hit print results to screen and see their standings as they are inputted from PDA. They can also see what top PF is for any stage as it currently stands...
 
maxpig said:
it all sounds good and looks good ... my only question and I don't think it's been answered is.... If/can you use multiple PDA's let's say 1 per stage/R.O. and when it's done will it be exported to master PC as a file or is it actually inputed to the program so it is up-to-date once the transmittion is completed... That way there is no need for a person to manipulate the data in the stats shack... that would be the best so competitors can hit print results to screen and see their standings as they are inputted from PDA. They can also see what top PF is for any stage as it currently stands...
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it's going to depend on the method used for communications between the PDA and the scoring PC (several options will be available to use).. if it's real time, (wifi etc) then the stage results will be sent immediatly after the competitor signs the acceptance. if Not then there is the old "Card swap" and transfer via cable, IR, bluetooth.. I've also thought about a "stats pda" which can be taken to each range, and do a wireless transfer from the stage PDA to the stats one, and then take it back to the stats PC.

each stage can have it's own PDA. and the central PC will reconcile it.
 
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