Who said it *couldnt* be done! :) (practiscore)

[Alan Adamson]

For the past 6 months, we have worked very closely with Kens team at Practiscore and the fruits of that paid off this past weekend. After much nay-saying, some significant push back, and lots of thought and practice, we ran 220 shooters in 4 5.5hr sessions with 10 stages (including Chrono) all with Android devices and all using PractiScore as the primary scoring method.

When the dust settled (or in this case the skys cleared). Within 10 minutes of the last shot fired, we had *ALL* 220 shooters scored, *ZERO* missing score sheets and most importantly, *ZERO* issues.

Yes, we backed everything up on Paper, but only needed to resort to those ONE TIME to gather DQ's and deal with one shooter that had their scored entered under the wrong shooters name (which we had addressed in about 30 seconds).

In fact, the longest wait was due to having to print out the required paper sheets for the final review and wait period, which was promptly waived.

Did we have some small issues, yes, but I'd dare say no worse than any other typical L2 match. But what we didn't have was any manual entry of scores from paper, having to translate chicken scratches to scores, and the associated wear and tear on the data entry personnel etc.

I suppose we need to hold a postmortem and set down and document what/how we did this in the hopes that others can try it. We used 20 nooks, swapped them at session turn over, had ZERO of them give us any issue the entire match.

We did learn what we like and don't like about how to do paper backup. And we all *wished* we could electronically generate (print) competitor stage results at the end of their run to hand them directly in place of the paper backup carbons.... But all in all, to the best of my knowledge, this was the first 100% successful match scored completely with Practiscore, the way it should be.

And for those nay-sayers.... We took RO's, some that had little PS experience, some with lots of PS experience and after a few minutes of education, they were off and running. We used 2 Stats people, one rover with Ipad doing backup syncs over a rage Wifi (without internet) at 30-45 minute increments, and one doing the registration/ezws/ps postings and changes. We ran EZWS and PS side by side, and we used SSI as the registration tool. One could say we used every form of digital tool we had at our fingertips to pull this off - AND lessen the amount of manual data entry and pen to paper impacts.

We even pushed frequent updates to both the USPSA website and the practiscore website and on more than one occasion I heard people say they couldn't believe that they had updates on their phone as frequently as they did. Who knows, next year we may try a "jumbo tron" with live updates and sponsor crawls , don't laugh, we've already talked about it and it's easily within the realm of possibilities.

Now remember, for the prior 6 months, we've run 100+ shooter monthly matches and have done each and every one of those completely with PS. To the point where we had match results ready and published before we left the range for the day... ...

Many thanks to Peter Oliver the MD for letting us try this (actually, I think he wanted it more than we did). To our Section coordinator - Bill Noyes for putting up with us and watching over our shoulders, and mostly to Phil Strader, Prez at USPSA for granting us permission, even though he still had a bad taste in his mouth from some prior attempts.

Oh, yeah, we aren't going back....it's electronic scoring or BUST!

For those that attended, thanks, hope you had a good time and for those that missed stage 8.... ya never know, it may be back at a future time ...

Alan Adamson

Atlanta, GA

Edited September 10, 2012 by Alan Adamson

[cellguy030]

thats awesome... glad you had a good experience! I too have no reservations about PS. I worked a sectional over the weekend that used paper and it just cemented my love for PS!

[Skydiver]

Excellent!

[sperman]

I have to admit, that I had my doubts about using PS at the match before the weekend started. I still don't like the paper backups, either as a competitor or as an RO. BUT....

The match went off without a hitch. Scoring was simple, results were updated frequently and like Alan said, there were zero issues with Practiscore this weekend. A big thanks to Alan, Peter and everyone at Cherokee for putting in all the work over the last 6 months to make sure electronic scoring was a success at the match.

[Alan Adamson]

I have to admit, that I had my doubts about using PS at the match before the weekend started. I still don't like the paper backups, either as a competitor or as an RO. BUT....

The match went off without a hitch. Scoring was simple, results were updated frequently and like Alan said, there were zero issues with Practiscore this weekend. A big thanks to Alan, Peter and everyone at Cherokee for putting in all the work over the last 6 months to make sure electronic scoring was a success at the match.

Thanks for the comments.

Yes, we learned that there were two primary issues with the way we did the paper version. a) it didn't leave enough room for any RO comments as might be required for things like procedurals, etc. it didn't leave enough room for any specifics that an RM might need to include, say a target under despute, etc.

We went back and forth prior to the match of doing the individual sheets that you all see traditionally at a paper scored match, and elected to go the way we did (8-9 shooters on one legal sized sheet of paper), post the stage, the shooters would cut up the sheets with provided scissors to get their copy.

Ideally, I think over the next year, we are going to work seriously hard to come up with a way to *print* live final *strips* for each shooter... I don't know how we are going to do it, but we are...

There was one huge advantage to how we did do it however... it made confirmation of squad by paper easy, if I know I had 20 squads out shooting on a day, at the end of the day, by stage, I should have 20 sheets of paper.

All in all however it worked as it should have and we had a solid paper trail if we needed it... In the end, we did not.

It was such a good conversation point during that match that Bill Noyes even designed a *new* single sheet version that mirrored the way that PS readback results, in hopes that maybe that would make it easier for the next time...

But hey, we have a year to figure that part out .... Unless of course Mark drafts us to go help him with the AL Sectional, then my year just got cut in half! ... hehe...

Alan

Edited September 10, 2012 by Alan Adamson

[Mark K]

Having been a CRO, and a Scorer, and a Shooter at this match, I have to say BRAVO!!!

We will be running the AL Sectional next March with Practiscore, and would love an eventual Post Mortem, if there is much of one.

I was amazed at the number of shooter Carbon Copies of the paper backups that were just thrown away - so many shooter knew that the stuff was in the machine, and did not worry about it.

Those that did have their paper carbon copies, were comparing them with my IPAD, long before anyone printed and posted anything.

I loved that you had two networks - your secured network, and your "Scores" network that a Practiscore junkie like me could constantly get up-to-the-minute scores.

Mark K.

[Mark K]

I have to admit, that I had my doubts about using PS at the match before the weekend started. I still don't like the paper backups, either as a competitor or as an RO. BUT....

The match went off without a hitch. Scoring was simple, results were updated frequently and like Alan said, there were zero issues with Practiscore this weekend. A big thanks to Alan, Peter and everyone at Cherokee for putting in all the work over the last 6 months to make sure electronic scoring was a success at the match.

Thanks for the comments.

Yes, we learned that there were two primary issues with the way we did the paper version. a) it didn't leave enough room for any RO comments as might be required for things like procedurals, etc. it didn't leave enough room for any specifics that an RM might need to include, say a target under despute, etc.

We went back and forth prior to the match of doing the individual sheets that you all see traditionally at a paper scored match, and elected to go the way we did (8-9 shooters on one legal sized sheet of paper), post the stage, the shooters would cut up the sheets with provided scissors to get their copy.

Ideally, I think over the next year, we are going to work seriously hard to come up with a way to *print* live final *strips* for each shooter... I don't know how we are going to do it, but we are...

There was one huge advantage to how we did do it however... it made confirmation of squad by paper easy, if I know I had 20 squads out shooting on a day, at the end of the day, by stage, I should have 20 sheets of paper.

All in all however it worked as it should have and we had a solid paper trail if we needed it... In the end, we did not.

It was such a good conversation point during that match that Bill Noyes even designed a *new* single sheet version that mirrored the way that PS readback results, in hopes that maybe that would make it easier for the next time...

But hey, we have a year to figure that part out .... Unless of course Mark drafts us to go help him with the AL Sectional, then my year just got cut in half! ... hehe...

Alan

Hell, I already have J.C.'s commitment to help. Just waiting on you......

Mark K

[Alan Adamson]

I have to admit, that I had my doubts about using PS at the match before the weekend started. I still don't like the paper backups, either as a competitor or as an RO. BUT....

The match went off without a hitch. Scoring was simple, results were updated frequently and like Alan said, there were zero issues with Practiscore this weekend. A big thanks to Alan, Peter and everyone at Cherokee for putting in all the work over the last 6 months to make sure electronic scoring was a success at the match.

Thanks for the comments.

Yes, we learned that there were two primary issues with the way we did the paper version. a) it didn't leave enough room for any RO comments as might be required for things like procedurals, etc. it didn't leave enough room for any specifics that an RM might need to include, say a target under despute, etc.

We went back and forth prior to the match of doing the individual sheets that you all see traditionally at a paper scored match, and elected to go the way we did (8-9 shooters on one legal sized sheet of paper), post the stage, the shooters would cut up the sheets with provided scissors to get their copy.

Ideally, I think over the next year, we are going to work seriously hard to come up with a way to *print* live final *strips* for each shooter... I don't know how we are going to do it, but we are...

There was one huge advantage to how we did do it however... it made confirmation of squad by paper easy, if I know I had 20 squads out shooting on a day, at the end of the day, by stage, I should have 20 sheets of paper.

All in all however it worked as it should have and we had a solid paper trail if we needed it... In the end, we did not.

It was such a good conversation point during that match that Bill Noyes even designed a *new* single sheet version that mirrored the way that PS readback results, in hopes that maybe that would make it easier for the next time...

But hey, we have a year to figure that part out .... Unless of course Mark drafts us to go help him with the AL Sectional, then my year just got cut in half! ... hehe...

Alan

Hell, I already have J.C.'s commitment to help. Just waiting on you......

Mark K

hehe, somehow I knew that was going on... he pinged me today asking if I was going to shoot your sectional.... I figured you musta been twisting his arm.

Thanks Mark for your NOOKS, and your support! Couldn't have done it without a *bunch of people*

Alan

[jluther820]

Palms or phones, electronic scoring is the only way to go.

[Alan Adamson]

Palms or phones, electronic scoring is the only way to go.

Late on this response, but don't bother with phones, White paper NST's (Nook Simple Touch's) are the way to good for now... the only issue is rain, but that would be true of a phone too. In bright daylight however, they are the bomb...

[wgnoyes]

Yes, even I'm convinced. You can't ignore the price for a new one ($79) and there are now a couple of different somewhat easy to follow rooting procedures to force the device to do what you want. The extreme complexity of the other rooting procedures was my show-stopper before.

You DO still need to have (in my opinion) an apple something-or-other (iphone, ipad, ipod touch) to use as the master device, as the ios version of practiscore just seems to be able to reach out and find all the nooks of its own accord without you having to key in device numbers, like you have to do with the nooks. That is a big timesaver when you're running around the range harvesting new scores from the stages.

[Mark K]

Yes, even I'm convinced. You can't ignore the price for a new one ($79) and there are now a couple of different somewhat easy to follow rooting procedures to force the device to do what you want. The extreme complexity of the other rooting procedures was my show-stopper before.

You DO still need to have (in my opinion) an apple something-or-other (iphone, ipad, ipod touch) to use as the master device, as the ios version of practiscore just seems to be able to reach out and find all the nooks of its own accord without you having to key in device numbers, like you have to do with the nooks. That is a big timesaver when you're running around the range harvesting new scores from the stages.

Could not agree more, Bill. I use a iPAD for a master device. Carry it with me as I shoot, and the just periodically update from each Nook St in each squad. Simple as pie. Our match directors for IDPA and Steel use Android Tabs for master devices, and the have to keep a list of their squad devices to keep updating.

Mark K

[Alan Adamson]

I believe that is going to change real soon... They have or are implementing a much improved sync process for both apple and android. From all accounts, it should solve the issue of needing an IOS device as the master, but we'll see.... We as well do the same, having Bonjour find all the devices vs. needing to know the ID codes on android is soooo much nicer at the moment...