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New to Electronic Scoring Old Guys


Luv2rideWV

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We are a brand new USPSA club that has been holding "outlaw" action matches for about two years. We have always used paper scoring, too.

We are having our first official USPSA match this weekend, and a tech savvy club member is helping us go electronic with iPads and Practiscore. NO PAPER SCORE SHEETS!!! AMEN!!!

Our CRO/old guy (fast old guy who can beat us all) is asking what you do when a shooter wants to confirm a score, dispute a score, want to sign a score sheet like at a bigger match, or how do you handle the situation when a shooter claims there was a mistake after you leave the stage?

Sorry if any of these are silly questions.

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It's not a silly question and it's why (you may have to backtrack on your "amen" there...) we still have paper backup scoresheets.

It's not a regular scoresheet, rather it's a 1-for-1 duplicate of the practiscore summary screen. The idea here is that you tap in scores for the competitor, go to the summary screen, and copy 1-for-1 the values in the appropriate boxes as shown on the screen to paper. Because everything is ordered exactly the same as presented on the screen, it's about as simple and error-free as any manual process can be, literally a pattern matching exercise.

We use rooted nooks running the android version. For whatever still-unexplained reason, the android and iOS versions do not present or operate the same. That includes the summary screen, which is much different on an iPad than on android. Nevertheless, here is the android version. I could be convinced to create a similar iPad version, though I'd much rather see them simplify the iPad screen to match the android screen.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/cxopazugwp4skcd/new_lvl1_stage_summary_scoresheet.pdf

It's a 2-page form, printed front and back and accommodates up to 6 stages. Each competitor gets one and carries it from stage to stage. There is an added benefit that you can continue to use these scoresheets to maintain a squad's shooting order, which effectively ends all the complaints about maintaining shooting orders on devices.

There is not a match that goes by where I don't have to refer back to the paper scoresheets for a missing score or to verify that something in fact happened the way it is claimed to be. I simply will not run a practiscore match at any level without paper backup scoresheets.

Edited by wgnoyes
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For the local matches we have not been using anything but the nooks for quite some time now. You show the summary to the shooter, and the SHOOTER presses the "Save" button. That has been pretty much standard practice at all the majors I have shot as well.

I simply will not run a match with needless duplication unless I have to. :)

There is a higher error rate copying scores over to paper, and a bigger opportunity for mischief, than doing all electronic.

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We do not use paper back-ups. First off the Electronic score is the Official Score and in the event of a discrepancy the electronic score is what is used. The Paper back up only comes into play when and if the electronics go south. We tried a few years ago when we first went to the Palms. I printed out the sheets and had each shooter take one, we found 100% of them in the garbage. Yup, no one bothered. Heck 98% don't even look at their scores to begin with! We show them the Nook and they tell us, yeah, just hit the button. Most don't even look!.

That said. I would really really really like to have a $10 battery powered (solar?) printer that worked on plain paper and connected straight to the Nook so that as soon as you hit save, it automatically printed a receipt. This would of course work from 20 below to 140 above and in drenching rain, dust storms, snow and hail. the print would not fade for a minimum of10 years and the paper should of course be edible. No animals would be harmed during the production of the machinery and the warranty would life time and include free shipping both ways, overnight, am delivery with a free loaner delivered by 8am the next day just in case.

Oh, and I'd also like the winning ticket in the lottery included in the purchase price.

Thank you

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We do not use paper back-ups. First off the Electronic score is the Official Score and in the event of a discrepancy the electronic score is what is used. The Paper back up only comes into play when and if the electronics go south.

Not correct. John Amidon ruled some time back that in the case of a discrepancy, the paper scoresheet was to be considered authoritative.

We tried a few years ago when we first went to the Palms. I printed out the sheets and had each shooter take one, we found 100% of them in the garbage. Yup, no one bothered.

Not my experience. I get 100% of the paper scoresheets filled out and returned at the end of every match. That's every month, 6 stages, 50-70 competitors.

Heck 98% don't even look at their scores to begin with! We show them the Nook and they tell us, yeah, just hit the button. Most don't even look!. ...

I think you'll find after recent events, THAT casual attitude will be gone at least for a while.
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I have been at matches where my score was emailed to me within a few minutes of accepting my score, so that technology is out there.

Sure. If you have range-wide wifi coverage with internet access and if you're running iPads on the stages, practiscore can do that. That's a lot of big if's, however.
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I can see where the OP is coming from. They're moving from one form of scoring that they all know to a new one that probably only the young whipper-snappers know. When we converted from paper to digital people at our range were all over the idea. I've had squads at our steel challenge matches where none of them had used PS before. I ran the tablet for the first two shooters while those not shooting watched how it was one and after two shooters they were ready to take over the tablet and send me on my way. I understand the lack of trust for something new but give it some time and get the shooters actively involved in scoring with the tablets and you'll probably find they shooters will prefer them over paper.

For all of our matches (USPSA, steel challenge, IDPA,and now SSAS) we're all doing paperless scoring.

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Your choice. We'll keep running paper backup at Lvl1. It also keeps people used to the idea of having paper scoresheets so they're not blindsided by their presence at Lvl2/3 matches, where they are still required.

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Your choice. We'll keep running paper backup at Lvl1. It also keeps people used to the idea of having paper scoresheets so they're not blindsided by their presence at Lvl2/3 matches, where they are still required.

I belive as long as the data is being backed up (on a card or by wifi) it is no longer a requirement. The MG Nationals was run total paperless with the ipads backed up on sd cards.
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They must have asked for and got permission from Phil Strader to do so. That's per a Board decision some months back, one with which I disagree. (I'm not the only one who thinks this way. Chris Wren knows more about scoring matches with practiscore than anyone else around, and he also won't run a major match without paper backup.) But it still remains in the rulebook that you must provide paper score sheets at a Lvl2 or higher match.

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Just FYI... Every major sport that uses a timer uses electronic scoring. Even the team sports use electronics to verify calls. Electronic scoring is more secure and has less mistakes...

Mr. Wren is probably a great person but to say he knows more about practiscore than anyone else... You must spend all of your time taking to hundreds of people who know a lot about it to make that determination.

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No, there's a difference between electronic timing and electronic SCORING. The timer only records one small part of a competitor's score. That number, and the physical hits on paper and steel, still have to be transferred to a score recording device, whether that be a nook or iPad running practiscore, or a much older and well known device called paper and pencil. In that sense, we're still not doing electronic scoring, as the hits, misses, penalties, etc, are not being auto-magically transferred to an electronic device. It's still manual. We've just traded out paper for touch pads. It's therefore still just as error-prone as the RO tapping in the scores and you actually lose one method of error correction by not having a paper backup. Less mistakes? You can't prove that, as there is no scoresheet to compare to a verify report produced from the program. If anything, I can see how more mistakes are getting through the process uncaught.

I see Chris' work, including all the external enhancing utilities and apps he's written and writing to make the system usable, and see his track record of success with major matches, including the first Area Championship scored on nooks, and compare it to the results heard and seen from other matches...., yep, statement stands.

Edited by wgnoyes
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.... It's therefore still just as error-prone as the RO tapping in the scores and you actually lose one method of error correction by not having a paper backup. Less mistakes? You can't prove that, as there is no scoresheet to compare to a verify report produced from the program. If anything, I can see how more mistakes are getting through the process uncaught.

And where is the error correction with paper to Ez? Actually with Electronic Scoring, Practiscore, one enters the time and the hits, misses and peatlies and they are in the system. With Paper there are several places where the scores can and do go awry, No time on the paper, missing hits, too many hits. none of these can happen with PS, Alsg ino there is a chance with the transfer from paper to Electronics of additional errors in the keying are in the data. Those errors can be caught. There is only one scoresheet with paper and there is only one scoresheet with electronic scoring. Copying the scores to a paper back-up can also introduce errors. Then we are as a man with two watches, never really sure what time it is!

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?? The verification for stats listing, that's where. I'm talking the guy shot 2 a's and the ro taps in 2c's instead. If you compare the verify sheet with actual scoresheet in ezws, you'll catch that. You lose that with a single entry point on tha tablet with no independent verification afterward.

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?? The verification for stats listing, that's where. I'm talking the guy shot 2 a's and the ro taps in 2c's instead. If you compare the verify sheet with actual scoresheet in ezws, you'll catch that. You lose that with a single entry point on tha tablet with no independent verification afterward.

No, you just think you caught that. What if the mistake was the other way? It has been proven that the practiscore has less chance of errors than paper. If you are changing practiscore to match paper, then you are more than likely fuddling up the score even more. While some may enjoy that, I want my competitors to have the correct score.

The RO and the competitor verify the hits same as with paper. Both look at the summary and it gets verified.

Your whole basis is flawed and does nothing but needlessly hamper the advancements made.

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I'm hampering nothing. I'm not saying don't run practiscore. I'm just saying follow the rules and provide the shooter with his copy of the scoresheet.

Proven, has it? Very well. Maybe. Produce your white paper citing the results of your experiments.

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Just an update...We had our first sanctioned match Sunday. We were actually able to upload our classifier report to the USPSA via Practiscore. Let me say how easy this whole process has become. Some guys even hung around to find out the results before leaving; we uploaded to the Practiscore site when I got home; then we uploaded to the USPSA on Monday.

We had shooters look at the review of the score before allowing targets to be pasted (not everyone was interested in reviewing their scores). Everyone was receptive and appreciative of the speed for which results are available. We are very pleased. Wish I had completely went electronic long ago.

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