iPhone App Released - FRC Tracker [Archive]

Tom Saxton

27-03-2009, 00:37

If you use an iPhone or iPod Touch, then I'd like to tell you about a free application that I released today.

For the last few weeks, I've been working on an application for the iPhone and iPod Touch that has a database of all the FIRST events and teams that allows you to look up info about the regional events, the teams and the matches played.

In addition to the built-in database, it also uses the frcfms Twitter feed to get info about ongoing matches as they happen.

Version 1.0 was just approved by Apple and made available on the iTunes App Store.

Here's a web page that describes the application:

http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/

And here's a link to the app store where you can download it.

http://tinyurl.com/c96zgh

Unfortunately, there appears to be a bug in the version that's now available. When you have it check the Twitter feed for new matches, it's supposed to stop when it catches up to the last match played on March 20th. Instead, it tries to download the entire backlog of messages and then fails when it hits the end of the Twitter archive.

So, the first time you update you'll definitely want to let it run until it hits a failure around "page 22". Even though you get an error message, it is now fully up to date.

Sadly, it will do the same thing the next time you update. And, there's no graceful way to stop the update, you have to just quit the app. So, for subsequent updates, just let it go for a page or two (depending on how many matches have been played in the six or so active regionals since you last updated), then quit the app.

The good news is that this problem only affects the behavior of the app when getting the live Twitter updates. If you don't care about tracking the current matches as they happen, then the app will still be useful for scouting other teams, seeing what other regionals they attended, and how they did there.

I already have a newer version with a bunch of enhancements, which I will submit after the Seattle regional is over. It probably won't be available for the week six regionals, but I expect that it will be in great shape with more information about all of the teams and regionals before Atlanta.

Legator91

29-03-2009, 14:17

I just downloaded it....its purity cool. I like how it has all the match data by team and also by event. Though I would recommend some kind of ranking system, and also in each event tell who won the event. This could become a great tool for scouting. Example being 1114, do to FiM my team wont see them until Atlanta. So to have a tool like this, it could become very useful. Overall great start!!!

wilsonmw04

29-03-2009, 14:22

I think the bug on updating is related to the limit of tweets and individual can accept in a given period of time. I know i've been refused updates when I run twitter on more than one machine at a time.

Tom Saxton

29-03-2009, 18:29

The bug with requesting all 20+ pages of tweets, then reporting a failure, has nothing to do with Twitter's rate limit of 200 page requests per hour. My code remembers the last tweet it has processed, so that when it does an update it just reads tweets until it hits the first tweet it has already processed. Unfortunately, there is a bug in the version that got posted on iTunes that stops this from happening.

The odd thing is that I found and fixed this bug before submitting the final 1.0 version to Apple. I submitted the app to Apple, then continued testing. Right after I posted it, I discovered the bug (which only happens on a fresh install), fixed the bug, and uploaded the new version to Apple, fixing that bug and another cosmetic bug. Either I botched things when I uploaded the fixed version, or Apple approved and posted the original version even though I yanked that version from the submission. My guess is that I messed it up, but I sent email to Apple in case they made the mistake and need to fix their system. I also uploaded the fixed version as a 1.0.1 update within hours of the app becoming available on iTunes. (Thanks to my wife, Cathy, for immediately downloading it from iTunes and finding the problem.)

Hopefully, the fixed version will get approved and posted soon.

Since I posted version 1.0 on March 20th, I've been working on an improved version and have added a lot of stuff. Here's a list of what will definitely be in version 1.1, which I expect will be available for Atlanta.

More efficient Twitter checking.
Show team name and rookie year in team lists.
Show the full team name from the team info view.
Get full team info from the list of teams at an event (now you can see their match results, but you can't go directly to the full team info view from the regional's team list).
Improved format for showing match results.
When viewing a team's matches for an event, more easily determine if that team won, lost or tied the match.
Get updates with official match results, derived from the US FIRST pages.
Add support for the Atlanta competitions.

There are more features I *hope* will be ready by Atlanta, but I am less sure they'll be done in time.

Show awards by team and by event.
In team info view: show rank, record and elimination results for each regional.
Ability to mark specific teams and events as "favorites" so they appear at the top of the list.

I hope it's something people find useful, it's been fun working on it and I got to use it a bunch when being a referee at the Seattle regional.

EStokely

29-03-2009, 18:43

this is a great App.

I ran around showing folks most of Friday and Sat that I had results of previous matches for games played just a few minutes earlier.

I also love the Icon for it! (it is a Super Cell)

Thanks for the App Tom!!!

Legator91

29-03-2009, 18:58

The update for Atlanta sounds great! I think this will become very a useful tool. I also like that you are planing to put a record in for each team. That will be very useful information.

Greg Marra

29-03-2009, 19:21

For many matches, The Blue Alliance has .mp4 versions of archived video. This format is playable on iPhone OS devices. If you are interested, you could tie in with The Blue Alliance API to offer replays. PM me if you want more info :)

Also, any chance of releasing the source code? I'm sure many people would love to see how an iPhone app works, and Apple's NDA on code no longer prevents open source projects. It could be a great learning opportunity for everyone.

Tom Saxton

30-03-2009, 21:20

Also, any chance of releasing the source code?

I don't think I'll make FRC Tracker open source. It started as a little three-day project, then became a three-week code-a-thon, and counting.

I did release a different sample app as open source as a companion to a post I wrote for the Google Mac Dev Blog.

http://googlemac.blogspot.com/2009/03/using-google-apis-in-iphone-app.html

http://code.google.com/p/googledocs-cocoa-sample/

Anyone can sign up as an iPhone developer, and once you're in the program you get access to tons of sample code. There are also a number of good books for learning iPhone development, with much better examples than FRC Tracker would be.

ShotgunNinja

30-03-2009, 21:34

Hey, I have some interesting little tidbits that might be, well, of interest.

I have been working on some stuff with a free open-source C++ library called openFrameworks (http://www.openframeworks.cc/), and one of the other online collaborators, memo (http://www.memo.tv/), just finalized the development of a C++ iPhone development library. It still allows the use of Objective-C alongside the C++, and along with Apple's X-Code IDE, lets you compile a C++ project that works exactly the same on the iPhone as on any computer platform, with no changes to the code.

Here you go:
ofx-iPhone project page (http://addons.openframeworks.cc/projects/show/ofxiphone)
oF download page (http://www.openframeworks.cc/download)

:cool:

Legator91

31-03-2009, 15:39

JesseK

31-03-2009, 16:11

No open source??? :ahh:

Guess I'll have to privately develop the live OPR ratings then. :rolleyes: The app looks great, I look forward to trying it in Atlanta.

Tom Saxton

31-03-2009, 16:43

Guess I'll have to privately develop the live OPR ratings then.

What are OPR ratings?

bobwrit

31-03-2009, 18:19

What are OPR ratings?

Offensive Power Rating's(Teams OPR is a mesure of how well their robot scores points)

Brent Strysko

31-03-2009, 18:34

This app is awesome! good work

Tom Saxton

01-04-2009, 19:12

This app is awesome! good work

Thanks! I appreciate the encouragement.

I think you'll like the upcoming versions even more. Version 1.0.1 fixes the Twitter update bug and improves the match list and team list views. I hope Apple will approve that one in time for people to try it out during the week six regionals.

I'm almost done with version 1.1, which adds more features plus support for the Championship competitions. I hope to get that one submitted to Apple right after the week 6 regionals wrap.

pitzoid

01-04-2009, 20:34

Thanks! I appreciate the encouragement.

Hey Tom

Cool program, put it on my iphone. Whats I like too is I saw in another thread how someone was talking about teams being always red or blue in quals, and your FRC tracker made it real easy to see a team like 148 basically being red, then blue, then red, then blue for the whole qual tourney.

Keep the cool apps coming....

Tom Saxton

06-04-2009, 21:00

Version 1.0.1 was finally approved by Apple today and is now available on the iTunes App Store. In addition to fixing the Twitter update bug, there are a few enhancements:

Show team name and rookie year in team list.
Team name and sponsors viewable from the team detail view.
Match list improved, especially when viewing matches of a specific team.
Tapping on a team in an event's team list takes you to the team detail view instead of straight to the match list, making it easier to see what other regionals a team attended.

I've been busy working on the next version while waiting for 1.0.1 to be approved. I'm nearly done with version 1.1 which adds more stuff, including support for the Championship. I expect to submit it tomorrow in hopes of getting it approved by the start of the Championship event.

wilsonmw04

06-04-2009, 21:07

just my luck, I get the update and twitter is down for maintenance. :yikes:

KeatonM

06-04-2009, 21:32

This app is AMAZING. I love this thing.

Helps a lot with a couple of my personal projects, too.

Chris is me

06-04-2009, 22:08

This is an amazing application that my mom used to follow the 10,000 lakes regional this week. She loves it.

Is there any way it can get bot pictures from TBA?

katd30

06-04-2009, 23:10

Can I just say that this is officially my new favorite app on the iPod touch. SOOOOO useful! And it will probably be an excellent scouting tool for Atlanta. It is great how you can see previous match records. I think the updates your planning will make the app even more useful! Love it!

Tom Saxton

06-04-2009, 23:11

Thanks for the nice comments. Hopefully with the annoying Twitter update problem fixed, it will starting getting more positive reviews on iTunes.

Is there any way it can get bot pictures from TBA?

I definitely want to do that, but it won't make it into version 1.1, so probably not before the Championship.

Tom Saxton

07-04-2009, 13:54

I submitted version 1.1 this morning.

This version will have a complete database all the way through the end of week six, including merging together the match results from Twitter (which include the scoring details, but aren't always the final results for a match) and the official results from FIRST's web pages (which are official, but don't include the scoring details).

I haven't added in the information about the divisions at the Championship, but 1.1 has a mechanism that will let users download event info updates without having to go through a new release through Apple and iTunes.

Hopefully everything will work for the Championship, but there's no way to test it in advance as the division web pages aren't up yet. Everyone cross your fingers!

Legator91

08-04-2009, 00:45

Just updated to the newest version. I like the fact that it updates much better now, not failing as often. Can't wait for the big version 1.1 update, keep em coming. :D

mtaman02

08-04-2009, 07:01

just got my iphone yesterday and downloaded the app today so hopefully with any luck I'll be able to keep on top of the champs while sitting next to the practice fields in the pits lol.

Peter Matteson

08-04-2009, 09:48

I downloaded it to my iTouch last night and really like the app. Will you update with divisions when they're announced?

Tom Saxton

08-04-2009, 17:19

I downloaded it to my iTouch last night and really like the app. Will you update with divisions when they're announced?

Version 1.0.1 has a fixed list of events, but version 1.1 has an update mechanism that will let you add the Championship divisions via a download from within FRC Tracker. I've been testing it today with the team lists derived from the Championship team list, and it works great.

So, as long as Apple approves 1.1 in time, we'll be in good shape.

Tom Saxton

16-04-2009, 01:34

Version 1.1 is now available on the App Store! There are more details and hints on the FRC Tracker web page (http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/).

Be sure to go to the Tools tab and hit the "Now" button next "Update Event Info" to get the event update that will bring in all the regional event results and add the Championship division events.

The live match results still come in through the Twitter feed, but also do the Event Info Update between days to get the official match result data merged into the Twitter results.

I'll be tracking the Championship as much as possible and processing data from FIRST's web site for the Event Info updates. I'll post to the frctracker twitter feed (http://twitter.com/frctracker) with any important news as the competition progresses.

Send me feedback on any issues and I'll post a final version after the Championship is done.

DiehardCybercard

17-04-2009, 14:14

that app looks really sweet. if i had an Apple device, this is the first app that would go on it

wilsonmw04

17-04-2009, 15:07

The update is awesome. Loving it.

kfox1731

17-04-2009, 16:48

Nice Work! This makes it very convenient to keep up with my team while on the go. I'm a college student and can't always have my laptop out, but I do always have my iPhone with me. Now if I can just figure out how to stream the windows media stream on my iPhone

busted240sx

18-04-2009, 18:00

wow, this is a great app! Thank you! I can't wait to see how the app develops over time.

Tom Saxton

20-04-2009, 01:25

We just released an Event Info update with final match results and award info from the Championship. Loading and processing the update will take a few minutes, and it's important to let it fully complete without interruption or going to sleep. After doing the Event Info Update, you'll also need to do a full Twitter update.

If you don't want to hassle with that, in the next week or two we'll be submitting a new version to Apple with a complete database for 2009, and some cool enhancements (like showing team nicknames).

I learned a bunch of stuff using the app during the Championship and will incorporate a number of improvements into a new version for the 2010 competition.

Dave Flowerday

20-04-2009, 10:49

Tom,
Thanks for writing this app. It was quite handy to check in on teams from other divisions to see how they were doing this weekend.

I did find one bug though: the way I was using it, I'd start at the "Teams" page, type in a team number in the search box, look at their match results, then back out a few screens and choose the "X" in the search box and replace it with another team # to look at it. After repeating this procedure for a few times, the search window would get messed up and would not revert back to the full team list after choosing the "X" in the search box. At that point, typing anything in the search box would not affect the results in the list below, which would still show the results from the previous query. The only way to fix this condition was to force-quit the app and restart it.

Other than that, it worked great. One feature request for future years that I have would be to include the rankings as well. That would be really handy, even if it was just a link that would open the rankings page from usfirst.org in the browser.

Tom Saxton

21-04-2009, 14:16

Tom,
Thanks for writing this app. It was quite handy to check in on teams from other divisions to see how they were doing this weekend.

That's great to hear. Thanks for the feedback, and thanks to the other recent posters in this thread.

I did find one bug though: the way I was using it, I'd start at the "Teams" page, type in a team number in the search box, look at their match results, then back out a few screens and choose the "X" in the search box and replace it with another team # to look at it. After repeating this procedure for a few times, the search window would get messed up and would not revert back to the full team list after choosing the "X" in the search box. At that point, typing anything in the search box would not affect the results in the list below, which would still show the results from the previous query. The only way to fix this condition was to force-quit the app and restart it.

I have already fixed a bug that may have caused this behavior, but I'll try out that scenario to be sure.

Other than that, it worked great. One feature request for future years that I have would be to include the rankings as well. That would be really handy, even if it was just a link that would open the rankings page from usfirst.org in the browser.

The issue with showing the rankings is that there isn't enough information available to compute the rankings correctly, and we really don't want to show inaccurate rankings.

In the version we are working on now, if no matches have been played by a given team since the last update for that event, then the ranking is shown. If the team has played matches, then FRC Tracker will update the win/loss/tie record, but not show a ranking. There's also a quick way to look at the teams for a given match (played or not) that shows all six teams' records and (if available) ranking.

Linking to FIRST's team standings page is a good idea. There are a bunch of links we want to put in, but we haven't started working on how to organize it.

If anyone has other ideas for how to improve FRC Tracker, we are open to suggestion. Feel free to post here or send us email directly at frctracker at idleloop dot you-know-what.

Chris is me

21-04-2009, 14:44

A really easy way to see a team's nickname (pulled from TBA), the obvious "robot picture" that's a lot harder than it sounds are all the suggestions I have. Thanks for the great app!

Tom Saxton

21-04-2009, 16:03

A really easy way to see a team's nickname (pulled from TBA), the obvious "robot picture" that's a lot harder than it sounds are all the suggestions I have. Thanks for the great app!

The team nickname support is in. I had that done a week before the Championship, but that wasn't early enough to get it through Apple's approval process in time. Thanks to Greg Marra and TBA for making that easy.

The robot photo idea is high on the list, either via taking pictures with the iPhone camera, or pulling it from TBA. That probably won't make it into the 2009 version, but maybe for the 2010 season.

I should post some screenshots as a preview of what I already have working but haven't released yet...

Tom Saxton

23-04-2009, 16:41

I've still got some work left to do before submitting version 1.2 to Apple, but here's a quick preview of the new stuff.

http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/preview.php

As always, we appreciate feedback.

engunneer

23-04-2009, 17:25

Tom,

I'm not quite sure (you are more familiar with the match software than I am), but what info is missing to compute Rank? The only thing I can think of is the pre-penalty score of the losing alliance, but that can be derived from the twitter feed.

Thanks again for the updates. I updated it in the hotel in Atlanta and was using it when I could.

Random idea - ask the user what team number they are from, and if there is no picture in the database for that team yet, nag them to upload one to TBA. It's not good for the users, but it's good for the scouts :)

Tom Saxton

23-04-2009, 18:34

Hi Branden,

Thanks for the great comments!

I'm not quite sure (you are more familiar with the match software than I am), but what info is missing to compute Rank? The only thing I can think of is the pre-penalty score of the losing alliance, but that can be derived from the twitter feed.

There are three issues.

You are correct that the Twitter feed has enough info to reconstruct the unpenalized score, but the Twitter feed isn't official and doesn't reflect any changes made to the scoring after the end of the match, such as the head ref changing a penalty or correcting a scoring error. Fortunately, I saw a lot of that happen at the Oregon regional, so I'm really aware of how it can change things.

I also need to know where all of the surrogate appearances needed to fill out the schedule are located. I could assume that, knowing how MatchMaker works and that they are all supposed to be in the third round, but that could be problematic.

Finally, the big one is DQs. The Twitter scoring data doesn't say anything about DQs, and neither does the data on FIRST's site. Without that information, any attempt to calculate rankings could yield really large errors, especially for teams that have already been punished with a DQ. I really don't want to get involved with that at all.

Thanks again for the updates. I updated it in the hotel in Atlanta and was using it when I could.

Cathy and I were following the matches very carefully from home, and watching you folks do well motivated me to add the match detail view so I could preview the upcoming matches.

Random idea - ask the user what team number they are from, and if there is no picture in the database for that team yet, nag them to upload one to TBA. It's not good for the users, but it's good for the scouts :)

I definitely want to add the ability to add robot photos (and maybe also team uniform photos) and it would be awesome to be able to share those photos, either through a web site like TBA or directly using the iPhone 3.0 peer-to-peer networking enhancements. That won't be in version 1.2, but I do hope to add it for the 2010 season.

Tom Saxton

26-04-2009, 11:40

We just submitted version 1.2 for Apple's approval. It should be available in about a week.

Tom Saxton

03-05-2009, 13:53

Version 1.2 is now available. This one has support for showing and searching through teams' nicknames, and shows the championship matches and awards, plus some other enhancements (several of which only appear when a competition is in progress).

You may have noticed the name of the app (as shown in the iTunes app store) has changed to "FRC Tracker 2009." That's so we can have a new app for 2010 and users can choose to also keep around the 2009 version for looking up past year info. The 2009 version is locked down from doing Twitter updates so that next year, 2010 results won't get loaded in and mess up the 2009 info.

We'll probably do some work later this year adding features to the 2009 version in preparation for the 2010 season and expect to release a 2010 version shortly after registration data for the new season appears on FIRST's web site.

As always, feel free to give us feedback in this thread or via private message.

Tom & Cathy Saxton

Nate Smith

22-08-2009, 20:03

Nothing like bringing back an old thread, but would anyone be interested in a Windows Mobile version of this app for 2010? I recently picked up a WM phone, and was looking to see what fun things I could write for it...

Steve W

20-01-2010, 23:30

I was wondering if there would be FRC tracker for this years game? Loved it last year. Will last years work this year?

synth3tk

21-01-2010, 00:24

If the author is willing, I'd like to know the specifics of the program. I'm thinking about doing an Android version, now that I'm learning Java.

Andrew Bates

21-01-2010, 00:35

I would love an Android version.

Tom Saxton

25-01-2010, 17:42

The 2009 version won't work for the 2010 competition since the scoring format is different. It will continue to work as a reference to see how teams did last year and it won't be confused by any 2010 data appearing on Twitter, etc.

I hope to release a new version of the 2009 app to Apple in the next week or so with some new features I've been working on, including team robot photos from TBA and ranking teams by OPR and DPR.

There will be a 2010 version of FRC Tracker, a different app so you can have one or both on your device. My hope is to get that submitted to Apple in time to be available for the first weekend of regionals.

As for getting the app running on other platforms, I'm buried in iPhone work and don't have an interest in learning Windows Mobile or Android. The code for FRC Tracker is about 99% user interface code specific to the iPhone platform that would be of no use on the other platforms. I even use an iPhone API to parse Twitter's XML. The most interesting code that's not platform-specific is the OPR/DPR calculation, but that's already well documented on the forum.

If anyone developing a similar app on another platform has any specific questions about how to do something, feel free to send me a direct message.

You can follow progress on the new versions via http://twitter.com/frctracker and I'll post here with significant news.

Steve W

26-01-2010, 01:07

Thanks Tom, it has been a great help.

synth3tk

26-01-2010, 01:12

As for getting the app running on other platforms, I'm buried in iPhone work and don't have an interest in learning Windows Mobile or Android. The code for FRC Tracker is about 99% user interface code specific to the iPhone platform that would be of no use on the other platforms. I even use an iPhone API to parse Twitter's XML. The most interesting code that's not platform-specific is the OPR/DPR calculation, but that's already well documented on the forum.

If anyone developing a similar app on another platform has any specific questions about how to do something, feel free to send me a direct message.
Ok, thanks for the info. I didn't know that it would be so exclusive in the coding. This will have to be an off-season project for me, as the Android OS is quickly growing and I think plenty of FRC users would love this app, too. I will probably ask for more information in terms of the logic sometime later this year. :)

Tom Saxton

05-02-2010, 13:03

Apple has approved FRC Tracker 2009 version 1.3. It should be available from the App Store within 24 hours. This version is a static representation of the results from the 2009 competition. It will ignore tweets from this year's competition. Before the 2010 game details were available, I wanted to work on new features so I just added them to the 2009 version.

New Features
---------------

OPR/DPR Ranking: If you go to an event, then tap on the Rankings button, you'll see the teams for that event in rank order. A new control at the top lets you choose between sorting by FIRST's qualifying round rank, Offensive Power Rating or Defensive Power Rating. If you're not familiar with OPR/DPR, they are explained in various places including this post (http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/showpost.php?p=484220&postcount=19) that explains what it is and how it is calculated. The little triangle gizmo will reverse the order. I'm going to make a change to how the reverse order button works, for now just keep in mind that large OPR values and small DPR values are good.

Robot Photos: FRC Tracker can download robot photos from TheBlueAlliance.net. For the ideal appearance in FRC Tracker, the robot photo should be 320 pixels wide and 367 pixels tall, or larger in approximately that same ratio. Really, anything that's approximately square will be fine. Photos that are really tall and narrow don't look nice, and photos that have been letterboxed with black bars don't work well. If your robot is tall and narrow, you can make your photo more square by adding team members or field elements on the sides.

Bug Fixes: A couple of minor bugs were fixed.

FRC Tracker 2010
-------------------

The 2010 version is making good progress, I hope to submit it to Apple soon.

In addition to the features in 2009, the 2010 version will have support for sorting by approximate rank when the official FIRST ranking data isn't available. This is especially handy when the FIRST rank data isn't available and there haven't been enough matches to calculate OPR/DPR.

As soon as I have a usable version, I'll submit to Apple. You never know how long it will take to get approval, and I want to be sure there's a version available for the Week 1 regionals.

After the initial version is done, I've got some other features I'd like to add, most notably the ability to add robot photos via the camera and photo library on the iPhone or iPod Touch.

Tom Saxton

08-02-2010, 02:55

I just submitted FRC Tracker 2010 to the iTunes App Store. If all goes well, it may be available as soon as a week from now.

Tom Saxton

09-02-2010, 15:18

For those of you on Facebook, there's now an FRC Tracker there. Just search for FRC Tracker.

There's also a Twitter feed: http://twitter.com/frctracker/

I'll post minor updates and real-time info on Twitter and Facebook as new versions are released and as the events unfold, stuff that's a bit more detailed and of-the-moment than makes sense for a CD post.

Peter Matteson

09-02-2010, 16:14

Tom,
Thanks for making a new version of this app. Last year's was a big help and we really appreciaite it.

Pete

nikeairmancurry

09-02-2010, 16:45

Awesome.. This really helps... Plus being able to show fmaily and friends the game without getting online is a big +..

Tom Saxton

11-02-2010, 15:54

FRC Tracker 2010 (http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/) is now available from the iTunes App Store (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/frc-tracker-2010/id354976930?mt=8).

Jones571

11-02-2010, 16:03

FRC Tracker 2010 (http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/) is now available from the iTunes App Store (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/frc-tracker-2010/id354976930?mt=8).

Just downloaded my copy! Thanks again Tom!

Peter Matteson

11-02-2010, 16:43

Installed.
thanks Tom.

Eugene Fang

11-02-2010, 16:52

Thanks so much!

Pavan Dave

11-02-2010, 18:05

Is there a Blackberry version coming out soon?

Tom Saxton

11-02-2010, 20:37

Thanks for the kind words everyone! That's what makes it all worthwhile.

I got turn around from Apple is less than 5 days for my last two app approvals, so I'm going to wait about a week before uploading a new version. So, try it out and let me know of any bugs.

It would be helpful if a few teams could upload a robot photo to The Blue Alliance to make sure my photo download code works correctly for 2010. If you do upload a photo, let me know so I can try it out.

Pavan Dave: Blackberry and other platform versions were discussed earlier in this thread. I'm just an iPhone guy, but it sounds like others are interested in building similar apps on other mobile platforms.

Tom Saxton

25-02-2010, 13:33

FRC Tracker 2010 v 1.3.2 is now available with event favoriting and support for getting team photos from the photo library or camera.

FRC Tracker 2009 v 1.3.2 has a bug with the team ranking view. I've asked Apple to pull it, but it's still available. We will update it soon. I recommend waiting for the next update.

Tom Bottiglieri

26-02-2010, 17:39

A couple of quick comments on the interface/UX from the peanut gallery…

When you switch from "Name" to "Date" sorting in the events tab, the TableView stays scrolled to the same index. It's a bit disorienting, as the relative index to the list has changed, but your position traversing it has not. In order to have any idea what's going on, you have to look at the cell's subtext, which is tiny and gray. Is this by design?

Maybe make it so a sorting change also brings you back to the top? This should be simple with a quick 'scrollToRowAtIndexPath:atScrollPosition:animated: '

Also, check out how we do event by date sorting on TBA. Breaking it up into weeks seems like a logical way to separate the events, and could be easily added with section headers. http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/

Now that I think of it, a third option to sort by region would by cool too!

Beyond those, this looks like an AWESOME app. Its almost exactly what I wanted to do with iBlueAlliance, which is currently just vaporware.

engunneer

26-02-2010, 18:33

I'm probably going to the Milwaukee regional, and will try to get pictures of each robot there for TBA. Thanks again for the App, Tom.

Tom Saxton

26-02-2010, 19:48

Tom: Good suggestions. I'll work on those issues. Thanks!

Branden: I hope you're able to make it to a regional. Have you missed a year since you started? Thanks for thinking of collecting robot photos for Milwaukee.

engunneer

28-02-2010, 09:46

I was playng around with the 2009 version (more pictures available), and discovered that you can swipe up and down to increment and decrement teams in photo view, which is cool.

I've had two different weird bugs, but so far have not been able to reproduce them.
1st was an issue when swiping between pictures, where a picture would be replaces with a blank white area (not the "No photo available" screen)
2nd was on the team search page, where changing the search terms did not visually update the list, but if I selected a row after changing the search terms, I got the expected search result.

I I can reproduce either of these (I was using 2009 1.3.3), I'l let you know.

As far as missing regionals, I certainly have not been going every year until starting to help 1318. this will be my first time going to a regional where I'm not a member of a team. There's only one team in my city (1306), and I want to go introduce myself to them, so I have a team for next year.

Just before hitting post, I did find one issue:
in 2009, go (for example) to the Boston regional, and update team photos
on the MA Teams page, select the photo for Team 88 and swipe down. Team 69 is displayed (this is expected, as 69 is the next lower team number in MA 2009)
go back to the MA Teams list, and select team 88's normal (non picture) entry.
Select the photo option to view the photo, and swipe down as before. Now team 87 is shown, instead of team 69.

Tom Saxton

01-03-2010, 02:08

Hi Branden,

Good observations!

I'm glad to know that you discovered the trick of scrolling through photos. (It is documented on the Guided Tour (http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/tour.php) page on the web site.)

The weirdness you noticed in how teams are filtered is because the team detail view doesn't care how you got there (through the big team list or through an event's team list), so it didn't have an event to pass to the photo viewer for filtering. I wondered if anyone would find that when I noticed it. I'm glad to hear you did find it. I've now bubbled that info through, so it will be fixed in the next release, probably after the week 1 regionals.

I'll look at the code for the other two bugs and see if I can figure out what happened.

Thanks for the feedback!

Tom Saxton

07-03-2010, 16:49

Although the match scores are correct, the score details shown in FRC Tracker for the week 1 events are obviously wrong. We are working with FIRST to resolve the issue.

PhilBot

08-03-2010, 13:42

Although the match scores are correct, the score details shown in FRC Tracker for the week 1 events are obviously wrong. We are working with FIRST to resolve the issue.

Looks like the twiter feed is wrong...

No way this result is possible:

Code Type Match Red F Blue F Red 1 Red 2 Red 3 Blue 1 Blue 2 Blue 3 Red B Blue B Red P Blue P Red G Blue G RGP BGP

#FRCDC Q 1 3 0 48 2377 701 2537 3340 3246 0 0 0 0 0 2 0 0

According to this the final score was R3:B0 but there were only two goals scored by Blue.... no penalties or bonuses.

Tom Saxton

08-03-2010, 16:05

You are correct, all of the tweets are messed up. I reported this problem to FIRST yesterday and I'm waiting for a resolution. Until then, I'm holding off on releasing an update to FRC Tracker.

Tom Saxton

09-03-2010, 17:59

Here's the scoop on the twitter feed error from the folks at FIRST:

The string format for the feed on week one was the following:
#FRC{0} TY {1} MC {2} RF {9} BF {10} RE {3} {4} {5} BL {6} {7} {8} RB {11} BB {12} RP {13} BP {13} RG {14} BG {15} RGP {16} BGP {17}

Everything was fine up to RP {13}. Starting at BP {13} everything was shifted off by 1 (i.e. BP {13} should have been BP {14})

So the feed should have been the following:
#FRC{0} TY {1} MC {2} RF {9} BF {10} RE {3} {4} {5} BL {6} {7} {8} RB {11} BB {12} RP {13} BP {14} RG {15} BG {16} RGP {17} BGP {18}

So, one value was duplicated, four near the end were shifted to the right, and the last field (Blue Alliance Goal Penalty) was lost. The good news is that you can calculate the BGP from the other values by using the equation:

BF = BG + BB - BP - BGP

If you shift the values and use the above equation to solve for BGP, consistent score details can be recovered for all but 43 of the 1,210 matches tweeted during week one. There were a number of matches that didn't get tweeted and some matches which got changed after the tweet went out (so you have to check against the official first match results pages).

In case you're wondering about the details, here's my understanding of the various fields:

RF = "final" score for red (unless it gets changed later by appeals to the head referee, etc)
RG = red goals
RB = red bonus for elevated/suspended robots
RGP = DOGMA (pdf (http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Community/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2010_Assets/DOGMA_RevA.pdf)) penalty accessed by the field
RP = penalties accessed by the referees

Likewise for blue.

Fletch1373

10-03-2010, 19:56

Here's the scoop on the twitter feed error from the folks at FIRST:

So, one value was duplicated, four near the end were shifted to the right, and the last field (Blue Alliance Goal Penalty) was lost. The good news is that you can calculate the BGP from the other values by using the equation:

BF = BG + BB - BP - BGP

If you shift the values and use the above equation to solve for BGP, consistent score details can be recovered for all but 43 of the 1,210 matches tweeted during week one. There were a number of matches that didn't get tweeted and some matches which got changed after the tweet went out (so you have to check against the official first match results pages).

In case you're wondering about the details, here's my understanding of the various fields:

RF = "final" score for red (unless it gets changed later by appeals to the head referee, etc)
RG = red goals
RB = red bonus for elevated/suspended robots
RGP = DOGMA (pdf (http://www.usfirst.org/uploadedFiles/Community/FRC/Game_and_Season__Info/2010_Assets/DOGMA_RevA.pdf)) penalty accessed by the field
RP = penalties accessed by the referees

Likewise for blue.

thanks for this tom... it fixed the issue I was having... A couple questions though... Have you thought about a way to calculate the BGP value if the alliance had more penalties than goals(it would normally result in a negative BGP value according to your equation)... also, has FIRST mentioned if they will be fixing this issue for this weekend's regionals?

thanks a ton!
--Fletch

I'd just like to add that I'm using your app on my iPhone also

Tom Saxton

10-03-2010, 21:35

thanks for this tom... it fixed the issue I was having... A couple questions though... Have you thought about a way to calculate the BGP value if the alliance had more penalties than goals(it would normally result in a negative BGP value according to your equation)... also, has FIRST mentioned if they will be fixing this issue for this weekend's regionals?

thanks a ton!
--Fletch

I'd just like to add that I'm using your app on my iPhone also

Yeah, that equation doesn't tell the whole story since the score isn't allowed to go negative. In that case, you could just assume the BGP was zero, as it wouldn't change the seeding calculations. As it happens though, I don't think that occurred with any of the 43 tweets I couldn't fix, all of which had positive scores. There were some tweets that showed negative goals or a negative penalty, which the FIRST folks suggested was likely a field hardware error that was fixed manually by the refs and scorekeeper.

I believe FIRST will fix the tweets for week two, but the update to FRC Tracker that hit the store a few hours ago will automatically detect tweets that look like they're in the broken format and fix them.

Tom Saxton

11-03-2010, 17:55

Team Update 16 changed a couple of rules in a significant way. Teams who don't field a robot because they haven't passed inspection don't get any seeding points, and the winning alliance now gets a 5-point bonus on their match seeding points.

FTC Tracker's guess at ranking is wrong whenever a score changes after the tweet and whenever a team doesn't show up or is disqualified. The first of the new rules makes this problem more common.

The second rule change requires an update to FTC Tracker, which has been submitted to Apple. Apple has been pretty quick approving updates lately, so hopefully it will be available sometime Thursday.

Tom Saxton

19-03-2010, 17:01

2010 v 1.3.6 is now available on the app store.

This release fixes a couple of bugs with scores that had more penalties than points, a bug caused by not handling the case of a team initially registered for an event, but not scheduled in the qualifying matches, and an issue with showing official ranking data. It also updates all week 1 and week 2 data with fixes for a number of mangled match scores.

Alex Dinsmoor

19-03-2010, 23:36

The rankings for Detroit District are not accurate due to the point total not matching up with FIRST for some reason.

Just thought I would mention it :)

And I do have the latest update.

Tom Saxton

20-03-2010, 00:10

Alex,

Do you mean the Cass Tech FIRST Robotics District Competition? What I see in FRC Tracker 1.3.6 matches the official ranking page (http://www2.usfirst.org/2010comp/events/DT1/rankings.html).

What are you seeing that's wrong? Does the leftmost button at the top of the ranking view say "Rank" or "~Rank"?

In general, if you haven't done "Update Event Info" since the grabbing the most recent qualifying match data from the @frcfms Twitter feed, then you get a rough guess at the rank which is pretty much always going to be wrong because the tweets don't have enough information to calculate it correctly, even when none of the matches were adjusted after the tweet. That's what the "~Rank" is all about.

However, version 1.3.6 comes with a complete database up through the end of week two, so those regionals should all be showing the official ranking data. If that's wrong, I'd very much like to know what you are seeing. If you can take a screenshot showing the error and send it to me, that would be really helpful.

Alex Dinsmoor

20-03-2010, 00:42