[FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

FRC Megaphone is a service to eliminate the question, "How is ### doing at their event?" With FRC Megaphone, you can get text message notifications to stay up to date with how your favorite teams are doing (or, to keep your mother update with how your team is doing). Additionally, you can connect your Twitter and we'll tweet the results of your matches.

A quick feature list of the site

Text Message Notifications
Forget spending time on FIRST's webpages to find out match results. Megaphone will keep you updated as to how your favorite team, Fantasy FIRST teams, or your team is doing at their events

Quick Sign Up
Give friends or family a quick and easy link to sign up to get only one team's notifications. Just register, confirm your phone number, and you're done. Quick register using the URL scheme http://www.frcmega.com/register/teamNumber

Automate your Twitter
Never forget to update your followers about a match. FRC Megaphone will automatically tweet after your team plays a match and let your followers know if you won, lost, or tied.

Customizable Tweets
Robots are cool, but not very personal. Give your automated tweets some personality by customizing them. You fill in what you want it to say, and we'll fill it in with data.


You can sign up for Megaphone now! Check it out over at

As always, I'd love to get some feedback. Let me know if you have feature requests, suggestions, or if you find a bug that I missed. Follow @FRCMega for any updates!

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Wow, this is excellent! I'm really impressed with this idea.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Thanks! It's built For My Mom™. I never had time to text her how our team was doing at competitions, and we never updated the Twitter because everyone was working. So I automated it.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Can't say I've had that particular problem...FRC is an all-family affair! But automating the team Twitter in this way is great, and tons of folks at our schools and at home will appreciate.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I keep getting an error whenever I try and verify the phone number.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

DM me with some more info. I can't seem to reproduce this error on my end.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Could you add in a password reset page?

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Sure. Do you need that right now? If you do, DM me.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I found your error. Looks like you didn't select a valid carrier. So it's trying to send a text message into the abyss. That'd break it... You can edit your cell provider in the Settings menu.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Ah, that must've reset when I got the "re-enter your password" wrong while registering. I'll get that all fixed up. Thanks!

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Awesome! I already love it. I had a big problem updating my twitter and sending texts out last year. This will be a HUGE help!

Can't seem to figure out how to add a second team though.

Is there a way to do this yet?

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Looks awesome! I love the idea of getting to automate post match tweeting.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

You can only connect one Twitter per account. If you'd like to have another account specifically for sending out tweets, send me a DM and I'll help you with that.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I know Megaphone is meant for phones, but I check my email more than anything. Would it be a possibility to send updates to email addresses?

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Watch for it between Week 1 and Week 2

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Zach,
This is the coolest $*&@&$ thing ever. I'm always trying to keep tabs on my friends and how they're doing. I'm sick of refreshing the FRC event pages.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

-John

PS - I feel like you could get some fun data about who is following who, and which teams are most followed, and some such...

PPS - I bet Zondag could somehow use that data to prove Michigan is awesome. ;)

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I'm guessing he's already using the email gateways for SMS...so probably won't be too tricky :)

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Thanks JVN! I plan on putting together a blog post with cool data like that once the season is over.

Correct. I was using Google Voice but I hit my API limit wayyyy too quickly. There's several texting services that will let you send texts for $0.01 a piece, but that adds up really quickly. So to keep it free I'm using email to send text messages.

Like I said, I should be able to set up email notifications for Week 2. But I'm volunteering this weekend at Kettering, so I couldn't possibly promise it'd get done before matches on Friday.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

The Mech Techs seem to be all 'botted up on this whole Match Results-->@FRCMega-->@FRC422-->facebook.com/frc422 integration craze.

Now it's tome for hashtags on Chief Delphi

#omgrobots
#omgtechnology

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

This is so awesome! i'm all signed up! :cool:

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Haha this directs you updates to 2337, sneaky.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

You got me! ;)

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Best thing ever. This will make our lives much easier at competition. Thank you!

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Super cool. Is there a way we could incorporate this into The Blue Alliance? Do you have a deeplink to sign up for Team XYZ? Email me if you want to explore this more :)

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

This may be a suitable workaround.

https://www.feedmyinbox.com/listings...in-your-email/

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Any chance you could add notifications when a team you are following is about to play, so you know when to take a break from whatever your doing and watch the webcast? I would think the easiest way to do this would be to send the notification when the scores for X number of matches ahead gets posted, that way it automatically adjusts for delays at the event.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

WOW! I LOVE IT! I'm surprised no one else thought of doing anything like this before! Where are you pulling the feed for scores from? The FMS Twitter account? Have you tested it out to see how long it takes after scores are "released" until your system has it?

Thanks again for making this AWESOME application! I plan on linking it with our twitter account, which is linked with our facebook page :)

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Nice site so far! I don't see Google Voice in the list (and I'm probably in the minority there). Any way you can support it?

Also, it would be nice to have the team name listed somewhere on the deeplinked registration pages. I don't know what the state of the TBA API is, but I'm sure Greg would be willing to work with you to make that happen. :)

You just add the team number after /register/. For example, http://www.frcmega.com/register/48.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I found a little error:

If you try to set up an account in internet explorer the sign-up boxes start blank (as in they don't say "name" "Password" "Password confirm" ect.) so you have no idea where to put what information. It works perfectly on chrome though.

Other than that I'm already following so many teams it's not even funny. Color me a fan!

Thank for creating this!
Regards, Bryan

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Subscribed last night. This is a REALLY awesome tool. Thanks for putting in the time and effort to make this!

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

We'll talk soon, Greg.

I thought about this early on but it didn't make the shortlist for V1. I'll try to roll that out in the coming weeks. Stay posted.

I think TBA had a similar system a few years back that worked though email. So I won't take credit for being the first one to think of something like this.

Where are you pulling the feed for scores from? The FMS Twitter account? Have you tested it out to see how long it takes after scores are "released" until your system has it?

Nope. Sorry. I already check in to adding Google Voice numbers and I can't send an MMS from an email to a Google Voice number. It generates some random garbage in the email address when you send it and I'm not sure how it's generated.

My fix.

But thanks for bringing this to my attention. I wasn't aware that was a problem. I'll rework the pages so this isn't an issue.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Hi Zach,
I noticed you skipped over my earlier question of where do you pull the scores from and how long does it take once FMS releases the scores until the scores get posted?

Also I noticed an issue in the settings page is that you have "change phone no." twice (the middle button should be change password).

Thanks again for supporting this awesome service!
-David

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Whoops! I didn't mean to skip over your questions. Sorry about that.

As soon as the FMS tweets about a match I start sending emails. Depending on how many people want notifications for that particular match, it will take more or less time for you to get your notification.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Update for anyone concerned: The website is now IE friendl(ier)y

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

This is super cool! Great job!

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Newest update allows you to register without a phone number. So if you just want to connect your Twitter, you can do that.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

This is one of those things that makes me grumble and go "Why didn't I think of that!". Cool stuff, it will be useful for tons of people!

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

This is really cool! Thanks a lot for making this!

Is there a way that we can get updates for each match in one event, instead of individual teams?

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Great work!!!

I changed the templates up a little bit, mostly because when I win, I wanna know who we beat. :D
Hopefully I won't need the 2nd one, but I figured everyone else could use it.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Not currently. Maybe sometime in the future that'll be a feature.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Is there any way I can set up my phone without verification? My phone can't receive photos (why does it send a photo anyways?).

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

MMS != photo

Because the site uses email gateways to send texts, they get converted to MMS messages (which can include other forms of media...these don't)

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

My phone doesn't know the difference.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Interesting that you can't receive MMS. I know that Republic wireless, an MVNO that routes SMS and voice over WiFi when possible, doesn't support it, but aside from some really old phones (and Google Voice), I can't think of a scenario where you wouldn't be able to receive an MMS message.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

It's disabled. It's an option on some plans and is sometimes enabled


Also, awesome job Zach.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Here are my versions that include all alliance members:

I stuck our event hashtag at the end, which is why these come up significantly shorter than 140 characters. You could include opposing color if you don't want your event hashtag.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

If anyone sees any issues today, let me know! I'm not sure I'll be able to get to them RIGHT away, but they'll get fixed. Feel free to post here, DM me, or for the fastest response, tweet me @FRCMega

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I haven't been able to get any response from Megaphone. I also know of a few others that are having issues as well. Anyone else having them?

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Zach just posted on twitter that he was aware of the issue and was trying to fix it.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Update from Zach:


There are some issues, unfortunately he is occupied volunteering at the moment and will be debugging around lunch or at the end of the day. He's sorry for the issues.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Wow. Of ALL the issues...

I forgot to follow @FRCFMS to get updates. Functionality on Miner and Megaphone should be back to normal :S

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I don't quite understand how this is related to being unable to add a second team. I am currently signed up to receive text updates about 25, but would also like to get updates about 103, but there's no way to do this currently. Is this something that will be possible in the future?

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I opened an issue to track adding links to TBA :)

https://github.com/gregmarra/the-blu...nce/issues/484

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

There is... click the giant blue "New Notification" button on the index page. You can add text messages for as many teams as you'd like. I think I'm signed up for about 10 different teams currently.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Wooooow. I totally missed that. My bad. :o

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Mine won't let me add more teams to my notifications. I have 6 teams and it will let me remove notifications from a team but not add anymore.

Peyton

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Whoops! This is a confirmed issue. Looks like I broke something in my latest update... I'm reverting the site back to a previous state for now, and I'll get it fixed.

Edit: Found the issue pretty quickly. I apologize. It should be working!

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I haven't received a single update this weekend.

Also it seems that some teams I'm following have their comps wrong. As an example 217 played this weekend at TC but on your site it says they play week 3.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

The FMS at Traverse City stopped posting updates after lunch on Friday. Megaphone works on the Twitter FMS. The only way I know a team played a match is when the FMS tweets and tells me they just played a match. If Traverse doesn't post match results, there's nothing I can do.

As for your wrong comps issue, Megaphone will only show you events that haven't already finished. There's no need for you to add a Week 1 event that has already finished. So it doesn't get displayed. 217 played in week 1 at Traverse City, but Traverse City is done, so you won't see it on the site, and Traverse City didn't post updates, so you won't see anything on your phone.

There's not much I can do to fix the FMS not tweeting data. Sorry. Maybe I'll look in to writing a failsafe this week.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

This thing is flipping amazing. Thank's so much for making this.

Is there any way to add multiple phone numbers to an account so that I can spam my whole family / friends from one account? Or do they have to make accounts.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Currently, you'll have to make them multiple accounts. Although this sounds like a good feature. I may or may not try to pursue that idea. But for now, go though and create them separate accounts, verify their phone numbers, and add your team.

As a note, you can do this by using the quick register feature. Just make sure to confirm their phone number!

frcmega.com/register/3061




Update: Anyone that had issues with deleting events should no longer have a problem. And if you do - let me know.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Hatboro-Horsham notifications stopped going out after Match 50 because the FMS stopped updating. This is the same issue that happened with Traverse City. I've contacted FIRST and requested details on this issue. Hopefully they'll get back to me.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Could you please add a test button for the win/lose/tie text messages to see if they work?

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

That's the purpose of the Confirm Phone Number feature. I make sure you'll receive the messages by sending you a confirmation code. If you get it, then you'll for sure get the rest of the texts. If you don't get it, then you won't get any of the other texts. If you aren't getting the confirmation code, feel free to email me and I'll help you try to figure it out.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Is there a way to test Twitter functionality?

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

There isn't. But I like that idea. I'll try working up that code this weekend. Something super simple like, "We're using FRC Megaphone to tweet match results"

Ranking texts will be a feature soon also. There'll be an update post when both of these features go live.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

You are awesome!

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

If you think so and you happen to see him at an event you should buy him a diet coke...

Zach puts in a ton of work into this stuff purely for the love the hack. If he makes it to Champs this year dinner is on me.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Will do.

EDIT:There will be a diet coke wanting for you at bedford.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Just a suggestion for a feature: the ability to completely disable text alerts at any time. I'm headed out of the country so I didn't want to get charged out the wazoo for texts. I know you can individually delete notifications for specific events, but that might be tedious for someone who is following multiple teams.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Direct Facebook posting would be a very helpful feature.

We have a larger and more engaged following on Facebook than we do on Twitter. Even though we have Tweets auto-posting to Facebook during competitions, they show up sometimes several hours late, or not at all (I assume Facebook does this on purpose).

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

I wasn't aware of that. I'll look in to doing Facebook integration for next year. Adding it requires a lot of changes to my database, and trying to put that into the already cluttered web interface would be difficult, so I don't want to try to add it between weekends.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

This weekend, I was receiving texts just fine from Megaphone for our team(for TCNJ I forgot to add an event...) but for some reason, despite linking the account(registered with my email address) with our twitter(registered through twitter with a DIFFERENT email address), we didn't have a single tweet sent out this weekend...I have absolutely no idea what could have been done wrong; on the megaphone page it says that it is linked and megaphone has the right permissions in the app listings of our twitter account.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Zach,

Just a shout out for a great addition to my FRC toolkit. Got the texts, twitter feed and Facebook link (via Twitter) configured prior to this weekend's regional. Saved me the headache of remembering to update status in two or three different places.

Might seem like a small thing, but when you're at the competition this is really one of the last things you want to do, but it's very important for folks who support a team from home.

Again, thanks from Winnovation - great work!

POLLY

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

D: Shoot me an email. It's on the bottom of the Megaphone front page. I'd like to try to track down the issue for this. Tweets were going out for other teams all weekend, so I don't know if it's on my end or not, but I'd like to figure it out for sure.

Thanks Polly for the great feedback! I'm glad you like Megaphone.

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Will this service be returning for 2014?

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Yep. Watch CD during the week of February 17th (Edit: err - maybe the week after)

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

YAAAAAAY

Re: [FRC Megaphone] Text Notifications/Automated Tweets for Robotics
 

Sounds awesome, but the website doesn't seem to be working. (At least for me)

EDIT: Just realized this was a thread from last year, and that it isn't back up yet, let's just forget I posted this :P