Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

It's ok its better than having nothing and your only learning

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

While respecting your intellectual property, wondering if you could summarize the technique you use in your download of information: JSON, JSOUP, or is it something Objective C? I'm a programming guy, and would be a fun discussion for coders in my school.

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

I'm assuming you're talking about the match schedules and yes, it is a JSON script that I had a mentor put together for me. He created an executable that we are running on a Windows computer that iterates through every regional's qualification schedule and creates the giant JSON script from that every 8 hours. Here's the url I pull from.

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

This app looks amazing! Really well done, and is makes me smile with the "cool story, bro!" and other little things like that. (Trust me scouts need the smiles!) If you're taking requests, I had three notes on the app:

-I think it would be really nice to have a column for truss misses (or truss attempts, either works). Knowing when a team misses a truss shot will be just as important as knowing when they make one.
-"fumbles" or unintentionally dropping the ball. This is a huge time waster and something I think a lot of teams will be looking for.
-An option to export the data to excel! This way, if teams do have custom data, they can track it on their own, and add it to excel later. Plus, everyone has excel and it runs on multiple platforms, so people could share the data at the strategy meeting without everyone needing an ipad with the app downloaded.

Overall, amazing work! I can tell you put a lot of time into this, and it sure paid off!

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

I can add those features in for data collection, but I believe it would require the user to delete and reinstall the app after the update. With the Core Data API I'm using for storage, I don't think it allows me to change saved properties and still work.

I initially didn't think that missing the truss and fumbles would be necessary (and I did think about them), but after watching week 1 regionals, it really surprised me how often teams couldn't shoot the ball over an extremely wide target and I believe more so now that it is important data to capture.

The scouts can always add the the custom data in as notes (ie. the truss misses and ball handling and such), but do you think it's worth erasing the app's contents to get those requested features in?

Also, as for excel integration, I totally agree with you. I'm working on getting it set up to host a local URL and then display a .csv text that could be copied and pasted into excel, or possibly going a bluetooth file transfer route, but those two methods are entirely new to me, so it may or may not be out before this season is over.

I really appreciate the positive feedback and I LOVE that you enjoy the app. Please spread the word and I will continue to work on updates.

I am also a little behind on school work right now, so I gotta get that taken care of, but I have spring break coming up, so who knows? I may just get that .csv thing figured out!

Also, finally, there should be a bug fix update coming out in the next couple days (version 1.0.1) that fixes several crashes and labels that weren't updating correctly. There will also be more tutorial videos being posted a few days from now once I dig myself out of school work as well.

Hang tight FRC Scouts! I'm still working for you! :D

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

This app is awesome! Thanks so much, it definitely makes organizing scouting data a lot simpler and more interesting for the students.

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

Looking good! It's simple, functional, and pretty straightwforward. I'm building a scouting app for my team this year and I'm wondering how you're handling syncing data between tablets. What format are you sending the data in, how do you determine which data to send each time (is it all the data or just data changed since the last sync), and how do you handle conflicts upon sync (for example, two users pit scout the same team and then try to sync with each other)? Again, very nice work!

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

On the "Scoring" page where the scouts do the main portion of the scouting, I use the API called Multipeer Connectivity (new to iOS 7), activated by tapping the button on the top left titled "Insta-Share". After Insta-Share has been activated, every time a scout saves a match, they send that match bundled up in an NSDictionary inside an NSData object to every connected Peer. On this page, I overwrite any conflicting stored data with the data coming in. No exceptions. The overwrite only happens if the team scouted is from the same regional and the same match number. The sharing on this page is on a match by match basis and allows for a quick transfer without disrupting the user's experience.

On the "More" page there is a much larger sharing capability where I use the file transfer feature of Multipeer Connectivity. I have the sending iPad store all its data to a local filepath, send the data to the receiver (who also stores it in a local filepath), and display the progress on the progress bar as it happens. After the transfer is complete and the receiving iPad stored the data into its Core Data model, both iPads delete the local url that they created for the transfer so that they no longer take up any extra memory from the transfer.

In your example of two users pit scouting the same team, the receiving user has the option to allow overwriting for any conflicts. There is a switch that appears with the other User Interface elements once a connection is established on the "More" page that, when the switch is on, overwrites all conflicting data with the incoming data. If the switch is off (which is default), the conflicting incoming data is thrown away after the transfer is complete and the receiver keeps the data they had before.

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

Thanks for the in-depth response. That sounds like a much nicer solution than what I have to use with Android, which doesn't provide anything like the Core Data model offered by Apple. My solution involves a lot of (de)serialization of JSON files to/from Bundles which are used to store and access data. I would be using an SQLite database for all this but that didn't fit with my model of making the system very extensible and adaptable year-to-year. If you have time (I know how the life of a developer is!) it'd be great if you could write up a whitepaper outlining how your app functions; that would be an interesting read.

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

Yeah sure! I have my code up on GitHub as well and I'm considering making it publicly viewable and taking in code improvement suggestions from others.

The whitepaper sounds like a great idea. Is there a certain format that is typically followed? (I'm still kinda new to all this) If so, could you give me a link?

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

I actually had my team scout with the app in week 1. It was PHENOMENAL... The single thing I had issue with was getting bluetooth data transfer to work. I could connect them all, but no data transfer occurred. That is the only issue/feedback I had. We took the data from each iPad and made a spreadsheet. Everything was entered into the spreadsheet and then averaged out appropriately. Except for the data transfer, the app is PERFECT.

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

This app is absolutely fantastic. We'll be using it this weekend at the Crossroads Regional.

-Nick

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

I know exactly where you are coming from with the linking up. The labels at the bottom were not coded correctly (for some unknown reason I recreated them every time the user opened up the page again), but that is all fixed in the update that seems to be rolling out today.

I apologize for the problems you may have been experiencing with bluetooth sharing. Also, it works the EXACT same over WiFi (it uses the same API, so it was cake on my part), so if you want a faster transfer and have WiFi at your disposal, just have the devices connected on the same network and you're good to go.

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

This is a great app and we plan to use it for our surveying in Week 3! In working with the app this week, we noticed that we were not able to bring in the schedules of some of the regionals. Do you only have schedule data for some of the regionals? We will be at the Orlando Regional next week and would like to be able to load the schedule in if we are going to use it.

Thanks for all your hard work and for sharing it!

Re: "FRC SCOUT" is OUT
 

Match schedules are only posted by the Field Management System (FMS) at each regional. The FMS typically waits until the day before or the day of practice matches to post qualification match schedules because sometimes teams don't show up or teams join the regional at the last minute.

Basically, I have absolutely no control over when the match schedules get posted. I can just promise you that they will be available through the app within a couple hours of FIRST posting them.

To all:
The most help you guys could do right now is just spread the word about the app. The more users, the more feedback, the more I know where to spend my time and effort.

Thank you for your questions!