Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

After almost a year of development, Team 111 WildStang is proud to announce our electronic scouting system: WildRank.

The WildRank system is composed of two apps: an Android app and a desktop application. The Android app provides a means to collect match data, pit data, notes, as well as view all the collected data and the form a pick list. The desktop app creates configuration files for the tablets that contain the teams and matches for a given event. It also helps to compile notes collected by the different tablets and can output collected data in CSV form for more sophisticated analysis.

WildRank is a bit different than most scouting systems we’ve seen. Some of its key features are outlined below.

• Functions totally offline: after event data is initially downloaded to the desktop from The Blue Alliance, the system can function without any internet connection. Data is synced between the different tablets and the computer using a USB flash drive with an OTG adapter for the tablets.
• Distributed, robust data: each device in the system (desktop and tablets) maintains a complete copy of all the data, making it almost impossible to lose it. The desktop also backs up all its current data and the flash drive’s data before syncing, allowing you to restore any part of the system to a known good state should something go catastrophically wrong.
• Easy to configure: the system is designed to stay largely the same from year to year. The things that have to change (the forms for collecting match and pit data, as well as how that data is displayed in team summaries) are defined via XML layout files with custom attributes for the tablet app and a special “config” file for the desktop.
• Easy to modify: WildRank stores its data in JSON objects instead of something highly and rigidly structured, like an SQL database. Want to add a new piece of data to collect? Simply add a new view to the appropriate layout file, set its appropriate attributes, and update the desktop config file. Done!
• Easy to extend: if none of the existing widgets collect the kind of data you want, you can easily define your own widget to output your data via JSON (string, number, boolean, or arbitrary JSON object).

We hope that other teams will be able to use our code as the basis of their own scouting systems, or at least a model of how to design a scouting system. If you want to check out our work, the GitHub links for each application, which include the code and a brief overview of how it works, are below. Note that documentation is a work in progress.

Android: GitHub Repository
Desktop: GitHub Repository

Screenshots of the app in operation can be found in this imgur album.

Note: the Android app was only ever tested and run on Motorola Xooms running an AOSP 4.2.2 ROM. It should work on other devices, with one exception: the device must support USB OTG in order for syncing via the flash drive to work. Because OTG support is not a standardized feature, your device may mount the flash drive in a place other than the one that the app expects. In that case, you can modify the code to point to the right place; instructions for how to do that are provided in the Android repo’s readme.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

5/5 best scouting app ever - a completely unbiased coauthor

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I love this system. Do you have any plans on making a version for the 2015 game and releasing it for teams to use during the season?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

That's the beauty of this, your team should be able to easily adapt the system to fit your needs without us having to do anything. Check out the "Configuring WildRank for your team" and "Configuring games" sections of the Android and desktop READMEs, respectively, for the basics of how you would go about it. If you have any questions, reach out to me!

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Just read through that - sending it to our software guys now. This is indeed a beautiful system you've created. Thank you for releasing it!

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Thank you! All we ask is that if your software team makes any improvements, that they submit a pull request back to the main repo. We're sort of hoping this can become a collaborative community project that can be used and contributed to by many teams.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Hi My team and I got the android app working but we can't see any of the built in match questions on the tables (that is if there are any), and we got them synced to a flash drive that is synced the the main computer (with your desk top app), and are testing it with last years game (2014)... so instead of scouring the code to see how it works we decided to ask this question. do the questions only appear when there is a game happening (or match) or is there a bug in the system, and how does it store its data?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Hi! Thanks for testing our app!
This problem sounds a little weird but our data management could use some work. Try this:

If you have clicked "Begin Scouting Match"
Send us the data from the flash drive there should be a file called events/eventname probably with a .json extension (I'm a little rusty), if you manage to find that send us a link with pastebin.com otherwise send us a dropbox link or something to a copy of the data you put on the flashdrive

Other wise
Do you see a whole bunch of matches on the left side of the screen?
If yes when you click on one of them one the right side of the screen there should be a match and team number at the very bottom of the right side there should be a "Begin Scouting Match" button if you click that it should open the questions.
Otherwise send us the data as mentioned above.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Nice Job - I will pass this to our programming team so they can get familiar with it. Do you suggest any particular tablet to use? We don't have any yet but want to invest in some for this season. We would prefer a 7" table for cost savings.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

We've had success with our Xooms, a cursory glance says that you can get them on Ebay for about $100 a pop. You also can't go wrong with a 2nd gen Nexus 7 ($180 from Amazon, you can probably find them cheaper elsewhere). In general, a bigger screen is better for scouting (bigger screen = bigger touch targets = easier to hit buttons quickly in the middle of hectic matches). If you want to use our software, an important thing to remember is that the tablet must have USB OTG support so that the flash drive works. A quick glance at the manufacturer specs should confirm this, otherwise you could check out the XDA forums or a similar place. Let us know if you have any additional questions!

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

My apologizes for not knowing much about this subject.

I am interested in giving WildRank a try, but frankly I am lost on how to compile the code into an android app and an exe. can someone point me in the right direction please?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

For compiling the Android app, you'll need to download and install Android Studio. Once you've done that, use your Git method of choice (IDE integrated, the Github app, command-line git, etc.) to clone the project on your machine. Then just open the project in Android Studio and run it; once it's compiled it will prompt you to install it on your device. Make sure your device is connected via USB and that you've enabled developer options and debugging over USB. You should be all set on the tablet end.

For the desktop app, we used Eclipse, though you could compile the code in your Java IDE of choice. Just run the project as a Java application and you're good to go.

I think the Github Readmes do a pretty good job of explaining how to configure both components, but if you need more help, please ask.

Hope that helps!

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Thanks, I'll give that all a whirl, this app sounds exactly like what we are looking for. Once I get it working I may have a few ideas on features. Thanks again.

[Edit] This is a very nice program, while I haven't had time to go through it expensively I have to give you guys credit, very nice. I have encountered a few minor bugs, but that may be due to my tablet not being set up fully. (among any of several other things I am probably doing wrong). Solid none the less.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Hey everyone, I am having some difficulty on figuring out what I need to replace in this case structure to make a build work on my device. I know the mount location of the USB. "/mnt/usbhost1/WildRank_Working/" inside that directory there is the synced and uninitiated folders. What do I need to change?

I am just a a loss here as I do not work with java that often, any help you could give me would be greatly appreciated. Thanks for any help in advance.

...
case DIRECTORY_SYNCED:
return getSyncedDirectory(context);
case DIRECTORY_FLASH_UNINTEGRATED:
return getFlashDriveUnintegratedDirectory();
case DIRECTORY_FLASH_SYNCED:
return getFlashDriveSyncedDirectory();
case DIRECTORY_FLASH_ROOT:
return new File("/storage/usbdisk0/");

The code in question is found on line 280 of the source code under the file path android/SRC/main/java/org/wildstang/wild rank/android/data/datamanager.java

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I should have coded this better so that each of the directories references the root directory... but no matter. Basically every method that is called from the switch-case in getDirectory(...) that references the flash drive, you have to change to reference your root location. So FLASH_SYNCED and FLASH_UNINTEGRATED have to be changed to point to your location. I can push an update later today so that it references the root flash drive directory everywhere. Hope that made sense.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

http://imgur.com/tKjtfBz
Am I correct in assuming that the only code I need to change is the root directory of the flashdrive? (underlined in red in the photo)

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Unfortunately not, that was an oversight while I was programming the app last year. The root is hardcoded elsewhere. I'll push a fix soon to make that work as expected.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I've changed the app to use a constant called USB_FLASH_DRIVE_ROOT_PATH in org.wildstang.wildrank.android.utils as the root path of the flash drive. This was a quick fix that I haven't been able to test yet but it should be functional.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Thank you so much. I'll give it a test on two different android tablets shortly. An ASUS memo pad 7 and a MSI primo 73. Thanks again.
[Edit] I am still having some minor issues. I think this is because I have the mount path for the USB wrong. uggh. I will try it on another tablet.

And thank you for the variable in one location. It's awesome.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I got the app working, I don't know what the problem was with my other tablet, but no matter. My next question, what is the password? Or how does one set the password? I really don't want to go through the 6561 different possibilities for the pass code. Thanks for all your help.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Will you be making an iOS version of this app?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Ah yeah, I should have documented that. The password is defined in org.wildstang.wildrank.android.fragments.PasswordP rotectionFragment, as the field CONFIGURED_PASSWORD. It's currently 9453 ("WILD" spelled out on a keypad). I should change that to use a global, easily changeable constant as well.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

No one on my team has experience with iOS development, and we aren't willing to pay for developer license. Also, porting this to iOS would require a complete redesign of the app anyway, as Apple provides no way to connect or access flash drives.

TL;DR no :)

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Dang, I feel like i should have been able to guess that. Awe well, thanks for getting back to me.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

So which file in the desktop application do you open in order to run the desktop app and set it up? I don't do much with the programming but am trying to do this for my team.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Basically install eclipse and a JDK, then you can just run the project.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Can the desktop app be packaged as an .exe application to make easier to run on different computers?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

If one were to do that it would probably be as an executable jar file, but yes, it could definitely be done. It didn't make sense to do that last year as we were constantly making additions and bug fixes so we were never at the point where it would make sense to package a stable version of the program; it was easiest to just run it from Eclipse every time.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I was just wondering as it would make it easier for our team to run at competition. Also when making changes to the android scouting app, what files have game specific information in it that would need to be changed for this season?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

If you use the tablets for data analysis instead of using the desktop to generate a PDF summary (I highly reccomend the former, it's much simpler), I think I did a pretty good job of highlighting everything that you have to do here: https://github.com/nwalters512/wildr...-for-your-team. It tells you about what files you have to modify and how to modify them to set it up for your game. It may seem a little convoluted at first (it probably is, actually), but the slight extra complexity is needed to make it easy to modify and easy to extend.

Read through the docs and try it out. If things don't make sense, post here and I'll do my best to help! I'd appreciate any feedback you have so I can make things easier to understand for other teams.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

For the android app which file to I need to have debug to test on my tablet. Yesterday I tried and it gave me a warning saying the target module was undefined.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Assuming you are running andriod studio:
To open project File>import project>"project_folder">build.gradle
To change USB root: Andriod.Java.org.Wildstang.WildRank.Andriod.utils. MatchUtils

To get a tablet to connect to android studio: THIS LINK

To deploy code onto device (have USB drive set up first): connect tablet, make sure it is recognized under the andriod device manager, run project (toolbar, green play button), select connected device and your tablet, profit.

NOTE: in its base form it will not look like much, you will need to edit some XML files to be game spicific. You will also need a game.wild file (example one I made for this years game located HERE)

Hope I helped (and information I gave was correct)

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Just wondering, is permission granted for the ideas in this app to be ported to iOS? I am on the dev team of Team Driven's iOS FIRST Scout App.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Absolutely! If you borrow significant ideas/functionality, we just ask that you mention us if you ever release anything.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Is there a way to change from using a flashdrive to using a microSD card?If there is what changes would I need to make?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

They behave the same way from the file system's view, so I don't see why you couldn't. You'd just have to change the path of the flash drive, which I described how to do a few posts previously.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I am now having a problem with the app showing no data on all screen with no other elements. Do you have an idea as to what I can do to fix this problem?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Can you be more specific and give me some more information? What have you tried and done so far? Can you post a screenshot of what the screen looks like? Can you check if the flash drive/micro SD card was properly configured? Any information you can give me would be helpful.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I am having a similar problem, I will post screenshots in a bit, I just have to try some messing around with XML files to see If i can fix it that way.

[EDIT] Here are some screenshots of various errors within the wildrank android app. I am still unable to get any information up on the match scouting screen.

http://imgur.com/a/xPvgp

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Oh boy, that's a lot of problems...

First of all, have you configured the flash drive with the desktop portion? That's required to get match/team data onto the tablet. If you could set up a new flash drive from scratch and post the contents of it after you configure it, that would be helpful. By the looks of it, the teams transferred correctly, but the match list either wasn't created by the desktop app or the parsing of it on the tablet failed. Once you get that working, that should fix almost all of the problems.

As for updating data/calculations, if you read the documentation on GitHub, you should get a pretty good sense of how that's done. Feel free to ask any specific questions if the docs don't explain it well enough.

When I get home today I'll check out the desktop portion myself to make sure it's working properly. Which event were you using to configure it?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Here is what I did.

1) used desktop application to create a flash drive with the appropriate folders in it, configured for Central Illinois regional (2015).
2) put a game.wild file in the USB root (copy of the example game.wild)
3) installed a fresh copy of the android app on my tablet, with the correct root directory for the flash drive
4) unplugged tablet from computer plugged in USB OTG and hit "Load tablet data from USB drive".
5) Entered super user mode, went to main menu, match scouting. Blank screen (similar to the other empty screens that I posted previously).

Contents of the flash drive (all folders/files are in the root directory):
https://www.dropbox.com/s/xxwzaxic6c...s_876.zip?dl=0

Thanks for all of your help.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Ah, your choice of event explains everything! The app is designed to function only for events with a non-zero number of matches. Attempting to use it with an event without any matches would cause all sorts of unexplained behavior like you're seeing. The match schedule for the 2015 Central Illinois regional hasn't been published, so that explains the behavior you saw. If you want to try any part of the app out, you can use an event from a past year with matches to do so; any regular season event should work just fine. I forget if the year that the desktop app uses to search for matches is something you enter at runtime or if it's hard coded. If it's the latter, you may have to dig around in the source to find exactly where it is so you can change it to a previous year.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Just for reference:
The year is not hard coded, it is a runtime variable.

Was it just an oversight to not have a messagebox pop up and warn about zero match events? I did consider this being a source of my problems, but that was as I was ironing out other issues, so I probably dismissed it.

I will try it with a 2014 season regional and see what I get. Thanks for the help.

[EDIT] Is there any other cause of these issues, I am still getting similar screens, I am using 2014 regionals (Wisconsin and Northern lights). Do you know of a regional that for sure works (has a posted match schedule?)

[EDIT EDIT] I used the 2014 Midwest regional, and met with some success. Ill post again when I have some better questions.

[EDIT EDIT EDIT] Met with further success, I believe the app is functioning as intended. I have 2 questions. Will the app work with the practice matches on Thursday (because there is a published schedule)? And is the next step to start rearranging and renaming things with .xml files?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

When you did this did you just load the data from the previous regional and sync it to the flashdrive?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I just used team 111's 2014 regional ( I figured they tested with it) and synced that to the flash drive. I then set up the freshly installed app with that flash drive.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I wouldn't really call it an oversight. When we were designing it it we thought it would be common sense that you'd only scout at an event with posted matches. We can look into adding a warning, although that isn't really a priority.

As far as we know the app should work with any past event. The fact that it isn't is concerning. I have school off tomorrow, so I can try it out with some different events and see how things behave.

With practice matches, I'm not sure, but I'm going to guess no. I don't think TBA scrapes those schedules, or if FIRST even publishes them in the normal place on the site.

Glad to see you got it working! Yes, the next step is to configure it how you want for the game. For WildRank-specific configuration instruction, check out the documentation. For more general info on how to write Android XML layout files, I'd recommend that you read through the relevant info and tutorials on the Android developer website. Good luck!

As a side note, I was talking with the other primary developer of the app today, and we're considering rewriting the app from scratch for this season based on everything we learned last year. We're going to focus on making the code simpler and more robust. If you have anything you'd like to see changed after your brief experience with the app, shoot me a PM.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I now know why I was getting weird readings off of the first two 2014 regionals I tried. In order to get the app running correctly I needed to do a fresh install, setup, etc. Then the app needs to be force stopped. Once this happens it behaves like it should. I have no clue why it needs a force stop, but it is a relatively easy fix and works every time.
I also managed to set up the layout for Recycle Rush, the .xml files are not that difficult to manipulate. I just need to make sure my keys line up so I can do calculations later. I will be sure to give feedback.

[EDIT] question: Where are the arrays stored for drivetrain, shooter, etc?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

So what all did you have to do to get the app working? I am still having the same problem even while using last years regional and reinstalling the app on my device.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

FMS does not post practice match schedules, so there's no way for TBA or anything else to scrape them.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Ok, so here is the short and sweet to get the app working. Just ask about any specific step and I will explain in more detail.
1) get your tablet running in developer mode.
2) connect your tablet to your computer with ADB driver.
3) open up android studio and navigate to the constants page
4) input your filepath to the USB root on your tablet
5) connect your tablet, run the project, select your device off of the connected devices list.
6) prepare the flash drive using the desktop app (just run the project in eclipse)
7) put the default game.wild into the USB root directory
8) connect the USB OTG adapter to your tablet and use the app
9) 9453 is the password (wild spelled out) enter super user mode in settings
10) click through the menu, if it doesn't work force stop the app.
11) open up the app and select match scouting first. now match scouting should work.

Hope I helped

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

You should be able to create a schedule with the wildrank desktop app right?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

When you place the game.wild file in the USB root directory, do you just place it into the location you specified in the program as the usb root?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

The USB root needs to be the root location of the flash drive, not a folder in the flash drive. The game.wild goes into the root location.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I now have reached a point where I need to export to a CSV file. I synchronize the tablet with the flash drive, then open the desktop app and create CSV. I am using my custom .xml layout and the keys associated with them. What do I need to do to get the CSV generation working? I have included a screenshot of what the CSV looks like.

Image: http://imgur.com/kUCbBhf

what do I need to do to get my data out of the .json files, into a .csv with all of my custom fields?
(Also, where are the arrays located that contain drive trains, shooter types, etc. I need to make a custom array.)
Thanks for any help.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Just wondering, has this thread died? I am so close to getting this app working to its full potential. It would be a shame if the documentation on getting Wildrank working for the average user ended here.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Sorry, I stopped getting email notifications for some reason so I never saw your question. I'll post a response tomorrow when I'm more awake :)

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Okay I'm a little rusty but this is a pretty simple part, so in order to create a csv file you need a game file. This file tells wildrank what all the variables are that need to be mapped. This file is called game.wild and is located in the root of the local location (see lines 79-89 in Setup.java for more on saving). This file is read with the GameReader.java. It's pretty simple how it works you start with a tag that ends with a colon then some data.

You always need to start with game-name: [current game name]
This tells it what the current game is.

Then you need a main-key: [whatever]
I really don't remember what this is for and it appears that it doesn't actually do anything, so just put whatever you want.

Then you need different sections each sections starts with section-key: [auto/teleop/post]
This sets the section of the chart whether you are in autonomous, teleop, or post-match. But you can make the sections names whatever you want.

After this is where you put all the data item: [datapoint-name],[datapoint-key];[num/bool/text]
The name is whatever you want it labeled in the chart, the key is what it is defined as in json, and the num/bool/text is whether it is a integer, boolean, or string.

Hope this helped, feel free to ask if you have any questions!
Also look at ConfigCreator.java, this is designed to automatically generate these config files.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I have a weird problem, I am not able to get the app to recognize the USB drive to update/sync. The only two reasons that the "Connect a Flash Drive" message pops up are due to the USB root being wrong in the code, or not physically having a USB Drive installed. I am 99% sure the root is right (because it was working a few days ago) and the flash drive is defiantly connected. What could be the problem?

Thanks for any help in advance.
(hopefully this "heals" itself by morning, I give up for tonight.)

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Ya we have had that problem a lot in the past. It seems some days OTG wants to work and other days it doesn't. A couple things you could try are rebooting, manually mounting the flash drive (Storage/USB Storage/Mount SD card, you could also try doing it via terminal), or even reformatting the flash drive.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

You can also try navigation to the flash drive in your file explorer of choice. If it's mounted and you can see its contents, that means you probably have the root configured wrong in the code. Otherwise, I'd try the things mail929 suggested.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

This has turned into one of the most frustrating things I have ever done. What could possibly be going wrong? I have tried using: different OTG adapters, different flash drives, reformatting flash drives, fresh copies of the android app, remounting storage manually, resyncing flash drives w/ the desktop app, restarting my device, trying different file managers to see if I get the same root on all three (I didn't, ill try another one later) now I am out of ideas. The only thing I haven't tried is using a different tablet (with it's respective USB root location).

I am able to see the synced and integrated folders, so I know my tablet is making the connection. Is there any other way to find the root of the flash drive other than a file manager? I am getting two different root paths with three different managers.

I was making so much progress... any other ideas that you may have?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

The fact that you're seeing two different roots is very concerning. That sounds like either a problem with the software your device runs on or the file explorers. This isn't a very standardized part of Android, so it's possible that the OEM software or file explorer software have bugs. There's not much I can do about that. I'd try each of the roots you've found and see if one works better than the others. The somewhat sketchy support for OTG in Android is one of the reasons we were considering switching to Bluetooth, but we're going to stick it out one more year and see if we can get it working very consistently. Sorry I can't be of more help!

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

The manufacture's file explorer is the only one that shows a different root. all the other ones show the same root, the confusing part to me is that the manufacture's file explorer root was the one that was working before I had these issues.

I am hoping that this is purely a tablet specific problem, and that everything continues to work on the tablets we plan to use at competitions. (I had it working on the competition tablets a week ago, and haven't touched since).

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Here are my current questions:

Any other ideas on why my flash drive isn't being recognized? is this more likely to be a tablet problem? in which case a different tablet may very well work?

How do I go about making a custom array similar to the ones used to list the types of drivetrains, or ranking skills?

Thanks in advance.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

How difficult would it be to create a process where you select the location of the flash drive from within the app? My team will be using multiple different kinds of tablets at competition so it would be much easier if this was possible.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I have been wondering the same thing. It would defiantly add to "usability" (is that a word? :D ) if you could navigate to a folder location, or at the very least type in the USB root location.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Preferably I would want to be able to navigate to the location of the flash drive visually to make it easier for the scouters to set up (similar to a file explorer set up). If you could post an update if you get that working that would be great.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I have no satisfactory explanation for the behavior you're seeing. It sounds like something on the tablet side; all WildRank does is check if the indicated directory exists and then does some basic file operations on the folder, so it isn't something on our end. What brand/model of tablet do you have? I can see if I can find anything about it online.

As for making a custom scouting widget, that should be pretty trivial if you're willing to learn how to make custom views in Android. You can check out the existing ones for an idea of how to do that. All you have to do to get WildRank to save your data is to make your View class implement IJSONSerializable. Again, you can reference the existing views to see how that's done.

That should be relatively easy to do. I don't feel like implementing a graphical file browser from scratch, so if I can find a library for that, I'll look into adding it. That isn't our highest priority at this point; we've embarked on a full rewrite of the app so getting that functional is our top priority. Remember, the whole project is open source, so if you or someone on your software subteam knows anything about Android or Java, they're welcome to fork the project and work on that themselves!

If anyone has any interest in checking out our progress on the rewrite or even contributing to it, you can check out our repo here: https://github.com/nwalters512/wildrank-android-v2

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

[quote=nathanwalters;1434831]I have no satisfactory explanation for the behavior you're seeing. It sounds like something on the tablet side; all WildRank does is check if the indicated directory exists and then does some basic file operations on the folder, so it isn't something on our end. What brand/model of tablet do you have? I can see if I can find anything about it online. QUOTE]

I am glad to hear that is, as I guessed, most likely a tablet side issue.
The tablet I am using is an Asus MeMo pad 7, there is a little documentation out there, but whether or not Wildrank works on my tablet is not a concern. I will check when I have a chance to go to robotics on Thursday/Friday, but I am assuming that It will still work on the Dragon Touch 7" we are planning on using, (relatively cheep, but still a sound tablet for $50).

Just as a side note: I have managed to make custom views in android, I plan to root around the code a bit and just play with some things. If I do get it working I will see what I can do in the means of an Ethernet solution that I emailed you about earlier, If Wildrank is just looking for a file path a network location may very well work (provided correct setup of course.) At any rate I'll keep you updated, and if something detrimental happens with Wildrank when used with the dragon touches I'll try to get it sorted out and post back here if I need to.
Thanks again.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Sounds good! It looks like the tablet you're buying has support for USB OTG, so as long as there aren't any weird problems with file system paths, that should work very well for you. Good luck with getting everything working! It takes a bit of effort but it is well worth it once you put in the time.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Yeah, I got it working on the Dragon Touch 7" about a week ago, I just need to work on managing screen space, it is easy to overflow off of the screen if you're not careful. I will be sure to repost the source code as a zip file on dropbox or something when I get everything working. (Provided any license you have allows redistribution). Just so people don't have to work too hard making the custom UI's. Thanks for all of the help, I will let you know if any problems arise.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Our license definitely allows for redistribution. If you have any additions that you think would be beneficial to other teams, feel free to submit a pull request on github.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I was able to get the android app working properly. I just did a couple of test pit scouts for teams as well as some match scouting. I synced it with the flash drive on the android side and am trying to get the desktop side working. What do you need to do in order to generate the pdf with data in it? The other issue I am having on my tablet is that I can got to match scouting but when I try to go to pit scouting in the app, it continues to show me the match scouting page. Do you have any idea why this would be happening?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I have had a similar problem, try force stopping the app and re launching it. Then select whatever page refuses to show up from the menu, it should work.
I don't know why it does this but force stoping and restarting works for me consistently.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Before you invest in a 'cheap' inexpensive tablet, check out the battery life. You probably need it to last at least 6 hours between charges. Many of the 'cheap' tablets lasted only 3 hours.

Some tablets/phones do not support USB file systems. For example, the Nexus line does not, due to a dumb decision made at Google. The manufacturer does not include the code needed. The 'Chinese' tablets generally support USB OTG.

Not sure if this is relevant, but there is a problem while reading Android files from a PC. If the USB connection is using MTP, you may not see newly created files or directories. Refreshing the Android MediaManager does not seem to help, restarting the Android always works. :mad:

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I figured this out last night. I was just glad when the app finally started working. i am now at a point where I am needing to resize the buttons and text to get it to fit on the tablet screen. I ran into this issue as well but was able to work around it by installing the dropbox app on the tablet as well as dropsync which allows the app to sync automatically when the tablet has internet and there have been changes made.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I can help with the resizing of the buttons and stuff, I'll get back to you shortly.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Thanks. That will be a big help, although I do have a good start, it will be helpful to me. After all I am not a programmer, but I am trying to do this for my team.:)

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I am having an issue with CSV creation. I am getting an error saying that there is something wrong in each of the xxyy.json files (where xxyy represents team number) I have included screenshots of the error, and the log. Also is a link to download the contents of my local directory.

local directory download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7bw8yrpem1...k_876.zip?dl=0

My initial thought is that my game.wild does not match with the data. Could this be the cause?
Cheers - Skye.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

We stopped using CSV generation after the first event last year, so it's completely possible that a breaking change was made elsewhere and was never accounted for in the CSV code. We'll take a look at this today if we have time.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

What did you guys do instead of using CSVs? Did you use the team summaries?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Yes, we felt that for the most part, those eliminated the need for more complex analysis in Excel.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I would really like to use excel, but could you point me in the right direction for using team summaries?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Now that I figured out the layout and elements that needed recorded for this year's game, I plugged the names into the equations on the team data xml file in order to have those appear within the app. However even when I scout multiple matches for a team, the team data page shows No Data for all of the fields. I was wondering if anyone else had had a similar issue and if so how they fixed the problem. :confused:

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I can't help you much if you don't show me anything you've done. Can you post your layout files (both scouting and team summaries) and some of the match results you've gathered so I can take a look?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I will have to do that later tonight.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

This is awesome. One of the best scouting systems I have seen.
Great work.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Provided I get everything functioning tonight I will submit a pull request, or at the very least provide a download link to my version of WildRank 1.0 set up for Recycle Rush. This should make it a little less intimidating to set up for a team with 6+ tablets.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Any experience with running Android on PC's for the client? Bluestacks seems to have a decent reviews for an android simulator on a Windows environment.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

We have never tried this but it could work. It appears that Bluestacks doesn't support USB OTG but there are apps to enable it. However I have no idea how well it would work. My guess is there will definitely be some porting of code needed to get it to work.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

"USB OTG" is needed to mount the flash drive to the Android Device. Normally, the Android Device is what is being attached. Hence the need for USB OTG to change its normal role.

In the case of Bluestacks on a PC, the PC's normal functions should mount the USB Flash Drive, and make it available to Bluestacks.

A slightly different question:

Can the Desktop and the Client both be on the same computer?

Is there an explicit "import" function that then checks the USB Flash Drive? Or, is the desktop continuously looking for data to import?

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Here is the code for the app. When I synced the info, it seems like it did not actually create .json files for matches. The only .json files that were created are in the pit subfolder within the synced folder. In the event subfolder the only files are event.json and pit.json. But here is all of the code for the android app.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/u8qduwqlwx...20app.zip?dl=0

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

...And here is my version of the UI and calculations in the team summaries, keep in mind it is not 100% complete, (I need to get various rankings averaged). My version does have a SUM function for adding Boolean values together in teem summaries (as well as the default average). There are some other small changes, nothing really worth noting.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yci3tqedj0...15_UI.zip?dl=0

I have not looked at Short Stuff's version yet so I cannot compare the two at this moment, I have no idea what he accomplished.

[EDIT] After taking a quick glance through Short Stuff's version I have concluded that it takes a minimalistic approach. It covers most of the aspects of the game without getting too in depth to a point of cluttered up UI. This is in sharp contrast to mine where the main focus is on tote stacking, specifically on max heights of tote stacking. My version also returns more info in team summaries.

[EDIT] updates in my version coming out soon (added average support for spinner(dropdown) menus)

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Here is my significantly more polished version of WildRank, it should have most the stuff for medium depth analysis of teams, I hope it helps.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ljm2s3l5fw..._UI_2.zip?dl=0

A few things to note:
Stack rank average: higher = better (this is NOT potential points per match).
Qualification Average: should be same as the FRC published ranking
Average negative impact: lower = better (0 is lowest)

In autonomous I decided to make stack sets, robot sets, etc. noted as contributions, this helps on a robot by robot basis, you can choose what constitutes as a "contribution"

In teleop I have an average stack time drop down menu, this is a general time range. Also Average Failed Stacks / match is scaled for failed totes per match (i.e. team A knocks over a stack of 2 (add 2 to Failed stacks), team B knocks over a stack of 6 :ahh: (add 6 to failed stacks)).

The rankings in stats are the averages of the rankings that you put in during match scouting.

Everything else should be fairly self explanatory. Have fun, PM me with any questions regarding layout and calculations.

(also I have added a SUM function to calculations and spinner values can now be averaged/summed).

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Team 111:

Just want to say thanks for this application from team 3005. I did modify and fixed several bugs in the application from the Desktop to the Android side of things to get 2015 season going for us. You guys did a great job on the app.

One of the big item that we changed was not to use the Flash drive just cause some of our tablets do not support OTG or at least we were having issues in getting it to run reliably. Instead, we leveraged the tablet internal storage (MTP in Windows) as a "scratch memory" where we use it to sync between the tablet and desktop. This seems to work reliably but we do have to carry the tablet back to the Laptop to sync in this case.

Regards,
William

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

One suggestion that I would have for you for the syncing would be to use dropbox and its automatic syncing function. It may not be able to sync while at the arena due to lack of internet, but when you do have access to internet it will sync at that point. For this to work, you would need to have drobpx installed on the laptop as well as on each of the tablets. The tablets would also need to have a companion app called dropsync in order to automatically sync from a folder on the tablet. If you have any questions you can pm me.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

There is a lot more options out there than drop box, I know Asus has developed an app that can file sync w/o an internet connection or Bluetooth, I'm not sure what frequencies it operates on (or if it'd be legal).

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

This was what I had available at the time that worked for me. I am sure there are other options out there but at this point it is what we will use because I know that it will work across multiple different tablet makes and models. I didn't mean to make it sound like dropbox was the only option.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

I ran my version of WildRank at a Week Zero event this weekend, it seemed to function alright, I was not able to create a custom team list, but that mattered not because it was round robin style (no match schedule). My scouts just got used to the app, I have a few minor changes, but nothing major. The main things that I need to add are a counter for failed container placement (a fair number fell off during matches) and better support for no show robots (hopefully this option will never have to be used).
I will supply a download link one more time, if you want to see any minor changes or things PM me.

Re: Team 111's scouting system: WildRank
 

Did you just use the Team Summary page in the app for the results?