POLL: Will you be using a scoring aid?

[Cody Carey]

It seems to me, that by developing software for a palm-pilot or other portable computing device... you could increase the efficiency of your coach tenfold. He/she would have to look away from the field less, the score computation would be more accurate than any human could be, and It could even tell you the next best move. My thoughts are that if paper and pencil were superior to calculators, we would not have phased them out for most advanced math.


What will your team be doing, and why?

[Jimmy Cao]

I think having a scoring program would be nice. Depending on how it was made, it would be a very effective way of calculating score. I am making a scoring program on my TI-84 Calculator in TI-Basic, but the calculator's processor is too slow to calculate the score in a reasonable amount of time. However, having a palm w/ a scoring program on it would be good, unless FIRST has a reliable scoring program that they use to display the score during the matches.

[Rick]

how would you communicate to the rest of your alliance?

[Cody Carey]

Same way you would with a pen and paper.

[Jay Trzaskos]

to quote a great man...

Real coaches dont use "strategy assistants" during matches.

[amos229]

Originally Posted by Jay Trzaskos

to quote a great man...

Iwill second that quote Jay, he was a great man.

[JamesBrown]

I don't think it would be that useful during the match, I might make something up to draw out pre match strategy.

Originally Posted by Don Rotolo

I assume we're discussing the coach behind the drive team? Are they allowed to bring paper or palm pilots?



Even a clipboard, much less a palm pilot, doesn't qualify as "OPERATOR CONSOLE, reasonable decorative items, and special clothing and/or equipment required due to a disability", or am I mistaken here?

Don

This was resolved in update 3

[DonRotolo]

I assume we're discussing the coach behind the drive team? Are they allowed to bring paper or palm pilots?

<T23> The only equipment that may be brought on to the field is the OPERATOR CONSOLE, reasonable decorative items, and special clothing and/or equipment required due to a disability. Other items, particularly those intended to provide a competitive advantage for the HUMAN PLAYER, are prohibited.

Even a clipboard, much less a palm pilot, doesn't qualify as "OPERATOR CONSOLE, reasonable decorative items, and special clothing and/or equipment required due to a disability", or am I mistaken here?

Don

[Rick]

Originally Posted by Jay Trzaskos

to quote a great man...

Thanks Jay

2:15 is not enough time to input scoring into a laptop. They will have (at least) 2 people in charge of real time scoring. How can one person input the score and tell the drivers what to do next?

"Coach where do we score next?"
"....umm my windows/mac/linux/palm device crashed."

[JamesBrown]

I dont really see why you would need to know the current score, just by looking you can estimate. Also you always want to break up the biggest rows of the other team and extend your biggest. There really isn't a need for the white board, you are standing close enough to see every thing.

[Rick]

Originally Posted by JamesBrown

...you always want to break up the biggest rows of the other team and exten your biggest...

James your gonna make a good coach someday.

KISS Method

[Kyle A]

People are not always right. Estimating may work in some cases but no one is perfect, the score could be so close, and it may look like you are winning, but in real life you are loosing but just a few points. Last year the real time scoring was really nice because you new what the out come was most likely going to be. Yes it was wrong alot of the times but it was nice to have. Having a program to see what the score exactly is without penalties, would be very nice to have. Sure you have to keep an eye on the game at all times, but it is nice, not having to crunch numbers through your head. And while crunching the numbers you could mess up, because of something exiting that might happen on the field.

[Ian Curtis]

Originally Posted by Kyle A

And while crunching the numbers you could mess up, because of something exiting that might happen on the field.

That's the point. You DON'T crunch numbers. Make big rows. Break up your opponents. Place spoilers in the middle of blocks if you're opponent makes them. Simplicity FTW!

EDIT: If people played without PDA's back when FIRST had this addiction to nigh-impossible-to-calculate-in-your-head multipliers, then we can play without PDA's now.

[Kyle A]

Originally Posted by iCurtis

T
EDIT: If people played without PDA's back when FIRST had this addiction to nigh-impossible-to-calculate-in-your-head multipliers, then we can play without PDA's now.

This is true, they did not have them back then, I'm just saying that it would be a helpful tool. You don't need to have it , but it would be one of those nice things to have.

[65_Xero_Huskie]

Your coach just needs to have an idea to what you want to do before the match, if you take time to actually write/type/mark anything, you will have to take your eyes off the field and thats time wasted that you could be scoring. Ken always tells us that its the coaches job to know what should happen next because hes the drivers/operators "eyes" for the rest of the field (He likes to tell us what to do ). If you can find a quick way of doing it then more power to you, but i think you should just practice all the different ways of scoring and whats needed in each situation.