Introducing the FRCGamePlan!

[GGCO]

Background:
The FRC Game Plan is an Android application I’ve developed which allows FRC teams to quickly strategize with their alliance members before a match. I came up with the idea at the West Michigan District Event when team 27, 1918, and 3357 (I was 3357′s driver) were discussing strategy before a match. 27 had a small white board with a field diagram on it which we were using to draw plays for our robots. 27 also had an enormous amount of data on each one of the teams we were competing against – including predicted scores.

It got me thinking, wouldn’t a tablet be the perfect device to do this kind of work on? I envisioned a program where a team’s coach has all the statistics he could desire, but more importantly a program where he could easily communicate strategies to the three drivers on his alliance – and all of this would be done on a tablet style device. What I’ve come up with isn’t exactly the same vision, but it’s a good start to it.

The App:
Download here

The FRCGamePlan is what I’ve come up with so far. First and foremost, it’s an open sourced app – so feel free to help me out and contribute to the project! It’s also my very first Android app (yes I didn’t even write a hello world program). Thirdly, it heavily borrows from my Sinatra based web application – StatsHub.

The user choses a match from a specific event and is presented with a view of the FRC “field”. The user can draw John Madden style diagrams to show their drivers the game plan for that match. The user can also then click on a “robot” on the field (just a button with the team’s number) and view that robot’s stats for the match. The user can change the team number of a button by holding a button down for a short time and choosing a different team number from a dialog that appears.

What’s Broken:
- The app’s menus aren’t functional
- The Kettering Event doesn’t show the stats dialogs

Future Features:
- Download the data upon startup and load it into a database
- Get this onto the Android Market
- Support MANY screen sizes
- Working menus
- Custom listView xml

Please leave your comments and suggestions below. Follow this blog post for the most up-to-date information about the FRCGamePlan. Pics are below. Thanks!





http://grantgumina.boldlygoingnowher...lertDialog.png

[Zach O]

It would be cool if you included pictures of the app.

[GGCO]

Originally Posted by Zach O

It would be cool if you included pictures of the app.

It would be cool if you downloaded it.

Seriously though, I'll upload pics in a bit.

[Zach O]

Originally Posted by GGCO

It would be cool if you downloaded it.

It'd be even cooler if I had an Android phone to run it on.

[Robby Unruh]

This looks really neat. Will you ever be making this iOS compatible?

[GGCO]

Originally Posted by Robby Unruh

This looks really neat. Will you ever be making this iOS compatible?

A friend of mine said there's already a comparable iOS program available, but I don't know what its called.

I don't have a Mac, and started an internship this summer, so I don't have any major plans for an iOS veraion. But its open soirced, so feel free to make a port for iOS!

[lemiant]

Where are the team stats derived from?

[GGCO]

Originally Posted by lemiant

Where are the team stats derived from?

Since no decent api exists, I'm parsing them from the official FRC websites for each event._

[J_Miles]

Originally Posted by GGCO

Since no decent api exists, I'm parsing them from the official FRC websites for each event._

You could use the FMS Twitter to do it. I don't know if that would be easier.

[JesseK]

It may not be long before we can use Android apps in the Windows O/S. This may then be useful on some scouting netbooks, so the absence of scouting data within the program could be moot.

Article [arstechnica.com]

Take that you Apple cultists!

Personally I still love the look-n-feel of a whiteboard. And then there's the incredibly valuable hand-scribbled notes for the match too; I wouldn't want to miss those.

[GGCO]

Originally Posted by J_Miles

You could use the FMS Twitter to do it. I don't know if that would be easier.

It wouldn't - especially because of twitter's *occasional* epic fails, but also because the FRC FMS doesn't always immediately post to twitter (in my experience).

[Basel A]

How about a rough layout of the field, instead of just the blackness with teams?

Also, I would suggest that it might be best to use both, likely with @frcfms as the backup. Just make sure you always use USFIRST's standings (if that's even included), because they take red cards and other anomalies into account.

[GGCO]

Originally Posted by Basel A

How about a rough layout of the field, instead of just the blackness with teams?

Also, I would suggest that it might be best to use both, likely with @frcfms as the backup. Just make sure you always use USFIRST's standings (if that's even included), because they take red cards and other anomalies into account.

I didn't explicitly put that on my up coming features, but I'm planning on incorporating it when I add "multiply screen sizes support".