A few ideas.

[Josh Hambright]

What about setting up some kind of system so that at the regionals there could be some sort of 'mini master database' where all the teams using the system at the regional could tap into that some way rather then using the master database offsite.

This has several advantages. First off because they dont have to worry about getting online and connecting with the master database that aliveates the headaches that some teams face when trying to get internet while out of town. Secondly it would cut down on how much traffic would be happening from a specific event on the server where the database is located. For most teams they only need the data on a team while they are at a competition because they wont see them again at another one, or at the championship event. After a competition is over the 'mini master database' could then be integrated into the master database rather then having to worry about each individual team doing it.


Another idea would to see if FIRST would be willing to help us with this idea in any way but making the scores from the matches available to the database system. If the scores from the matches were loaded into the unified system as well as into FIRST's ranking system then that would save alot of time and headaches of people having to upload that info into the system. This would also allow the system to have real time ranking of the participants at a regional. If we intergrated some kind of system like wireless networking or even cabled network going to the participating teams pits (once again maybe first could help us out by setting up a network for the pits connecting all of them together into a LAN, now wouldn't that be awsome) then teams could have realtime match results in the pits as well as being able to integrate the data that they have with the data other teams have collected whenever they wish while at competition.


I dont know, once again i am ust being a think since i only have slight knowlege about most of the software side of the scouting stuff. It does seem however like it could be possible for first to run network to each pit while they are running power.


I know that if we did this right and got it organized and if enough teams got involved and supported it that FIRST would hopefully help us out and work with us. It would be beneficial to everyone involved if we could work with FIRST on this. For example team 108 does all of the internet stuff at competitions and FIRST works with them from what i understand to help get internet at those competitions. The problem is getting everything organized and getting support for things like server space and any type of hardware that would be required for such an endevour. But just think about the possibilties and the benefits if it did work.