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.

[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

[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

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Originally Posted by 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.

Why would the coach look away less?
If anything they'll look away more, inputting information. If the coach has no strategy aid then they don't have to look away, ever.

[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.

[Cody Carey]

Originally Posted by Ogre

Why would the coach look away less?
If anything they'll look away more, inputting information. If the coach has no strategy aid then they don't have to look away, ever.

The coach would have to look away less for a palm device than for the paper/pencil route. Lets face it... Scoring in this years game is not going to be very fast paced, to pick up a tube, go to the proper place on the rack, and score the tube, you will take *at very least* 15 seconds. With the coach having to look away for maybe 2 seconds, not much will happen when they do. The machine would obviously be more accurate at tabulating score than a human, and that will be very important to this years game. With all of the rows/columns, any human, even a "real coach", who is supposed to be counting rows and columns will miss things that will lose their team the match.

Think of it simply:
All that guy with palm-pilot has to do is tell the computer where the tubes are being placed, the computer does ALL the tabulating. The coach then relays the information to the drivers.

Guy with paper has to mark down tube locations, try to identify all rows and columns, count the number of tubes in each row and column, and multiply in their head to find the score. At the same time he has to try to predict the highest possible scoring next move. Once he *thinks* he has the correct move, he has to relay it to the drivers.

Guy will no scoring aid has to do EVERYTHING in his own head.



EDIT: The chances of a palm OS crash while running as simple a program as this are about the same as the coach having a seizure in the middle of the match.

[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.