TI calculator scouting app

[HedlessChkn]

hello everyone, i am in the middle of creating a FIRST scouting application for Texas Instruments calculators. I am currently writing a program that will run on the TI 83,84,84+ and the 84+SilverEdition. It would not be overly difficult for me to port it to beable to run on a TI-85 as well if someone would like, as i know how to code for those too.

my main question however is what information would you all like to see on this program and would it be a usefull app for people to have? im sure my team will most likely use it, would yours? I may include a sharing function so that you can have several scouts gather information and then pool it all to one full large database, if that would be helpful. what other functions would people like? how would you like the interface? Ill try to finish it up soon and release a beta for people to critique if the demand is high enough.

[MrForbes]

it probably needs something similar to what the Nintendo DS scouting system needs

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/sh...threadid=61036

although there's an interesting difference...when you're not scouting with the DS, you can play games...when your not scouting with the TI-89, you can do your homework....

which would your gramma like best?

[Akash Rastogi]

Originally Posted by HedlessChkn

...a program that will run on the TI 83,84,84+ and the 84+SilverEdition.

Just curious as to why it won't be for the 89 as well.

[HedlessChkn]

haha! thats what calculator games are for! just tell everyone your doing your homework while you play a few games of galaxia pack-man and mario (iv even written a mini guitarhero style game for my calc )

as for the functionality, should this be more of a pitscouting app or do you think it would be good to keep scores and other info too?

[HedlessChkn]

Originally Posted by XxMORTteam11xX

Just curious as to why it won't be for the 89 as well.

unfortunatly i do not have an 89 to play with at the moment, i could talk my brother into letting me snag his... im not sure if the 83's code and the 89's are the same, thats something i will look into though. chances are it wouldn't be a difficult port (if different at all) so i will definetly try to check that out for you.

[MrForbes]

If you have 6 calculators on your team, and someone has a USB cable and you can figure out how to save and copy the data from each calculator to a laptop, you could scout the matches and create a database with the data, and use this to figure out how each robot performs. That sounds more useful than pit scouting, to me....

I don't know if the lower models can handle this, but maybe the 89 can?

[HedlessChkn]

Originally Posted by squirrel

If you have 6 calculators on your team, and someone has a USB cable and you can figure out how to save and copy the data from each calculator to a laptop, you could scout the matches and create a database with the data, and use this to figure out how each robot performs. That sounds more useful than pit scouting, to me....

I don't know if the lower models can handle this, but maybe the 89 can?

by the multiple calcs gathering data i mentioned erlier, i was talking about only on the calculators. but, now that you say that in conjunction with a laptop, i could throw some quick VB code together and pump out a nice looking interface of some sort that just steals data from some text files that the calculators can create. This assumes its users understand how to use the TI Graphlink software. (my plan is to store the information in a large matrix, so i could write a vb app that will combine and display that informatio on the laptop)

[aksimhal]

This seems like a really cool application! Would it require a software like mirageOS to be already installed on a calculator?

[HedlessChkn]

I plan to write the program in TI-Basic not asm so there would be no other programs required, like mirageOS, to run it. Unfortunatly, because of the way these calculators store a matrix, list, or variables, the program will be rather large when it has had a full regional of teams' information submitted into its catalogue.

After looking further into the whole computer to calc program idea, despite how much i would like to make that work, the way the TI Connect software works is simply not very efficient for doing something like this. you have to open the program, recognise the TI device, open up the device explorer then save one of the martixes, or a list (depends on what i use, prolly a matrix) to a folder on your computer. then you would have to run another app that i write in VB and import this matrix (because it is written in VB, you would need to get the .net stuff from microsoft if you dont already). not that this would all be impossible, but it would definetly be difficult. That however is not my main concern. my main concern is the fact that this whole process would be less than efficient, and not really something you would want to have to do with 6 calculators every single match... If anyone else is familiar with ti-calculator programming and knows of an easier way to to all of this that i am totally spacing then please let me know!