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.
I really like that idea. That would be extremely beneficial to the teams in the pits. To simply know what match they are currently playing without having to walk away from the pits where you are needed would be highly helpful.
It would allow so much more data to be avaiable at the competitions. Also, contacting usfirst is on my list of “to do’s” to see if there would be some way in which we could network with them to directly get their match results.
Of course, we’d need a computer in the very least, plus any wireless network stuff (;)), plus any projectors…
PLUS… we’d need a (at least) one team per regional to assist in this.
Running a network cable to each pit might be a little hard though. Well… I guess if you figure that each regional has 50 teams, you’d only really need like 5-6 5 port hubs. But… a crap load of cat 5 cable
i kinda mentioned the onsite network, and u expanded on it. I am willing to give my all, and im sure that there are teams at every compitition who are also willing to do whats needed.
As for cat 5, just plan on a $10 box of cable and $2 of connectors. Throw it all out later.
I dont think that the materials are hard to come by in this crowd of people, i think that the software is the killer.
For those who aren’t aware of a few of the technical specifications of the current FIRST system, here’s what I’ve been able to gather (from various FIRST officials) about how it works.
At each individual regional, the data is live, only to them.
At the end of each day of the regional (or at intermissions throughout the day) the data from each regional is uploaded via some method to the main US FIRST server.
Throughout the day, staff from one regional are sometimes able to collaborate with staff from another simultaneous regional.
The US FIRST server then warehouses all of the data to be able to be provided to other people.
If (when) the database software is rewritten, it usually occurs over the summer months (since many of the volunteers are teachers).
Now, here’s some speculation:
In the current system that the US FIRST site is running, they appear to have the ability to have multiple templates, currently the only one seemingly available is ‘web’, it may be possible to ask them to create, or offer to help them create, an XML template, which would then make parsing data from the US FIRST site itself easy.
This could potentially relieve some of the burden on whatever team is planning on running each regional server, if they happen to be out of town and unable to upload the data each night to the FSN central server.
*Originally posted by Kevin A *
**i kinda mentioned the onsite network, and u expanded on it. I am willing to give my all, and im sure that there are teams at every compitition who are also willing to do whats needed.
As for cat 5, just plan on a $10 box of cable and $2 of connectors. Throw it all out later.
I dont think that the materials are hard to come by in this crowd of people, i think that the software is the killer. **
Just so you know, you’re a bit off on your estimate. To accomplish something like this you’d need at least a few hundred feet of cable. The CHEAPEST you can get is around $50 for 1000 ft. Less than that would less money, but more expensive per ft. And that’s for the CHEAP cable, with no shielding. Something that would definately be need in a high EFI environment. It’ll be around $150 for that, probably. Though, I guess, you could go with the cheaper.
For connectors, if you give each team their own cable, take an average of 50 teams x 2 = 100, for each end of THEIR cable. Not to mention all the other cables to connect the routers and all. Let’s just keep it at 100 though, for fun. You could probably get those for $20, for some really cheap ones.
So I guess you could do this all for less than $100. Still though, all that crimping. And why would you throw out all that perfectly good cable at the end? You could use it at another regional, or save it for next year, or use it for the ultimate LAN party. Hmm, LAN party in the pits anyone? It’d take a while to set up, but with planning, and people who know what they’re doing, it’s feasable. Of course you could just do it wirelessly, and save yourself all the hasle. But then, what about the people who don’t have a wireless card?
