Well Its that time of year again! Team HeatWave has been working diligently on its handheld scouting application for release to the public.
This year, we switched development environments from Sat. Forms to App Forge Mobile VB, and we are very pleased with the new abilities of our software. As of tonight (Tues March 4) we have the handheld beta version a few hours away from completion. In the end, the software will have handheld, desktop, and web interfacing components. What we will be releasing tomorrow on our web site (www.heatwave312.com) is the first beta release of the handheld software only. This software will work on both palm powered pda’s as well as pocket pc.
The handheld software has the ability to view all the teams according to their corresponding regionals and then collect and save robot and match information on each team. There is also a search form which allows the user to find specific teams that fit any of the given criteria (according to what is saved for each team in their robot info page). The last two main features of the software are a strategy recorder, where you can draw on an image of the field and save up to ten different strategies, and a scoring calculator.
Once again, this is simply a beta version of the software, there will be much more to come!! And we are more than open to any and all constructive criticism. Our goal is to make this the most efficient and simple way for everyone to obtain info on all the teams. Check under the strategy link on our website tomorrow throughout the day, for the first release. Any questions please feel free to ask, we want this software to be used as much as possible so download it, put it in our pda, give it a try this weekend at the regionals and let us know what you think!!
To anyone that wants it our beta version of the handheld software has been released on our website at www.heatwave312.com Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
Yeah this type of application takes alot of work to put together. We will definetly be sure to notify everyone when we get the web and desktop software complete. I just hope some teams will take advantage of the software because, as i’m sure you know, the more teams that use the database the better it becomes.
Yeah the software that we will release early next week will have the ability to sync. There will be a desktop interface simliar to what is on the palm, and all the information that is sync’d will be viewable from that. The web interface will be along the same principle as the desktop software. If neither of these fit your needs you could always print the access database that the program uses, however the data there will not look very user friendly.
I am using a Palm M130 and it looks great on the color screen.
Problem: I tried to install the booster program from the zip file and it would not detect my palm however, when I downloaded the installer from appforge the new booster worked fine.
Would the app speed up if I removed the regionals my team is not attending? If so, how do I access the db?
no not really. it is still going to load pretty much the same cause you just eliminate the regionals, and not all the other teams. access the db? that is a good question I don’t know a lot of pdb editors out there… who knows we might just add that functionality in. Thanks this is one of the reasons we want ppl to look at the program.
Although we do not have that capability yet, that is a great idea. Because of the way the code is written now, you would actually have to have the source code and take out the regionals through that and recompile. And even then, I doubt everything would work properly. However we will take this into very strong consideration for our next release. We have been looking for ways to make it run faster, and I cant believe we didnt even think of that! Thanks alot.
Oh, and as for the app forge booster, sometimes it does not detect the palm and it will come up with an error like “invalid user name” or something of the sort. Usually it works if you try it a second time though. Im not sure if this is the problem you were having or not.
The real time consuming parts to the app are when it has to change locations. So if you are gonna be using the app alot at one time, just leave it open and turn the pda off, that way when you turn it back on it will be in the same spot, and it wont have to go through the sorting again. Just an idea that might help a little for now.
What you are doing is great.
What about trying to cooperate with some of the other scouting databases in developing an open protocol to sync info between them. Just my 2 cents
-If you want me to do some more testing, just let me know.
-If I have a Palm and another team member has a Pocket PC, could we sync the db’s at competition? Maybe through IR? (Someone could do scouting, another watching matches, and then the data could be merged, what about three people?)
-Maybe have a place on your website where teams could enter their own data?
–On the bottom of the team selector on the teams page, would you be able to tap or type a number say 4 and it would jump to team say 400 or 401 or whatever the first team in that range is, enter the second number and jump to the begining of that list?
These are just concepts and ideas… Use them if you like, tell me if you would like more
*Originally posted by Peciv *
**-If I have a Palm and another team member has a Pocket PC, could we sync the db’s at competition? Maybe through IR? (Someone could do scouting, another watching matches, and then the data could be merged, what about three people?)
-Maybe have a place on your website where teams could enter their own data?
–On the bottom of the team selector on the teams page, would you be able to tap or type a number say 4 and it would jump to team say 400 or 401 or whatever the first team in that range is, enter the second number and jump to the begining of that list?
These are just concepts and ideas… Use them if you like, tell me if you would like more **
Palm and PPC …once we release the desktop software to go along with this you will be able to do this with as many handheld as you like…
We have plans for web synchronization so when you get done at your competition, or you have internet access at the regional you can sync with our server get all our information off our server and merge it with the data you have collected. Then that will be viewable with the handheld or with the web interface.
who knows we might just add that functionality in. Thanks this is one of the reasons we want ppl to look at the program.
**