Can I just say that this is officially my new favorite app on the iPod touch. SOOOOO useful! And it will probably be an excellent scouting tool for Atlanta. It is great how you can see previous match records. I think the updates your planning will make the app even more useful! Love it!
Thanks for the nice comments. Hopefully with the annoying Twitter update problem fixed, it will starting getting more positive reviews on iTunes.
I definitely want to do that, but it won’t make it into version 1.1, so probably not before the Championship.
I submitted version 1.1 this morning.
This version will have a complete database all the way through the end of week six, including merging together the match results from Twitter (which include the scoring details, but aren’t always the final results for a match) and the official results from FIRST’s web pages (which are official, but don’t include the scoring details).
I haven’t added in the information about the divisions at the Championship, but 1.1 has a mechanism that will let users download event info updates without having to go through a new release through Apple and iTunes.
Hopefully everything will work for the Championship, but there’s no way to test it in advance as the division web pages aren’t up yet. Everyone cross your fingers!
Just updated to the newest version. I like the fact that it updates much better now, not failing as often. Can’t wait for the big version 1.1 update, keep em coming. 
just got my iphone yesterday and downloaded the app today so hopefully with any luck I’ll be able to keep on top of the champs while sitting next to the practice fields in the pits lol.
I downloaded it to my iTouch last night and really like the app. Will you update with divisions when they’re announced?
Version 1.0.1 has a fixed list of events, but version 1.1 has an update mechanism that will let you add the Championship divisions via a download from within FRC Tracker. I’ve been testing it today with the team lists derived from the Championship team list, and it works great.
So, as long as Apple approves 1.1 in time, we’ll be in good shape.
Version 1.1 is now available on the App Store! There are more details and hints on the FRC Tracker web page.
Be sure to go to the Tools tab and hit the “Now” button next “Update Event Info” to get the event update that will bring in all the regional event results and add the Championship division events.
The live match results still come in through the Twitter feed, but also do the Event Info Update between days to get the official match result data merged into the Twitter results.
I’ll be tracking the Championship as much as possible and processing data from FIRST’s web site for the Event Info updates. I’ll post to the frctracker twitter feed with any important news as the competition progresses.
Send me feedback on any issues and I’ll post a final version after the Championship is done.
that app looks really sweet. if i had an Apple device, this is the first app that would go on it
The update is awesome. Loving it.
Nice Work! This makes it very convenient to keep up with my team while on the go. I’m a college student and can’t always have my laptop out, but I do always have my iPhone with me. Now if I can just figure out how to stream the windows media stream on my iPhone
wow, this is a great app! Thank you! I can’t wait to see how the app develops over time.
We just released an Event Info update with final match results and award info from the Championship. Loading and processing the update will take a few minutes, and it’s important to let it fully complete without interruption or going to sleep. After doing the Event Info Update, you’ll also need to do a full Twitter update.
If you don’t want to hassle with that, in the next week or two we’ll be submitting a new version to Apple with a complete database for 2009, and some cool enhancements (like showing team nicknames).
I learned a bunch of stuff using the app during the Championship and will incorporate a number of improvements into a new version for the 2010 competition.
Tom,
Thanks for writing this app. It was quite handy to check in on teams from other divisions to see how they were doing this weekend.
I did find one bug though: the way I was using it, I’d start at the “Teams” page, type in a team number in the search box, look at their match results, then back out a few screens and choose the “X” in the search box and replace it with another team # to look at it. After repeating this procedure for a few times, the search window would get messed up and would not revert back to the full team list after choosing the “X” in the search box. At that point, typing anything in the search box would not affect the results in the list below, which would still show the results from the previous query. The only way to fix this condition was to force-quit the app and restart it.
Other than that, it worked great. One feature request for future years that I have would be to include the rankings as well. That would be really handy, even if it was just a link that would open the rankings page from usfirst.org in the browser.
That’s great to hear. Thanks for the feedback, and thanks to the other recent posters in this thread.
I have already fixed a bug that may have caused this behavior, but I’ll try out that scenario to be sure.
The issue with showing the rankings is that there isn’t enough information available to compute the rankings correctly, and we really don’t want to show inaccurate rankings.
In the version we are working on now, if no matches have been played by a given team since the last update for that event, then the ranking is shown. If the team has played matches, then FRC Tracker will update the win/loss/tie record, but not show a ranking. There’s also a quick way to look at the teams for a given match (played or not) that shows all six teams’ records and (if available) ranking.
Linking to FIRST’s team standings page is a good idea. There are a bunch of links we want to put in, but we haven’t started working on how to organize it.
If anyone has other ideas for how to improve FRC Tracker, we are open to suggestion. Feel free to post here or send us email directly at frctracker at idleloop dot you-know-what.
A really easy way to see a team’s nickname (pulled from TBA), the obvious “robot picture” that’s a lot harder than it sounds are all the suggestions I have. Thanks for the great app!
The team nickname support is in. I had that done a week before the Championship, but that wasn’t early enough to get it through Apple’s approval process in time. Thanks to Greg Marra and TBA for making that easy.
The robot photo idea is high on the list, either via taking pictures with the iPhone camera, or pulling it from TBA. That probably won’t make it into the 2009 version, but maybe for the 2010 season.
I should post some screenshots as a preview of what I already have working but haven’t released yet…
I’ve still got some work left to do before submitting version 1.2 to Apple, but here’s a quick preview of the new stuff.
http://www.idleloop.com/frctracker/preview.php
As always, we appreciate feedback.
Tom,
I’m not quite sure (you are more familiar with the match software than I am), but what info is missing to compute Rank? The only thing I can think of is the pre-penalty score of the losing alliance, but that can be derived from the twitter feed.
Thanks again for the updates. I updated it in the hotel in Atlanta and was using it when I could.
Random idea - ask the user what team number they are from, and if there is no picture in the database for that team yet, nag them to upload one to TBA. It’s not good for the users, but it’s good for the scouts 
Hi Branden,
Thanks for the great comments!
There are three issues.
You are correct that the Twitter feed has enough info to reconstruct the unpenalized score, but the Twitter feed isn’t official and doesn’t reflect any changes made to the scoring after the end of the match, such as the head ref changing a penalty or correcting a scoring error. Fortunately, I saw a lot of that happen at the Oregon regional, so I’m really aware of how it can change things.
I also need to know where all of the surrogate appearances needed to fill out the schedule are located. I could assume that, knowing how MatchMaker works and that they are all supposed to be in the third round, but that could be problematic.
Finally, the big one is DQs. The Twitter scoring data doesn’t say anything about DQs, and neither does the data on FIRST’s site. Without that information, any attempt to calculate rankings could yield really large errors, especially for teams that have already been punished with a DQ. I really don’t want to get involved with that at all.
Cathy and I were following the matches very carefully from home, and watching you folks do well motivated me to add the match detail view so I could preview the upcoming matches.
I definitely want to add the ability to add robot photos (and maybe also team uniform photos) and it would be awesome to be able to share those photos, either through a web site like TBA or directly using the iPhone 3.0 peer-to-peer networking enhancements. That won’t be in version 1.2, but I do hope to add it for the 2010 season.