We at 296 are going to be setting up our pit clock system for all you folks in our division, Galileo. If you don’t know what this is, it’s a Flash program that runs on a computer in your pit, and shows all sorts of useful information - so that you don’t have to go looking through the match list to find out when your match is and who you’re with. I’ve attached a screenshot. We brought this to the Canadian Regional, but unfortunately not many teams knew about it and therefore couldn’t take advantage.
The way the program works is that it communicates wirelessly with our server, where we keep a database set up similarly to the match list that FIRST gives us. We have two guys who are constantly updating it, so that it never gets out of sync with the field because of delays.
So make sure to bring a wireless network card and a spare laptop if possible if you want to try it out, and keep a look out for our instructions handout Friday morning.
Unfortunately we don’t have the manpower or resources to provide this service for the other three divisions, but if someone else does maybe we can work something out.
At the Canadian Regional, we just had our updater guys sit in the pit, listen to the announcements, and watch the video screen. If there is a video screen in the pits or within wireless range we’ll be fine, if not, i guess we’ll just have to estimate how far off time the field is.
All I have to say is WOW! What a great service you’re providing us with. Now we dont have to worry about missing calls for our teams, or being too early/late, etc. This is extremely cool!
It’s just a flash file. You can open it in a browser, but it looks better if you run it in the standalone flash player and full-screen it.
BTW, those of you who have macs, make sure you have the latest flash player installed. The windows version of flash player will be availible on the server.
EDIT: Never mind, I just put the Mac version up on the server too.
This looks awesome! As long as my pit isn’t a deathtrap like Midwest, I’ll set up my laptop to run this! Great job guys.
Do you guys have your own Wireless Access Points your going to set up or are you relying on something there? Reason I ask is because SOAP is up to it’s usual plotting and has a new innovative scouting program we’re hoping to unveil at competition. The wireless network is what we keep running into snags with for the program, so we have a plan B in action that doesn’t utilize wireless, but it would be nice to go with plan A.
Yeah, we have a couple of access points, and a hub. We seem to have configured the access points correctly - at least, they worked in Toronto. The current configuration doesn’t seem to work for client-client connections though - but works fine for client-host, which is all we need. If that’s all you SOAP guys need, and if you can’t fix your problem in time, feel free to plug a server into our hub.
