Random ideas thread

[PedalFaster]

Some thoughts prompted by today's operational hiccups:

• We had to reuse an old course today because no one volunteered to design a new one. Speaking for myself, I've designed courses for past events, and would be happy to design more, but I'm physically incapable of showing up at Fort Macleod at 7:30 a.m. to set up. I know this is true of at least one other recent course designer.
  
  Suggestion: How about we decouple course design and course setup, so that the people who like designing courses can do even if they're not morning people, and leave setup to the early risers?
  
  
• Related to the above, even if you're a morning person, it's painful getting up at or before five in the morning to get to Fort Macleod to do setup.
  
  Suggestion: If we're short on course setup workers for Fort Macleod or Red Deer events, how about the club pays for one or two course setup workers to stay in a local hotel the night before?
  
  
• Live timing has been a challenge for several years now, and it was a bummer today not having any live timing at all. My old region used to print a hard copy of the results after every run (i.e. Heat 1 Run 1, Heat 1 Run 2, Heat 1 Run 3, etc.) and tape them to the back of the timing trailer.
  
  Suggestion: There are dozens of printers on Kijiji for under $50 -- how about we buy one and use it to print results in semi-real-time?
  
  

Thoughts? Other ideas?

[MurrayPeterson]

Any idea why the live timing failed today?  I understand the issues with iPhones, but other than that, it has been reliable until now.

[YAnderson]

Yvonne and I are almost always at the Fort Macleod site before 7:30 to help with setup, as is Tom Millard. There are usually others waiting and willing but we would need a cones and a good map. Red Deer would be the same as both venues are too far for us to drive in the morning.

[PedalFaster]

I wasn't in timing, so I can only speak to the symptoms: the wireless network was visible, but scores.com was not resolvable. This was the case for everyone.

As far as the people running timing could figure out, everything was running.

On a related note, we should consider building "how to set up the timing system" and "common failures and how to address them" lists if we haven't already. Still think printed results would make for an easy and reliable backup, too.

[MurrayPeterson]

We do have a "How to set up the timing system" document; it is in c:\mjtiming\documentation\mjtiming-setup.docx.  There is another one for the Farmtek hardware (farmtek-setup.docx).  If they are not detailed enough, we should fix that.

If we can come up with a list of common failures, I would happily add another document.

[94boosted]

Some thoughts prompted by today's operational hiccups:

• We had to reuse an old course today because no one volunteered to design a new one. Speaking for myself, I've designed courses for past events, and would be happy to design more, but I'm physically incapable of showing up at Fort Macleod at 7:30 a.m. to set up. I know this is true of at least one other recent course designer.
  
  Suggestion: How about we decouple course design and course setup, so that the people who like designing courses can do even if they're not morning people, and leave setup to the early risers?
  
  
  

This should work nicely, I'd be happy to help set up some of these[/list]

[Type_Yarr]

Murray, I assume the issue with live timing had something to do with the red alternate computer. We used that computer to confirm that both of the club’s timing computers were functional, and it was first event we’ve used it this year. The router and MJannouce were set up as usual, and reset multiple times the same way the instructions recommend. Not sure if it’s related but the displays also did not show dirty/DNF in front of the times.

Stephen, the club has a printer if you would like to bring it to events for printed results. We also used to have a short driver’s meeting at the end of events to go over results and allow everyone to view the results on the timing computer, but most people wanted to save the 10min and view the results when they got home.

As for course set up, I feel one of the main contributors to the issues setting the course up yesterday was that the designer was not one of the people setting it up. The benefit of having the designer responsible for set up is that the thought that goes into the flow of the course carries over into a more efficient review and adjustment of the set up.

[MurrayPeterson]

Yep, the alternate computer would have been the cause of the problem.  The router is configured to automatically assign the black computer to a specific IP address, and then routes all incoming web requests to that address.  The new computer was assigned a differnet address, so no requests were send its way.

What you need to do in that case (a different computer) is one of several things:
1. Log into the router and re-assign the reserved IP for the new computer's MAC address (and then reconnect)
2. Log into the router and change the DNS routing settings to send the requests to the new computer's address (this can be a painin the butt, since you need an FTP client).
3. Look up the new computer's assigned IP address, and tell everyone that scores.com no longer works, but they need to go to the raw IP address (e.g. 192.168.0.2)

Of the 3 solutions about, the easiest is #3 -- just have everyone go to the raw IP address.

[PedalFaster]

Stephen, the club has a printer if you would like to bring it to events for printed results.

If other people would also like to have the option to view printed results (again, I think after every run is the way to go), then I'd be happy to bring the printer to events assuming it fits in my car.

As for course set up, I feel one of the main contributors to the issues setting the course up yesterday was that the designer was not one of the people setting it up. The benefit of having the designer responsible for set up is that the thought that goes into the flow of the course carries over into a more efficient review and adjustment of the set up.

Agreed. Having said that:

a) Saturday's course was particularly challenging to set up because it used a lot of cones and had non-standard elements (an element that was taken differently on the way out than on the way back, an optional slalom). A more typical course would be much easier for someone who wasn't the course designer to set up; for example, we got Ryan's Airdrie course laid out very quickly, and Ryan only made small adjustments that any experienced person could have done.

b) While it's preferable to have course designers also do setup, I think we first need to ensure that we have course designers, period.