Status of COMPMNGR's Judge's Handheld Marking Device System
First I'd like to thank the organizers of the Hill Country Classic Dance competition, David and
Shelly Vance, and the organizers of the Texas Challenge, Peggy Heeney, Rosendo Fumero, and
Phillip Stephens, for allowing me to try COMPMNGR's judge's handheld marking system at
their competitions. I'd also like to thank the Texas Challenge scrutineer, Leroy Walters, for his
help in keeping the system up and running. Since there appears to be a great deal of interest in
such systems, I thought it would be worthwhile to report on the status of the COMPMNGR
system.
A little history might be in order. An East Coast amateur dancer named Bill Smyth was designing
such a system around an early PDA (personal digital assistant) around ten years ago and
approached me about providing an interface with COMPMNGR. I developed an interface but
never got to test it since, for reasons I don't remember, he dropped the project. At that time PDAs
were pretty pricey, so a complete system based on such would probably have been prohibitively
expensive anyway. As a sidelight for you scrutineers, that PDA interface was the origin of the
"PLC" file method of backing up the judge's marks. Over the last couple of years the price of
PDAs with wireless networking capability has dropped substantially. More important, some
brands come with a version of the Microsoft Windows operating system which allowed me to use
a version of the Microsoft C++ compiler to write a little marking system program for them.
The COMPMNGR system consists of a wireless router, a notebook computer with wireless
networking capability, and several PDAs also with wireless networking capability. Three PDAs
were used in the system at the Hill Country Classic. Suffice it to say, the system did not work
flawlessly. The biggest problem was that PDAs would randomly lose their connection to the
network. Out of about 750 opportunities, connection was lost twenty or so times. In the event of
a lost connection a PDA did not receive heat information from the notebook computer running
the COMPMNGR program. That problem seemed to occur randomly. Another problem was in
the COMPMNGR software. It required that either all judge's marks come from PDAs or all
transcribed manually from paper marking sheets into the COMPMNGR scrutineer's data entry
box. In spite of these problems there appeared to be enough promise to justify continued
development.
So I modified COMPMNGR to allow a mix of PDA marks and paper marks, made some other
modifications based on what I learned at the Hill Country Classic, and bought six more PDAs for
a total of nine. I also bought plastic cases for the PDAs and mounted them to clipboards which
also hold paper marking sheets. That way, in the event of PDA failure or judge confusion, the
judge could quickly switch to paper marking while I rebooted the PDA. That was the system
which was tested at the Texas Challenge.
Things went somewhat better at the Texas Challenge, although by no means perfectly. The
problems fall into four categories: software, hardware, procedures, and training. The software
actually performed pretty well with one exception. Partway through the Friday Matinee session
we discovered that if a heat contained a "scratched" entry COMPMNGR would not send all the
heat information to the PDAs. However, I repaired that problem by the end of the day so testing
was continued on Saturday and Sunday. I am now pretty happy with the reliability of the
software, although I may make a few more modifications to make it easier to use and trap some
user errors.
The second problem area was hardware. Once again, there was a problem with PDAs losing
connection with the network. On Friday the wireless router was located on a dinner table in the
corner of the ballroom. Saturday and Sunday the router was mounted on the dais, higher and
more centrally located. The higher location seemed to help somewhat but certainly didn't solve
the problem. It appeared that "dropouts" were more common during awards breaks, when the
judges would walk around the ballroom carrying their PDAs. That, plus the fact that the wireless
connection is so much more reliable in my usual (home) test environment, leads me to speculate
that interference from other networks around the hotel is at least partially responsible and that a
more powerful wireless router might help the problem. (I had bought one of the cheapest models
for early testing and had never replaced it.) Also, one of the judges, Patrick Johnson, told me that
a later generation of PDAs provides more reliable wireless communication than the generation
used in the COMPMNGR system. I plan to buy a more powerful router model before the next
test, but can't afford to replace all the PDAs.
The third problem area had to do with procedures. Any hardware system can suffer component
failure. To keep things going smoothly fallback procedures are required. In the COMPMNGR
system the fallback procedure is paper marking. When paper marking is used the master of
ceremonies usually announces a heat by calling out the competitor's numbers. If there are several
competitions on the floor at the same time, which is common in pro/am events, the judges write
down the numbers of competitors competing against each other. For example, in heat 112
numbers 101, 103, and 105 are competing against each other; 110 and 120 are competing against
each other; and 130 is uncontested. In the COMPMNGR marking system the COMPMNGR
computer sends such heat information to the PDAs just prior to each heat (to allow for late
entries and scratches) and the judge doesn't have to write down these numbers if his or her PDA
received the heat information. But the judge doesn't know if the information was received until
too late unless the correct procedure is used. That procedure requires the COMPMNGR
computer to send the heat information before the master of ceremonies announces the heat
number. If a judge's PDA has not received the information when the heat number is announced
he or she knows that he/she must write down the competitor numbers for paper marking. So it is
absolutely essential that the scrutineer, the master of ceremonies, and the judges coordinate their
efforts.
The fourth problem area was training, or lack thereof. Some judges are computer literate, and
some are proud of the fact that they are not. Moreover, PDA screens are small and packed full of
information and "buttons"which make the PDAs hard to manage for those with poor eyesight or
an unsteady hand. If the scrutineer, the master of ceremonies, and the judges are not comfortable
with the system and procedures the system will not work well and the competition will not run
smoothly. Probably the best training method would be to hold a mock competition involving the
scrutineer, the master of ceremonies, and the judges. The mock competition would familiarize
those folks with the procedures as well as the software user interface.
In summary, when the marking system is working properly it is way cool to watch and may even speed things up slightly under some circumstances. A couple of judges said they preferred the system to paper marking as it gave them more time to watch the dancers, but some judges didn't like the system. However it is expensive and is not as robust as the traditional paper marking system since in the paper marking system the judges have a lot of leeway in how they mark, and if they go too far afield the scrutineers and chairman of judges can fix things quickly. The marker system requires more training and coordination for things to go smoothly.
As to the future, I plan to make a few user interface improvements in the software and test the system a little more. Then I hope some enterprising and energetic young people will assemble their own PDA systems using the software so I can get out of the business of providing the hardware system and support at competitions. My interest is solely in COMPMNGR and its supporting programs.