'Automatic' buzzing rota system

[oipigface]

Should any CD be foolish enough during the winter leagues to ask me to be buzzer supremo, their competition will become a guinea pig for my proposed self-administering system for rotating buzzer personnel. The system consists of the two Correx boards pictured here plus two writable lists.

Although these boards look different, looks deceive since each has one yellow side and one red side. The idea is that a pilot is assigned initially to each base armed with one of these boards and a writable list (probably a clipboard for starters). When the pilot has buzzed at least n flights he may hang the board from the A frame so that the yellow side is readily visible to pilots who are currently landing. (n is a number to be chosen by the CD or buzzer supremo. Probably 4 for competitions with 15 or more pilots, but less for smaller numbers.) Landing pilots will be instructed to look to see if a yellow board is displayed. If they see one they should go to man the buzzer.  If the yellow board has been displayed for two flights, the buzzerman should turn it round to display red. The CD or buzzer supremo will then seek an immediate replacement. 

On taking over, the new buzzerman should write his name and the number of the first pilot in his spell on the list, which will be available at the base.

Note that n is a minimum. Pilots may stay on the bases longer if they wish.

Note, too, that the system can form the basis for an analysis of participation in buzzing. One CD has already suggested that penalties may be imposed for bad behaviour!

Comments and complaints welcome.

[Phil.Taylor]

Come on in - the waters lovely 

 

[wookman]

Not quite sure that is what Mr Oipigface had in mind as a comment Phil, but .

[Gromit]

Hi John,

              With yourself having more experience than most of being buzzer supremo, i'm happy to trial your idea in a coming winter lg comp.

 

  Stu. 

[Dave Elam]

Any way of making the buzzer task fairer has to be worthwhile so probably worth a trial.

On a related matter. How far away is F3F from having an automatic electronic timing system in regular use?

[oipigface]

30 minutes ago, Dave Elam said:

On a related matter. How far away is F3F from having an automatic electronic timing system in regular use?

I would guess very close. Last year's Vitoria Eurotour comp started with Alvaro Silgado's system, but it had to be abandoned after half a round because of failings which were traced to the fact that not all the connections had been made properly. (With three computers, four cameras, and loads of relays, in addition to the usual gubbins in the middle, this is easy to do with Alvaro's system.) I watched it working in parallel with the human buzzers during the second round, after Alvaro had sorted the problem. It was flawless, and a little bit in advance of the humans. (For more, see my article in BMFA News.)

Meanwhile, Axel  Barnitzke has been working on a two-box system using fisheye lenses and therefore only two cameras. I haven't heard any reports of how this is progressing.

There are probably others tackling this as well, but I don't know anything about them.

[Brett82]

6 minutes ago, oipigface said:

Meanwhile, Axel  Barnitzke has been working on a two-box system using fisheye lenses and therefore only two cameras. I haven't heard any reports of how this is progressing.

I think this system is being tested by Pierre Rondell and a couple other pilots with good results. It uses a RaspberryPi at each base with a fisheye lens and then a third box in the middle doing the timing connected by wifi. This then feeds into a tablet or PC running the race manager software. Much cheaper then having three laptops to run the setup. 

I was messing about with Mark's race manager program on the weekend. I kept wondering why he couldn't use the RaspberryPi system with a cable (not wifi) going from both bases straight to the headphone jack on the tablet. The PI's do the work and just send a signal when passing a base and headphone jacks are capable of receiving a signal. It would be a far more simple system and new tablets these days should be powerful enough to run the race manager software and do the timing at the same time (without noticeable latency). Using the headphone jack would free up the USB for charging and the bluetooth to be linked to a second phone so people can check on the standings during a race (this is already designed into Mark's system). 

Im not smart enough to know if Im right though. Hopefully Mark can give us an expert opinion. 

Brett

[Brett82]

Although, I just thought it might be an idea to use the Bluetooth to link to a speaker that can be placed right by the pilot.