2018 WA IDPA state match

Facebook page for the state match

www.facebook.com/2018-WA-State-IDPA-Championship-233675953833835/

More from Euan

This will likely be more of a stream of consciousness than a single post on State Match and Stats

Whats Needed?
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1/ People want (and the RB demands) intermediate results, so you need some sort of scores out on the Sat night.
2/ People want to check their scores and then have the awards magically happen, so you have to have everything ready to go as the tablets start coming in and start prepping for the awards while everyone is checking their scores in the assumption that everything is right and redo if you get a fastball (like a stage being thrown out 5 mins before the end of arb).
3/ You will ask people to verify div and class when they register and when they check in and during arb, they will not and invariably you end up changing people after awards are given out when people come and complain about other peoples classifications, or people point out they were scored in the wrong divisions/class (despite the fact you asked them to verify 3x...)
4/ Make the awards process easy for yourself in terms of validating the awards you have
5/ Are you giving awards where there is only one shooter in the class(RB says don't have to, lots of matches do).
6/ Decide what to do with all the class awards you have to throw away(according to the RB you are not allowed to give a 1st in Class award to the Div Winner, this means you are bound to have to throw away the same number of first place awards as you have Div's, we thought this was silly and gave 2 awards, but got complaints)
7/ Remind yourself the match is not done for stats until the scores are uploaded to HQ (in an undocumented format that is a HUGE PITA, luckily PS now supports HQ's Import Format directly) and match bumps are calc'd (there is a discrepancy between the RB and the Match Admin guide here the RB is wrong)

Technology
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8/ Practiscore's results handling is getting better, iOS is better than Android, but trial run the results to see if you have what you need from it, I ended up writing custom programs to make this easier for us. What scores do you need in what format with what information when?
9/ Assume everything that can fail from a tech perspective will,
a) How many back up tablets will you have (we have 6 for a 12 location match)
b) What happens if the WiFi goes down
c) What happens about battery life, this is can be a real problem on the staff day and the saturday depending on your choice of tablet(we take the tablets in for a quick recharge at lunch time, we also provide backup batteries and last year a solar charger, if you have power even better)
d) What happens when a tablet craps out and you lose 4 squads worth of scores for a bay(we have used paper backup for the 4 years we have done tablets, we have had to use it 3 of those 4 years)
e) What happens when the SSO for a bay fills in the scores for their bay on the wrong stage and sync overwrites them (see d, paper)
f) What happens when you have to go back and change a score or penalty across all shooters who have shot certain stages, half way through a match like last year(no good answer it absolutely sucks and practiscore is of almost no help)
10) Only use 1 OS for the match, don't mix and match iOS and Android(or even flavours of Android) devices except MAYBE for a second master
11) Try to only sync one way, from master to bays, that way the bay tablets act as a form of back up (assuming that 9d and 9e don't happen)
12) Keep a map of which bay has which tablet number so you can easily debug any problems
13) Pick a version of PS in April/May that seems to work for you, test it and don't update the OS or the PS version until after state, check the change logs for the App in the store or web site to see if there are any crazy bugs getting fixed but if it is all stuff that does not impact you then don't update unless vital.
14) try to only make changes in one place to support 11, ie if someone is moving squads try to fix on master and sync down to bay tablets rather than make change on all bay tablets.
15) Keep up to date on shooter changes via the master on the Fri and Sat night, by that I mean correctly mark people as DNF, DQ or No Show, that way you will be able to use the red/green reporting in the results on PS to quickly see what the state of the scores is on the Sun. If you are trying to mark multiple shooters as DNF for 10/12 stages while there is nothing but chaos around you and everyone is pissed that the scores were not out 5 mins ago you will screw something up. This is especially bad at Renton as the stat shack is so small, people want to come in and "hang out" or drop off their buckets with their trash, tape, remains of lunches and live rounds while you are doing scores. I have dropped an AWFUL lot of F-Bombs and physically pushed people out of the shack during those crazy 10 mins over the last few years...
16) Have a laptop Windows or Mac and be able to export to it via email or dropbox or something else, its easier to debug stuff with a big screen and real keyboard. Oh also printing from these devices can be flaky, PC's usually more reliable.

I see you are using roving SO's will the tablets stay with the squad or the bay, if its bay and the tablet gets hosed then you lose a stage, easy to throw out, if the tablets go with the squad and crap out then you lose a squad and have unhappy customers, if you are doing the latter I would do paper backup as well.

More as I remember it.

-Euan

An update. Practiscore shows 40 slots remaining, out of 180. I would love to see it fill, so we can spend more money on prizes. But if it doesn't, we will still be doing fine with 140.

We are in need of SO's. I am thinking about adding an inducement, that being an SO/Staff special gun award. Drawing for a NICE gun. $800 to $1,000 value. I haven't decided officially, but I am leaning that way. The SOs are the backbone of the sport, and we have yet to get enough to have one SO to travel with the squads, let alone two. We have a dedicated CSO team, and I appreciate that. They will stay on the stage and make sure it is officiated correctly and efficiently. But, they will need breaks, which is where the roving SOs come into play. If we can get two SO's for each squad, it means you would be working as the SO a third of the time, running the tablet another third of the of the time, and getting ready to shoot the other part of the time. If you would like to step up and volunteer, (and get in the drawing), please let Belle or Erik know by phone to the office, 360-978-6100, or by e-mail.

We are putting the final touches on the stages. 10 stages, 170 rounds. They are coming together nicely, a good mix of speed, accuracy and movement. A little moving target, a little shooting on the move, some use of cover and a couple stages of maximum movement between shooting points. The stages should not favor any particular type of shooter over another, (like young v. old) and I believe when the match is over, the best shooters will be at the top of the ranking.

Also, the team decided to take out the 5x5 classifier, (against my wishes, but we are a team). It has been replaced with a very fast but accurate standards stage, We will give that stage a try at the next FAS match, (along with beta testing a couple more stages we are planning to run.

Hope this helps you all in planning.

Marty