Discussion: Nice job!
in: edwarddes; edwarddes > 2018-01-30
Jan 31, 2018 12:40 AM
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Still don't have splits out though.
That was a bit of a disaster, and learning experience. Handing out chips at registration instead of at the start led to some families mixing up their chips. That was exasperated by an error on my part due to chip R63 being out of order in the chip table due to it being a replacement for a a previously lost chip R63. R64-R99 then were all shifted by one in the translation table totally fucking the splits.
The data is all there, its just taking me a long time to sort it out.
This was our first event ever using the chips, and we learned a lot. It takes a venue like Craftsbury to be willing to help us learn those lessons. Supertour finals will be bigger and better.
That was a bit of a disaster, and learning experience. Handing out chips at registration instead of at the start led to some families mixing up their chips. That was exasperated by an error on my part due to chip R63 being out of order in the chip table due to it being a replacement for a a previously lost chip R63. R64-R99 then were all shifted by one in the translation table totally fucking the splits.
The data is all there, its just taking me a long time to sort it out.
This was our first event ever using the chips, and we learned a lot. It takes a venue like Craftsbury to be willing to help us learn those lessons. Supertour finals will be bigger and better.
Jan 31, 2018 2:54 AM
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Wow, timing a super tour weekend must be a huge undertaking. I can see why it would keep you busy for a while!
One thing that seemed funny at the marathon start was the different time sources not being in sync. There was the big clock that everyone could see displaying time of day. Then there was the PA announcer up the hill who seemed to be in a different time zone about a minute-ish behind the clock we were looking at. And then there was the race start signal, which went off with I forget exactly but something like 20 or 30 seconds to go still on the clock.
I should have expected that because despite being at my car putting some things away when the women started 15 mins before us, I remember hearing the start signal shortly before the announcer said something like "The women will be starting in just about 1 minute. Oh, here they come now!"
One thing that seemed funny at the marathon start was the different time sources not being in sync. There was the big clock that everyone could see displaying time of day. Then there was the PA announcer up the hill who seemed to be in a different time zone about a minute-ish behind the clock we were looking at. And then there was the race start signal, which went off with I forget exactly but something like 20 or 30 seconds to go still on the clock.
I should have expected that because despite being at my car putting some things away when the women started 15 mins before us, I remember hearing the start signal shortly before the announcer said something like "The women will be starting in just about 1 minute. Oh, here they come now!"
Jan 31, 2018 3:38 AM
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For a mass start, it is intentionally not on the clock. Ideally you on the start line can't see the clock, and the starter gives you a 30sec warning, and then the start signal can come any time after that at the discretion of the starter.
Depending on the level of the race, we either use the time of day start anyway for timing (it is the same for everyone in the mass start so it doesn't really matter), or we have a cable run to the start beep and capture the actual start impulse when the starter hits the button (for sprint heats where times need to be comparable between each heat to determine lucky looser)
For the marathon, the starter was giving the 30 second signal, and for each group seemed to be starting you about 10seconds after that, 20seconds before the time of day start. The announcer was on the AC porch up the hill with no connection to any of this, so was probably also surprised when everyone started coming up the hill.
Depending on the level of the race, we either use the time of day start anyway for timing (it is the same for everyone in the mass start so it doesn't really matter), or we have a cable run to the start beep and capture the actual start impulse when the starter hits the button (for sprint heats where times need to be comparable between each heat to determine lucky looser)
For the marathon, the starter was giving the 30 second signal, and for each group seemed to be starting you about 10seconds after that, 20seconds before the time of day start. The announcer was on the AC porch up the hill with no connection to any of this, so was probably also surprised when everyone started coming up the hill.
Jan 31, 2018 3:51 AM
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Getting announcing, timing, and video all coordinated is one of the difficult jobs in producing a compelling broadcast. As soon as anything starts to go wrong, the communication between everyone is the first thing to break down and everything turns into silos. On Friday we had to put in a delay during the sprint heats to sort out a lucky looser issue where one skier had gotten two different finish times due to an issue with the ids coming in from the transponders. Not a huge issue, but one that took concentration to fix so that we were assured we were doing the correct thing. Unfortunately nothing was communicated to broadcast or announcing about what was going on other than there was an issue and the start was being held, therefore no one knew if it was going to be a few min delay as it was, or if it was going to be a 30 min delay and they should put their warm ups back on.
This discussion thread is closed.