Team results for Male, Female & Co-Ed teams

[Ohio Race Day]

This coming weekend we are timing an Adventure Race (bike - canoe - run) that is a team event.  The RD wants results by overall categories of teams.  The categories are Male teams, Female teams and Co-Ed teams.  I've moved columns around on the spreadsheet to import the funny team names as the "Last Name" and kept the "First Name" the same.  Since the "Class" column is more designed for Freshman, Sophmore etc, it is not being used.  The "Teams" column will be used for the Male/Female/Co-Ed designation.  That helps with how overall results are printed.  But the problem I am having is getting the software to sort by those respective team categories (Male/Female/Co-Ed).  Any suggestions?  I even tried changing the ages (10 years, 20 years, 30 years) to match up with the categories and then sort by age groups.  But that doesn't work because the age groups are further split by gender in the results.  Confused yet?  LOL.  Let me know if you (other users ... not Brian)  have any suggestions or workarounds to solve the category problem.

[Kevin]

I pretty much always end up in Excel for anything but basic/preliminary reports. Score the categories as individual races and then combine all in Excel and sort for overalls maybe?

[Ohio Race Day]

That's a good thought.  I'm only half-decent with Excel but if I time all three team categories (Male/Female/Co-Ed) in one race and then sort for those same categories ... I wonder if Excel would leave them in overall time order ... by category.  Back to the drawing board.

[tiberiu.gindu]

If you export to excel the race resuts which are already ordered chronologically then it's simple to preserve / re-do this order:

- you cand sort the data using the Chip Time column;
(this can provide weird results if those cells are not properly formatted)

OR

- you can add a column "Exported_Order", have it auto-numbered from 1 to the maximum number of records (number of athletes). Now, even if you sort all the data (including this added colum) according other criteria, you can revert anytime to sorting after Exported_Order, ascendind...

[fred]

You can sort on multiple columns in Excel, so that is not a problem.

[Ohio Race Day]

I got an answer by email today that stated ...

"I did this once by creating a separate race for the coed teams ( and I added the word coed to the race name). That way when I did the results only the coed people were in that race and male and female were in the other race."

[Brian Agee]

Just getting a chance to read this post.   Yeah, if the race director basically wants three separate results (results by Male Teams, Female Teams, and Co-ed Teams) then it sounds like you should create three separate races in the software. As you know, it's extremely easy to start all three races a the same time and this would give you three separate printouts by pressing a single button on the clock screen.

If you needed to combine all of these participants into a single set of results that shows all teams then you can use the "Combine Events" feature of the software to merge everyone into a single event and then print the results.

[Ohio Race Day]

I'm hesitant to create three different races in order to do the sorting only because we are grabbing a chip start (first time for me) and two splits (one is two miles away, first time for me) on the course and using our new Hu-tags (triathlon ankle tags, first time for me) and we may be dealing with rain and it is a first year event and we'll need remote power in this event.  I feel like I have enough balls in the air to juggle already.  But maybe that is the answer.  I was really hoping to keep it all in one race and sort it via the Results screen.  I'll need to decide today.  The race is tomorrow.

[steve...@gmail.com]

For what it's worth ... I've done multiple races at the same time many times and it's been flawless.  The only thing you do differently is check off all the races before you start the clock and other than that the software just handles it.  It's going to be much easier than trying to separate them afterwards in my opinion.

[Ohio Race Day]

We've timed a handful of 5K/10K/Half types of events that have the same start time so I'm familiar with how that all works and do like how the system sorts the participants to the correct race.  But, I've never grabbed a chip start for ANY race (always just a gun start) and am nervous about that probably more than anything.  The splits are icing on the cake for the RD, she understands we've not done that before.  But for safety reasons she doesn't want to start 126 bikes at the same time on a narrow parking lot lane to a bike path so we've decided to send them off in waves of four riders every five seconds apart.  They'll pass slowly in front of the antennas and I'll grab their chip start times.  I've tested that and feel better about it. I have not tested doing that on three separate races at the same time.  Not much time tonight but will probably have to do it as suggested here. 

Can we print chip finish times from the Clock Screen?  I don't think we can.  I'll probably back out of the Clock Screen and print them from the View Reports page.  I'm hoping to not have to export to Excel and mess with that.

The one good thing ... no race day registration.  The race is full and I have the spreadsheet to play with.

[Brian Agee]

"Can we print chip finish times from the Clock Screen?" 

Hmm, I know the Public Display can show Chip Time or GunTime (see the "Display Chip Time" feature on the TV tab) however I believe if you want to print results based on Chip time then you have to manually pull up the report screen to view the Overall Results, and then tell the report you want the results based on chip start time.

[Ohio Race Day]

Welp.  Here is my follow up post. 

The event went well!  I took the advice given here to split it into three separate races that started at the same time (male, female, co-ed) similar to a 5k/10k/Half.  Our new ankle tags (Hu-Tags) worked like a charm. In the morning confusion and due to the weird course (out and back bike, out on the canoe, back on the run) I set up the antennas on the WRONG side.  Good golly!  But we didn't miss a single ankle tag despite that.  Two canoes had tipped over so I know they got wet.  Heck all the tags got wet because it rained pretty steady for about 10 minutes.  We went with these tags because we knew some participants would change shoes along the way.  They "display" well on the ankle.  We used the neoprene/velcro ankle strap and not the tyvek version.  With ankle straps and shipping, I think we have about $7/each in them.  We'll still use Agee's tags for regular road racing events.  These tags fit this application, 'though.  Here is the link for the product. 

http://www.hutag.com/default.aspx

The chip start went pretty much flawless from what I could tell.  The RD sent off groups of four riders (two teams) right past us on their way to the bike trail at ~ 5 second intervals.  She told them that their race started when they passed our spot.  That was cool.  We sent them off with a "Good Luck!"  or "Go tear it up!" as they passed us.  I saved that database (finish line main rfid laptop) on the thumb drive and loaded it onto the manual back up laptop and then drove over to the first split spot (end of bike) and loaded onto that laptop.  I got the laptop up and running and the reader listening with only about 2 mins to spare before the first bike came in.  It was only a 5 mile bike distance.  This race is more for fun than competition but had 126 participants.  After witnessing the first split to be captured, I hopped into the vehicle and drove to the next split at the end of the canoe ~ 2.5 miles away.  I fired up that laptop and loaded the same database from the thumb drive.  I did not wait around for the first team in the canoe.

At the finish line the software sorted participants into their correct races.  But since we can't print chip times directly from the clock screen (only gun times), I waited until we had a good many finishers and then minimized the clock screen to print overall results from "View Reports" button.  I pushed a copy of the database to our SD card in the laptop before I left the Clock Screen. 

The few glitches were due to participants changing teams and races (literally 5 minutes before the start).  I corrected two of those and ran out of time for the third change.  Thank goodness their team time did not affect results.  The RD was very happy with how things worked out.   We have two more upcoming races in the works with her.  She's fun and very organized so we like working with her.  Although she did plug two coffee makers into the outlet we were to use for our equipment.  I saw that and decided to run everything off our inverter in my van.  Suspenders and belts, man.  You need back ups to your back up.

Upon return to the house, I tried five different ways to upload the splits.  First I copied the good RFID main laptop database to a thumb drive and then re-named it as "finish line database with no splits".  Then I copied the database from each of the split computers and re-named them "bike split" and "canoe split".  At the "Edit Race" screen there is a link that allows you to "Import Times From Remote Read Points."  After clicking that you are able to browse for those separate databases.  The splits uploads are slightly sketchy.  They took hold 4 of the 5 tries.  But I was not able to get rid of one split that had no time associated with it, despite only importing one "bike" and one "canoe" split.  Lastly it appears the splits are computed based on the gun time which is very inaccurate since I started the clock before the RD started the race when capturing the chip start.  You can do that since the chip start grabs the "last seen" time on the computer system clock and has nothing to do with the race clock, as I understand it.  I don't think the splits reflect the chip start.  See my results page here:

http://ohioraceday.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/KSU-Adventure-Race-Co-Ed-Team-results-2014.pdf

I've uploaded some photos and screen shots that correspond to the above narrative.

[rtspt.usa]

nice lead on the ankle tags.  was the company easy to deal with?

[nicholas.r...@gmail.com]

I've actually just placed an order with them. They say I'll get the chips THIS WEEK even though they're coming from the UK. They're answering emails even on a Sunday and including samples of each of their straps for me to try.
SUPER good company!

[rtspt.usa]

Ohio, i noticed in some of your other pics that your antennas are mounted pretty close together.

any advantages or disadvantages that you have noticed or is it a matter of simplicity in set up?

i was wondering if the signals might step on each other?

[Ohio Race Day]

@nicholas & @rtspt,

Hu-Tag was wonderful to deal with.  Here is the contact info I have for them:

Edward Yabsley
Human Tagging
Mobile: +44 7584043315
Email: edw...@HuTag.com 
Web: www.HuTag.com

I've had a couple of runner friends test both types of straps (Tyvek or the Neoprene) and the Neoprene are the preferred choice.  I'll plan on taking some Tyvek straps with me to events in case there is a sudden need.  We have 200 tags and 225 neoprene straps and 24 sheets of labels (not printed yet) at the moment.  That bill was ~ $1,400 with delivery. 

Regarding our antennas, I made a little cross bar that holds two antennas on one tripod stand.  It was only to clean up the appearance of the finish line.  See the attached photo.  I don't think it affects our tag reads.  We've had some races with 100% tag reads and some races without.  It sometimes is a mystery why we miss a tag.  Half the time the tag is tucked into the laces despite verbal instructions given over the loudspeaker before the race.

[Brian Agee]

I just wanted to chime in on the topic of 'tag confusion' (or the signals stepping on each other as you said).

To avoid tag confusion the reader only 'listens' (transmits) on one antenna at a time - of course it cycles through the antennas so fast that to the human eye it looks like all of the antennas are screaming at the tag at the same time, but in reality the tag is only reporting to one antenna at a time even if all of the antennas are pointed at the same tag.

Of course one reader has no idea what another reader is doing - so if you used a router and hooked up more than one reader to you laptop and then placed antennas from different readers next to each other then you might get some "tag confusion". Which simply means that instead of picking the tag up 200 times as they run through the finish line you might only get them 150 results back (of course you only need one read). I'm not sure if 'tag confusion' can cause erroneous data to get reported back to the computer or if it's just a lower read rate.

You may be wondering if having the TR200 antenna right next to the main reader's antenna would cause a problem. From what I've been told, the main reader pushes so much more power out than the TR200 that it kind of "floods out' the TR200 and there isn't much "tag confusion".  Of course if anything happens to your main reader then instantly the TR200 is the strongest reader and it picks up tags without any problem. So it's actually a good thing that your 'backup system' isn't as strong as your main system.

[Peak Performance Timing]

Brian,
So are you saying that if you use two readers, one on each side of the finish line, you may get a lower read rate than if you just use one reader and run covered cables across the finish line?

[Brian Agee]

Yeah, you'll want to avoid having antennas from two different readers screaming at the tag at the same time. If you're going to set up a separate system on the other side of the finish line then I would stagger the antennas in such a way that only one system sees the tag at a time.

[rtspt.usa]

i had a xc meet today and staggered my antennas. zero misses using dogbones on the bib.. i do cheat however and additionally use RM Timing mat antennas. i know Brian makes some very very good points in his opposition to mat antennas my feeling is if you are going to put a mat down anyway to cover cables might as well add another layer of security since as we know uhf isn't perfect.

anyway, as i was observing chip reads via the activity indicator it appears to me that even though the side antennas have a circular broadcast pattern the read area still seemed fairly narrow so i would say about a 2-3 foot stagger is adequate.

[rprout]

Would it be possible to get a picture of your antenna setup?

[ActiveIndy Events]

@OhioRaceDay - would you mind showing us an up close photo of the hardware you used to attach the crossbar to the tripod?

[rtspt.usa]

here are a few lousy pics.. after the pics were taken i actually closed down the stagger about 2 feet.

if i was not using mat antennas as well the first set of side antennas would be on the finish line.

as i mentioned above, the activity indicator showed that the read angle is fairly narrow (at least from what i could see).

i stole Ohio's double antenna mount idea. i bent the mounts back slightly so the antennas don't shoot directly at the same area.

antennas are about chest height because i used dogbones on the bib. if i were using shoe tags the tripods would be all of the way down about shin height.

as you can see gophers rule in California. not gas or traps allowed.. so Park's put up a ton of birdhouses to attract hawks and owls..

[Peak Performance Timing]

Rtspt,

Couple of questions: do you use foam spacers on bib tag inlays? What percentage of reads were picked up by mats? Where did you get those orange equipment cases ? :)

[rtspt.usa]

no foam spacers for yesterday's meet.. just a single vertical dog bone. although for a bigger event i am debating whether to use a foam spacer or 2 tags per bib. the foam spacers seem fairly expensive compared to another tag...then again i am not sure if lousy weather and muddy conditions warrant a spacer more than another tag...

from what i could tell there were only about 4 "late reads" (assuming these were picked up by the side antennas) out of 2 races with about 70 per race.

i have been very surprised as to the reads spot on over the mat antennas at the finish line..

each orange pelican case (#1550) houses a reader, ups, switch and fan.  its a carry over mentality from my track and field timing where i have travel and weather proof cases housing my devices and connections then all i need to do is run a cat5"s and power to my computer area.

i added a simple laptop usb cooling pad that plugs into the usb port on the readers (motorola and impinj).  it REALLY makes a difference.. i didn't realize how hot the readers can get even if the case is wide open..i recently fried a motorola reader on a super hot day that was in the shade so i decided that a fan was needed.

[Peak Performance Timing]

Great idea for cooling pads! I get concerned about reader temps and the climate is mild here in the PNW.

[jonjkinzer]

If you go to Home Depot of Lowe's and get the camper shell foam (about $6 for 30 feet). You can do about 100 tags per 30 feet.

[rtspt.usa]

ahhh, great idea... wow, that is alot cheaper that the pre fabbed one's.

[Peak Performance Timing]

YES!

[joshspiker]

We use foam tags from Race Result...they come precut on a roll (3000 for $200+ s/h) so extremely fast to apply. We can apply roughly 100 rfid tags and foam tags to a bib in about 35 minutes.

I have not timed enough races without foam spacers to know the different read rates but I timed a 5K with 400 runners and no foam tag and had 5 missed reads...I think all of them were on people near the front. I may have 1 or 2 missed reads when I use a single tag with a foam strip with a similar sized race.

I believe both moisture and speed effect whether you need a foam tag. If someone is sweating heavily and running fast the bib/tag is more likely to stick against the body. Even though the foam tags are thin they create enough separation.

[Peak Performance Timing]

Do you have a link or contact info to procure those tags Josh?

[jonjkinzer]

I found them here: https://www.raceresult.com/en-us/shop/RaceResultSystem.php

[Peak Performance Timing]

Thanks!

[joshspiker]

Thanks jonjkinzer. Their US rep (they are based out of Germany) is Mark Bockman ( mark.bockmann at raceresult.com ) if you have any questions. Although they ship out of Germany its pretty fast (I think a week or so) and shipping was very reasonable. ICTag Solutions has foam rolls as well that come out to 5 or 6 cents a tag but it is not precut..personally would gladly pay a couple cents extra for the time savings precut offers.

They have high quality full color bib numbers as well. https://www.raceresult.com/en-us/shop/bibnumbers.php