Accessing splits remotely before finish

[Joe Fertsch]

Hi Gang - I have a kids tri next week, one of 3 this summer.  In the past I only gave finish times and not splits at all - that went ok but hoping to change it this year.  

Also in the past I captured their chip start time manually as they entered pool when lanes would open.  This worked great and did not cause me to drag out much equipment to the pool start.  What I did years past was then download the chip starts to a memory stick from start pc and import them into the finish computer.  It worked but it caused a wait as I had to wait until all kids were finished starting in the pool, at that time many kids finished the  complete race.  This year I plan on saving the backup database on google drive or dropbox and import those start times throughout the race.  I have been testing it and it seems to work no problem.

Then I thought could i do this with the splits as well.  If I have the backup of the split computer that will be recording 2 splits - so I set that to 2 laps - set the backup to another drive folder then import the splits into the finishing computer.  I know If I have the finish computer set as one lap it will update that to 3 laps if I import splits in - I am not sure how that would affect it - Or could i just set the finish to 3 laps and when I import them it places them in split 1 and 2.

Has anyone remotely pulled splits or found a way to do this before the runners have left that splits computer - I know windows time need to be synched p pcs and all computers would need access to wifi   

Thank You

Joe 

Florida Race Day

JTF Racing 

[Patrick W]

The problem I have found with splits is that there is no way to define a read point as the "finish".  If you have a 2 split event (start, A, B, Finish) and you miss a read for whatever reason at A or B then your event won't say the person finished when they get a read at the finish point, that time will go into B and they'll show as unfinished.  Because of this I always have the finish happen on a single read setup, and my splits go into ART after.  My live results account for this as the various reading computers all populate only their own read points, so a missing split in the middle won't mess up the finish read, so I tend to use it as my primary reporting.

[Joe Fertsch]

Thanks Patrick 

I was thinking the same thing - Splits while nice before finish are not worth taking that chance.   Can I ask about your live results account, are you referring to Arrow.  I havent been using that in the last few years but I see how that could be possible however you would still need to imort the start time in correct? Also would you set just that split timing computer on arrow - or are you doing something completely different    I appreciate your insights

[Patrick W]

This is my own custom live results.  It connects to the ART data and builds live update data that looks at the times based on what splits each reader is capturing.  Was a bit of a PITA to get working, but seems to work well enough for my needs.  You do need to import the start reads/time into the finish data if you're using them, but most events I do tend to base off gun time when they're not using a common start/finish line so it is less of an issue for my use case.

[Alan Bingham]

Well if it's a TRI for kids, I would have them run through a gate at the end of the swim, then another at the start of the bike, it captures them going out and coming in, then another at the exit of the transition from bike to run, and then the overall finish. in most cases the one at the entrance of the transition area is the same one for the start of the run, and the bike exit return is also the same gate, so 3 systems, 1 at entrance of transition for exit of swim, start of run, and one at the bike end, for start of bike and end of bike. and then overall finish. This gives you swim plus anything it took to get to the transition area with out the transition of what it took to switch from swim to start bike, and then bike return also gives you what it took to bike, but removes the transition and gives a start of run and then the over all gives you the finish of run plus what it took to do everything. Now I know from start of race (swim to transition, Transition, then bike start and finish, then transition and finally run...and overall time with 3 readers. 

That's my suggestion. 

[Jordan Schmidt]

I just wanted to reply to a specific part about Joe's original post. Tonight I used a folder in a google drive as the backup database location on two computers located about 500m apart. I used my own phone hotspot at the finish line for the main timing computer, and the volunteer who was watching the timing kiosk as the phone hotspot on the other end. It went very smoothly and I think it was lot easier for me than a network drive and router, plus I had a long range to work with. I am going to do this again and would recommend it to anyone. 

The reason I went with google drive as opposed to dropbox is that my free dropbox account has a 3 device limit. 

Thanks Brian as always for the help and giving me the confidence to use this approach! 

More on topic, if I had been using splits, I would have used the same approach as well. 

[Micah Mobley]

I'm just now starting to get into splits and developing a quick, portable setup for my gear.  The stuff in this thread is exactly where my brain has been going every time I think about doing splits.  I'm going to be working a mid-major collegiate conference championship in late October.  I would love to be able to provide live splits, because they will have a media team streaming the event.  If I could provide live splits with split scoring as they hit them, it would be sooo freaking cool for their broadcast team to be able to use that.  I'm working an invite at the host school next Saturday and might try to get this stuff you guys have shared here up and running for that, to be able to provide splits with the final results...if that goes well, I will definitely be trying to get some kind of live split stuff going after that. 

As always, you guys in this group are a big help.   

[Alan Bingham]

Have you heard of a web drive? I haven’t set one up since before Covid, seems that Covid put a hold on a lot of timing events for the high schools and colleges, but my club was still doing things, but I didn’t use the web drive. 

Since I have a website I have used things that the hosting service officers, such as the web drive, which is a folder on my website, but on my laptop it’s a drive letter, so I can access it simply as if it’s a local drive on my laptop, but it’s actually a folder on my website. So things that automatically update results and save them to a local drive are easy to set up and have them update to my web drive throughout the meet. 

By using a folder on my website, every time I wanted to update for example results.htm I push a button and it overwrites the old file with the new file and the end user who are trying to view that file simply need to refresh their browser. 

So this works good for a file you want to link to on a website. 

If I were doing something with an ART database, instead of using a Google drive to pass the database to, I would map a folder on computer 2, and have ART send copies to that computer, and that computer would detect the changed database and load it for the kiosk. I could either send the data to the other computers via wire or wifi. 

So there are those options also. 

Alan

[Micah Mobley]

Ok.  That makes a lot of sense.  Definitely gonna try something like that later this week at some of my smaller meets.  Thanks man.