Timing an Event With ElfScore



Timing a Cross Country Event With ElfScore©

© Copyright 1991-2010 by Alan J Avery

1. Overview

ElfScore© utilizes 3 separate items to time an event:

1. A database containing info about each entry in the event.

2. A folder containing the database and additional files with parameters for the event.

3. One or more timing devices (e.g., TimeMachines, chip timing readers) to collect elapsed times of participants at various timing location checkpoints, such as the finish, or at one or more intermediate points where split times are desired.

The Elfscore database stores the following about each entry:

• Their bib number, name, sex, and school (required for computing and verifying team results)

• Because cross-country meets do not consider ages of individuals, no ages are recorded.

• Optional info such as grade, coach, race and DQ, in case an athlete is disqualified. If multiple divisions (1, 2, or 3, or 1A, 2A or 3A) are running in the same race, a Code field will be needed to indicate which division each athlete belongs to.

The folder files store:

• General information, such as where, when, race director, and the distance(s) and name(s) of the event(s). For example, some of the races may be shorter than others.

• Report scripts used to generate listings for registration, results and awards, and for uploading to the Internet later (or to generate reports of current team standings while the race is in progress, which we do at the Illinois IHSA State Meet after the 1, 1.5 and 2 mile split points are passed by a sufficient number of runners).

• Results collected from various timing devices, or entered via bar code reader or keyboard.

The Timing Device stores the elapsed time of the event at any instant, and may be expressed as a time of day (often the case with chip timing readers), or the time since the start signal was given (often the case if a TimeMachine or other handheld timer is used).

ElfScore© gets the elapsed time for a participant by one or more of several methods:

1. Manual – entered via the keyboard (possibly using an internal timer).

2. Automatic – imported from an external timer (e.g., TimeMachine or chip timing reader).

Elapsed times can be manually matched to participants by:

• Keyboard or Keypad entry

• Scanning bib tag barcodes

• Comparing select times to separate bib and number data.

Elapsed times are automatically matched to participants by:

• Chip information when a transponder is detected as it passes a sensor. Here, both the bib number and time is recorded in Elfscore as the chip data is processed.

If using a chip timing system, the gun time is usually used in a report to assign a start time to all of the participants in a particular race. Once entered, Elfscore can be set to automatically subtract off this start time to give you just elapsed times at the finish or other timing points.

*RACE RESULT REPORTS

The act of timing an event and matching elapsed times to participants in order of their finish is a simple one-on-one relationship. A simple race that only reports the name and time of finish requires little in the way of data processing. Races having reports that give more information require more data processing and the EVENT files structure these reports and tell ElfScore© how to manage the database for the event … let’s practice setting up an EVENT folder for a simple cross country event with 2 races.

ElfScore© comes with sample EVENT folders that contain all the files needed to score an event. We will hold a pair of simulated 3 mile cross country foot races as our event. We will call this event the “XC Invite”. We will use 09/16/2010 as the event date. We will want 5 members of each team to count in the scoring, 7 displacing, and position 6 used to break ties between teams that earn identical scores, with any additional team members ignored in the calculation of placing. We will want to print results for all complete teams, and for all individuals. To set up the event:

2. Setting up the Race

Start up ElfScore©

Make a folder for the race.

1. Close any open event by clicking on “File” and then clicking “Close Event”.

2. With no event currently open, click “File”, and then click “Open” The Open Database dialog box displays.

3. The ES_XC2 folder has an event similar to XC Invite, and is the sample we will use. Double click the ES_XC2 folder and then click Open.

4. Click “File” and then click “Save As”

5. We replace the C:\ELFSCORE\ES_XC2 suffix with a new suffix - XCInvite which identifies our event as C:\ELFSCORE\XCInvite

6. Press Enter, and the event files are quickly copied to this new folder. Click OK.

7. You’ll be asked if you want to open the database for this. Click Yes. You are now in the XC Invite event database.

Next, we’ll modify the files so that they will store the information specific to the XC Invite event (notice that we’re not altering the sample ES_XC2 folder).

We want the XCInvite event files to show the information about the XC Invite…… BUT…… any changes we make in one XCInvite event file needs to agree with each other file in the XCInvite event folder. Before we start modifying files we need to look at some guidelines.

About files in the ElfScore© program

Here is a list of the race files that store race-specific information.

Please pay special attention to the ENTRIES.VAR file. Its specially prepared contents affect almost all of the report files, since its values are substituted in reports whenever the corresponding value in braces, say, {RaceName1}, appear.

While this may seem a little odd at first, you will quickly appreciate its usefulness, since it vastly reduces the number of files you need to change in this week's race to get ready for the next race. Race timing and results has plenty of work and stress in it. ElfScore is designed to maximize the amount of work you can accomplish in the limited time you have available.

Entries.VAR

Has user-defined variables that store the race name, location, weather, directors and sponsors, the names and distances of the events. These variables are used in multiple report files as part of the header.

Has user-defined variables that store much information specific to this race, such as race name, director and weather. The variable names appear in the first 20 columns, and the values associated with them start in column 21 of the same line. For example:

* Variable Value ( Tip: A line starting with '*' is a comment.

RaceName1 Varsity Girls Cross Country

The variables stored here are used in multiple report files.

!Note! Be VERY careful when changing or deleting variables in this file; you may find that a few dozen reports suddenly complain that a variable is no longer found.

Of course, if you add a variable, a report won't know about it unless you edit that report and put it in there.

Scoring Methods

Three sets of scoring methods, plus numbers for scorers, displacers and a position to break ties on, are provided. The default is for all of the races to use method 1. If all of your races will need slightly different scoring parameters, change the 1st set as needed.

If any of your races will need a 2nd scoring method, change the 2nd set as needed, and edit those reports that will use the 2nd method to uncomment out the 'TmScore2' line and to comment out the 'TmScore1' line. To ‘comment out’ a line, just add one or more ‘*’ (asterisk) or one or more spaces to the beginning of the line. To ‘uncomment’ a line, just remove any leading asterisks and spaces.

If any of your races will need a 3rd scoring method, change the 3rd set as needed, and edit those reports that will use the 2nd method to uncomment out the 'TmScore2' line and to comment out the 'TmScore1' line.

Printer Commands

This area has most of the values used by the report files that control how reports are printed (used extensively in files named PRTCTL and AGPRTCTL). Changing one or more of the values in this file changes them automatically in dozens of report files, because the PRTCTL and AGPRTCTL files are 'Included' in them by design.

Database Fields

Finally, this file has the names of the fields that store commonly used athlete information, such as first and last nmes of people. If your database has different names for any of these fields, edit them accordingly so they match your database fields exactly.

RaceName.A, RaceName.B, RaceName.ZZ

Is used in multiple report files as part of the header. Because these files are 'included' in many report files, changing it will cause the page header to change in all of these report files.

Events

Has the names of the files that will hold results information, which are the bib numbers and times. Names cannot have embedded spaces. The timing locations are TIME1, TIME1SEL (for storing Select timing data), TIME2, and TIME2SEL (also stores Select timing data).

PRTCTL

Has commands for printing all reports. See the ENTRIES.VAR file for a definition of the values used as parameters here.

The Records/Page command refers to the number of TEAMS that show per page on a team report. For example, if the Records/Page uses 10 then no more than 10 teams will appear on each page of the team report.

Division.EHT

If your database has a DIV field to store an age-group code for each entrant, you should change this helper table (Click Setup, Helper Table) so that the sex/age groupings and codes correspond to your race. This is usually not needed for cross country meets where ages are not recorded, however.

1_Team_Results.LST, 1_Individuals.LST,

2_Team_Results.LST, 2_Individuals.LST

These print the team results and the individual results, respectively, for each of the 2 races. The team results show, for each complete team (i.e., with at least 5 scorers), the place, score and name for each team and the name and individual places for each scorer or displacer. In addition, the total time of all scorers, their average time and the pack time are provided. Incomplete teams do not appear in the team reports, and finishers of incomplete teams do not get an adjusted place. Of course, if you want incomplete teams to show in the report, or to magically get adjusted scores to appear in the list, ElfScore has commands for this as well.

@1_Top_Teams_and_Individuals.LST,

@2_Top_Teams_and_Individuals.LST

These print the top 5 teams results and the top 20 individual results for each of the 2 races. To show a different number of teams or individuals, just edit the Entries.VAR file and change the ‘5’ or ‘20’ to whatever you need it to do.

When these files have been changed, you should be able to print any report for the race, once the data needed for the report has been entered.

*The Reports Menu Custom Reports tool allows you to display the report files and easily create many types of customized reports, or to quickly change an existing report.

All custom report command files follow the same two simple rules of all ElfScore© command files:

1. Each report command must start in column 1 and begin with A-Z or a-z or a period.

2. Any parameters that are used with the command must start in column 21 or later.

Comments are highly recommended in report files, and can begin in column 2 or, if the comment starts in column 1, it must begin with a non-alphabetic character, such as * or Space.

A list of all of the commands that can be entered in a report file, explains what the command would be used for, and gives numerous examples of report files that use them is available in the help file.

The custom reports that can be created are simple text files that use commands to control one or more aspects of report behavior. For a typical report, these four items need to be specified:

• Where to send the report (if not to the printer), and how to lay out each page.

• What records to select.

• How to sort the records.

• What fields (or other items, such as timing data, Pace, etc.) to print (and in what order).

Changing the files:

1. We start by going into the “Setup” menu and clicking “Set Event Date”. You will see Event Date: and Event Name: - enter the correct date and race name then click “OK”. Even though ages are not calculated, this step assists a chip timer who needs to read in results from a file that has a date on each line.

2. We will next change the information in the “Event Variables”: From the “Setup” menu click “Event Variables”. The ENTRIES.VAR file appears - make the changes as follows:

*************************************************

* In this user variable file, we assume that there are 2 separate

* races: Girls and Boys. Because of this, there is no need to

* select for gender in the results.

*************************************************

* These are the general race information fields.

*************************************************

RaceDate 09/16/2010

RaceDirectors RJ Comair

RaceLocation Sterling, IL

RaceName1 Cross Country Invite Girls

RaceName2 Cross Country Invite Boys

RaceNameAll Cross Country Invite

RaceStart1 10:15 am

RaceStart2 11:15 am

RaceWeather Sunny, 65-68 degrees

That is all we need to change in the ENTRIES.VAR file but you should take note of the following:

*************************************************

* These are used in the report header section for the 2 races.

*************************************************

Header_1 GIRLS

Header_2 BOYS

*************************************************

* These are the distances for the 2 races.

*************************************************

RaceDist_1 3.0

RaceDist_2 3.0

*************************************************

* These are the names of the events that will be used.

* If you change these, you must also change the EVENTS file accordingly.

*************************************************

Event1 TIME1

Event1_Header GIRLS

Event2 TIME2

Event2_Header BOYS

*************************************************

* For teams: Indicate the number of people to score and displace,

* what position to compare to break ties between team scores,

* and what scoring method to use.

* Three sets of scoring criteria are included here; they do not

* all have to be used. To use a different team scoring method,

* just uncomment the one you want, and comment out the other.

* The files TmScore1, TmScore2 and TmScore3 use these, resp.

* Note: All report files default to use TmScore1.

* See the ReadMe.txt file for more information.

*************************************************

Score 5

Displace 7

TieBreak 6

ScoreMethod1 Team Score

* ScoreMethod1 Team Score Dual

* ScoreMethod1 Team Score Place

* ScoreMethod1 Team Score Time

**-----------------------------------------------

Score2 5

Displace2 7

TieBreak2 6

ScoreMethod2 Team Score

* ScoreMethod2 Team Score Dual

* ScoreMethod2 Team Score Place

* ScoreMethod2 Team Score Time

**-----------------------------------------------

Score3 5

Displace3 7

TieBreak3 6

ScoreMethod3 Team Score

* ScoreMethod3 Team Score Dual

* ScoreMethod3 Team Score Place

* ScoreMethod3 Team Score Time

*************************************************

* Specify the number of teams to advance, and the number of

* individuals to advance.

*************************************************

TopTms 5

TopInd 20

*************************************************

* This is used for describing the default printer specs for reports.

*************************************************

LinesPerPage 70

RecsPerPage 55

RecsPerCol 55

*************************************************

* Specify a group of font sizes available.

*************************************************

FontSizeSmall 8

FontSizeMedium 9

FontSizeRegular 10

FontSizeBigger 11

FontSizeBiggest 12

*************************************************

* These are the names of fields that store an athlete's bib number, first and

* last name, age, gender, city name, state name, postal ZIP code, shirt size,

* course code, team name, team division code and wave code. These MUST MATCH

* the names of the fields in the corresponding database.

*************************************************

BibField NO.

FirstName First

LastName Last

AgeField AGE

SexField SEX

AddressField Address

CityField City

StateField STATE

ZipField ZIP

ShirtField TSHIRT

CoachField COACH

CodeField Code

TeamField TEAM

TeamCodeField TCode

YearField Year

*************************************************

We should now be able to print any report for the race, once the data needed for the report (e.g., results or registration) has been entered.

3. Entering Data through the Registration Form

Change the Look of the Form

The Registration Form can easily be changed to reflect the information wanted in the proper order. Go into the “Database” menu and click “Open Registration Form”, or just click the Registration button. Pass the cursor over each button on the button bar at the bottom of the registration form and note what each does. Increase the font size as needed for easy visibility. You can also easily change the color of the form by clicking “Design” and then “Set Form Color”, or just press F11 to cycle among a small selection of colors.

Change the Field Order of Entry

If you need to rearrange the order of the fields on the registration form, go into the “Database” menu, highlight “Tools” and then click “Delete/Rearrange Fields”. For now we will only change the order of the fields so do not “Check” any of the boxes. Click to the right of any field and the field will be highlighted. You can move the highlight to another field by using the up and down arrows on the keyboard.. You can also move the field up or down in the order list by using the “Move Higher” or “Move Lower” buttons.

Typically, for each school you are starting with a faxed or mailed roster with School and Coach listed at the top, and 2 lists of runners, separated by gender. First Name, Last Name, Sex and Grade are usually listed, with the Bib Number often printed to the left of each runner’s info. We can change the order of the fields to match this but one thing to keep in mind is late registration on the day of the event. What is critical to get the right printed results? Most important we need to identify the finisher with their Bib number, First Name, Last Name, Sex, and Team. Next in importance are the Grade, Coach, Race and Code.

After you have the fields arranged in your preferred order of data entry go back and open the registration form. You can easily change the spacing between the rows by highlighting the first field in the row and then pressing either F5 or F6 to move the row either up or down. To change the spacing between fields on the same row, press Ctrl+F5 or Ctrl+F6 to move the current field and all fields to the right of it left or right one column.

Make the Registration Form do some of the work

Tab from one field to the next and notice that if you tab past the “Sex” field a dropdown menu appears asking you to make a selection. To see why this is happening:

1. While in the Registration Form click “Field” and then click “Field Properties”

2. The “Field Name” will appear in a box at the top of the form.

3. Move to the “First” or “Last” field using the “Prior Field” and “Next Field” buttons.

4. See that the Data Type: is set to PROPALPHA – this enters the first letter as upper case and converts many common surnames such as O’Malley.

5. Next move to the “Sex” field and see that the “Carry” and “Required” boxes are checked.

6. Click on “Allowed Values” and see the “Female”, “Male” and “Unknown” values listed.

7. Next move to the “Team” and “Coach” fields and see that the “Carry” box is checked.

Requiring input for a field value:

We saw that we could not tab past the “Sex” field without being asked to make a selection. We were given the “Female”, “Male” and “Unknown” as “Allowed Values” values to choose from.

Temporarily entering the same value for a particular field in each record

When entering team members from a roster, we usually only want to enter the Sex, Team and Coach fields when their respective values change. For example, a roster may show a different coach for the male and female team members of a school. To assist with this, the “Carry” flag ensures that, when a record is saved, ElfScore will keep the value in these fields for the new, blank record that is shown. (of course, you can press F9 to clear these values for a new team roster) If you do not want to set the Carry flag, you could, instead, just press Alt+F7 in each of these fields, and the value that was stored in the same field from the last saved record will be pasted there.

Hiding Fields on the Registration Form

To hide the fields that you are not using:

1. While in the Registration Form click “Field” and then click “Field Properties”

2. Move between fields using the “Prior Field” and “Next Field” buttons

3. Now hide the “Code” field:

4. Click on “Attributes” and then check the box next to “Invisible” in order to not show it on the Registration Form.

By using these procedures you can change the appearance of the registration form to expedite data entry for a participant in your race. This is especially handy on a busy race day.

4. Practice running your race

Enter participant records into the database

Go into the “Database” menu and click “Open Registration Form”, or just click the Registration button. The form will appear with the “No.” field highlighted. As each record is saved the value in this field will increase by “1”.

1. Enter the starting bib number in the highlighted “No.” field.

2. Proceed by making sure at least the “No.”, “Sex”, “First Name”, “Last Name”, “Year”, and “Team” fields are completed before pressing F10 to save the record.

3. The “Sex”, “Team” and “Coach” fields will be filled in automatically as each new record is shown. If nothing was entered for a coach, then no name will appear, of course.

Enter enough participants in each gender for each team to allow them to be scored (i.e., at least 5 people per gender per team).

Importing a CSV registration file

Go into the “Database” menu and click “Import” and “CSV File, with field header row”. Select the file to import. A form will appear, asking you to match the name of the data column from the CSV file (left side) with the corresponding database field (right side). Verify that the column header for each field with data to be imported matches the database field name. If it does not, simply select the appropriate field name from the drop down control. If you do not want to import a field, simply select (none) from the drop down list.

Check your registration reports’ output

Go into the “Reports” menu and click “Show Custom (all)”.

Notice the “View Output”, “View HTML”, “Close”, “Run Report” and “Edit Report” buttons. We may not want to print each report as it uses a good deal of paper & ink. We can look at a report on the monitor by highlighting the report file and then using the “View Output” button.

Check your team listings first. Highlight ByTeam.LST and use the “View Output” button. Do the same for the Problems.LST report, which looks for those records with a gender other than M or F, or those with no Bib number. The MISSNO.LST report lists the first and last bib number assigned, and shows any unassigned numbers between these 2.

Enter some random times to check the results reports

Highlight the Simulate_Times_1.LST file and use the “Edit Report” button. Look at the construction and commands of this file:

* Puts in 100 simulated times for the 1st event.

*************************************************

** Select females with a bib number.

Select {BibField}

>= 1

And

Select {SexField}

= F

*************************************************

** Clear any existing timing data in the timing location.

Initialize Times

*************************************************

** Select a sample of up to 100 bibs and generate a time for them.

Simulate Number 100

*************************************************

** Use this timing location.

Location {Event1}

*************************************************

** Specify the distance we're generating the times for.

Simulate Distance {RaceDist_1}

To enter 100 random times we can double click the Simulate_Times_1.LST file in the file list or use any of the “View Output”, “View HTML”, or “Run Report” buttons when the Simulate_Times_1.LST file is highlighted.

We can now “View Output” of all result report files to check them. Verify that the team and individual results for each race work.

Clear Timing Data

At this point, all of our report files work and we have optimized our registration form to match our needs. We now want to practice entering times and matching these times to bib numbers. The current practice times need to be removed without losing our entries’ data.

The “Initialize Times” command is used to erase all times and Bib numbers from one or more timing locations. Use with caution. A safe way to do this is:

1. Go into the “Timing” menu and select “Clear Timing Data”

2. A check list of the timing locations appears –

3. Make sure all locations are selected

4. Then select either “Process Bib #s” or “Process Times” (or both)

5. Select the “OK” button

Go back and check that you entry data is unchanged and all associated race times are removed.

5. Timing

The ElfScore© program is used to time and score athletic events such as cross-country meets, road races, triathlon, duathlons, canoeing races, skiing races, etc. The process of entering or editing athlete’s bib numbers and times into the ElfScore© program is called timing.

Setting up the Timing Location(s)

Before timing an event, the ElfScore© program needs to know something about the timing locations that will be used. From the main program window, click Timing to use this option to access the Timing Location(s) that are part of the scoring and to put in bib numbers and/or times for the participants. Once the menu option Select Location is picked, a menu of predefined Timing Locations is displayed. Select the Timing Location desired and it will be displayed in the Timing Location form immediately.

Although the ElfScore© program has facilities for typing bib numbers and times, it is usually far faster to use its abilities to either transfer this information from an external timer or to use the computer’s clock to keep track of the time and just press a key whenever a participant crosses the timing location.

Note: If you are timing a race with multiple wave starts, such as a triathlon or time trialed event, if the time being subtracted for a participant is larger than the actual Timing Location's time, ‘-Time’ is printed for the time. For example, if a participant has a 1 mile split of 7:15:45, and a start time of 7:30:02, the elapsed time between these 2 is a negative time. This usually indicates that the athlete started in an earlier wave than what had been recorded for them in Elfscore.

Using a timing device to measure elapsed time

The ElfScore© program can keep track of elapsed time with an internal timer and also offers support for transferring information from numerous popular external timers and other devices, including:

• IPICO readers or files

• MyLaps or ChampionChip readers or files

• Winning Time files

• Chronotrack files

• RFID Timing files

• TimeMachine - all models

• Ultrak files

• TimeTech - all models

• Chronomix - all models, including the display clock

• PocketTimer - Timing system using the PalmPilot

• Chatsworth - model 1000 mark-sense optical scanner

• Bar code readers with numerous bib numbers, but no times

• Keyboards.

See the corresponding XX_Start.DOC file for some of the various chip timing setups for more info on connecting to ElfScore.

Start Internal Timer To activate the internal timer, complete the steps below:

1. Click Timing and click Internal Timer and click Start Internal Timer.

The Internal Timer Menu displays.

2. Type the time into the Timing Location (if it's under way) and click the “OK” button to start the timer.

The time can be entered to the hundredth of a second.

Capture a Time

Once “Internal Timing is activated”, ElfScore sets up “SCROLL LOCK” as the timing button. Each time “SCROLL LOCK” is pushed, one time is stored in the Timing Location currently associated with the Internal Timer.

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