Hey, does anyone have the final standings for the Trials event at the convention? Just wondering, it’d be nice for all of us that didn’t attend to check out the standings.
Those of us that did attend do not know the standings either. These had not been worked out by the time of the final party. Not sure who is in charge of the presentation of that data, but I hope it finds its way here soon.
Also awaiting results in Muni and coasting.
Bruce
So no prizes were handed out at the end for these events? Or did they just mention the indoor skills events? Thanks for the reply, we’re all eager to hear the results for the outdoor events.
I LOVE it! Those of us that were lucky enough to participate at NAUCC did so with such glee and abandon that the actual results were, by far, secondary to being in the moment of the excitement and fun. What a wonderful testament it is to this sport/hobby/endeavor/obsession that hardly a mention has been made of the results besides in curious passing.
Tommy
Compiling results for all events is very time consuming and frustrating. I know from from first-hand experience at NUC 1999, NUC 2001, NAUCC 2002 and UNICON 11.
This is especially true for the, “outside,” events, including track and field events, all of the MUni events, and road races. There is a great deal of data that must be hand-entered into a Microsoft Access relational database application that Andy Cotter developed for the USA and the IUF a number of years ago.
As anybody who has attended a North American or world championship event knows, we award medals and / or ribbons to a mind-numbing set of age / skill groups. Data for each of these age / skill groups must be hand-entered, compiled and verified.
The MUni race and the 10K road race have further degrees of complexity. The results for these races are generated by two processes that must be merged to generate final placings. The first set of data is generated by a 500 memory (i.e., 500 splits) stopwatch. This watch is capable of both printing the finish times on a tape and dumping the finish times from memory to a text file that may be imported into Excel (and, eventually, the Access application). We use both methods just to be sure. The second set of data comes from the pull off tag we take from each finisher. The tag carries the race number of the finisher and is also color coded to indicate the rider’s division (either Unlimited or Standard). The tags are placed on a lanyard in the order of finish. To generate the final results, we must match the order of finish (i.e., a list of race numbers from 1st place to the last finisher, generated by recording the numbers on the tags on the lanyard) to the list of finishing times from the watch. As a last step, we have to add a fixed number of minutes to each rider in the Standard division (this year, 5 minutes for the 10K, 3 minutes for the MUni cross-country) to account for the offset imposed by staggered starts.
Before you say, “What you just described is nuts! There must be more efficient ways to compile results,” let me say, “You are right!” The problem is, of course, that the, “real,” systems and software designed to collect and compile results data more efficiently cost, “real,” money. Electronic timing systems start around $15K. A system that would meet our needs would probably cost about $20K. The meet management software used by most championship caliber events runs about $1.5K for a multi user (i.e., networkable, multi-tasking capable) package. This software would interface directly with the computer running the timing system and would eliminate all hand entry of results data. Results of each heat could be posted almost instantaneously.
Contrast about $22K for a decent timing / software package with about $250 (see the Ultrak 499 package at www.rainbowracing.com, “Printing Stopwatches”) for the watch / printer / cables (actually $0 - the watch we used this year was bought for NAUCC 2002 / UNICON 11 by Northwest CUE, Inc. and is now property of the Panther Pride Demo Team) and $3.50 per package of 50 pull off tags (see, “Small Races / Cross Country,” at www.rainbowracing.com).
On top of all of this, please consider the the NAUCC 2003 volunteer staff is most certainly in a complete state of burnout. As Gilby said, the results will be posted as soon as possible on the USA Web site.
Tom Daniels
President, Unicycling Society of America, Incorporated
Wow, that is quite a huge amount of stuff to do. I had no idea. When some group decides to run a competition, how do they figure all this out? Is there a handbook or what?
Trials results exist, and have yet to be entered into a computer anywhere. hopefully that will happen this weekend. Awards will be mailed out shortly afterwards.
The answer is, “or what.”
There is not a manual on how to run a NAUCC and / or UNICON. That’s one of the reasons the USA has been trying to establish a standing committee to help plan, organize and run events like NAUCC. We need to capture the knowledge, write it down and pass it on to future generations of organizers.
Things are well organized on the artistic side of the house. Connie Cotter has volunteered to serve as the Chief Judge and de facto Artistic Director for NAUCCs / NUCs / NUMs almost as long as anybody can remember. The problem is, what happens if Connie gets hit by a beer truck (e.g., one being hijacked by John Childs)?
Things are less organized in racing. There isn’t a recognized individual who steps forward each year and volunteers to run our track and field events.
MUni has been evolving and growing since I became involved with the sport in 1999. We took a big step last year with the introduction of the Kris Holm system for trials scoring. One of the areas of frustration from the strictly organizational standpoint is that many MUni riders don’t want to be constrained by a rigid set of rules and a strict schedule for events. They want the freedom to evolve the events on the fly.
Tom Daniels
Re: NAUCC 03 Trials
>Also awaiting results in Muni and coasting.
The winning distance in coasting was about 82 meters.
Sincerely,
Ken Fuchs <kfuchs@winternet.com>