Thoughts on an external display

[Alizarin]

I know that design by committee usually doesn't work, but I wanted to toss an idea out there and get some feedback, maybe some better ideas.

I'm starting work on an external display to replace the whiteboard. My current idea is to just mimic the whiteboard with a table display of the car numbers (by class) and their times, and perhaps a list of the 10 most recent times across the bottom.

Or perhaps just show the 10 most recent across the bottom then the classes, with everybody ordered in current standings? I don't know what people want to see. By showing the times across the bottom, it eliminates the "what did I just run?" question that not showing all times for each car would bring up.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Discuss.

[Solar]

Is there enough room to put every car's time for the day on one screen?

2¢

I'd think everyone would like to be able to see their time all through the day, and the top times on the bottom would be really cool too!! (would they be in a scroll?)

[WAFlowers]

What you do should be dictated by the size of the display and the pixel resolution. You don't want to force people to almost press their noses to the display to read teeny-tiny text in order to fit everything on the screen at once.

Also keep in mind the difficulty of reading many displays in full sunlight. Large fonts help but take up more pixels, reducing the amount of data you can display at a time.

Consider scrolling through the data. Bring up a screenful, wait long enough for people to find the results they are interested in, then bring up the next screen. It isn't ideal, but would allow the use of larger fonts and still present a lot of data; just not all at once.

[Loren]

What Bill said.

Ideal would be a medium-sized touch screen. Maybe show a large (easily readable) grid with a block for each class and the best time (with driver/car info) in class. Then when a person clicks (touches) a class, it shows full results for that class, a scrollable list of all drivers and times.

Perhaps even an option to "show all" and scroll through the results for all drivers.

The board, as cumbersome as it is, is convenient in that all you have to do is get within 6-8 feet of it and you can usually read your times. You don't have to get right on top of it, and you don't have to touch it. I don't think we can duplicate that level of convenience (to the driver) with a computerized display.

I hesitate to say this, but... "cool factor" aside, what are we aiming to gain from this? Freeing up one worker in each run group? Think about the hassles involved... the fragile equipment that needs to be transported and stored and set up at each event. There's something to be said for simplicity.

I'd rather spend our extra money on better lunches. 8) Or, if there's THAT much left at the end of the year, on prizes for the season trophy winners... gift certificates for tires, stuff like that.

Or, if we're itching for cool equipment... wireless timing.

[Jack]

i agree, keep it simple , if it is not broke, no need to fix it!
spend the money on wireless timming that will help alot. or ????
martians just went to that system it works sweet!
no cords to wind up ect.

[WAFlowers]

martians just went to that system it works sweet!

Aliens invading the autoX world! :shock:

Bad enough those damned Canadians keep showing up.

[Alizarin]

I think I've got a display that can handle a large enough display area, even with large fonts. I could try and key off what run group we're in, but I rarely set those up in the computer because we can never seem to run without having to split up classes for whatever reason.

As for showing everybody's times, I haven't done a test yet since I'm still writing the parsing code, but I probably will try and pull out Visual Basic to slap together a few concept GUIs. That will give me a good idea of what I can fit with good font sizes. The display I have can do all the way up to 1900x1200, but starts to get a little fuzzy since it's not quite that high of a resolution display. Looks great in 1280x768 though.

Obviously, touch screen is out, but I'd personally would prefer to just have something that shows times rather than people having to interact with. If that sentence makes sense.

[Loren]

spend the money on wireless timming that will help alot. or ????

Wireless timing, if it's of high quality, would remove the reliability issues of cabling (which we haven't had any of lately, but do occur) and the worry over drivers running over timing cables. The big advantage would be in course design flexibility. As it is now, start and finish must be within a certain distance (whatever cable length we have) from the trailer. With wireless, that distance would be greater (though not unlimited).

[WAFlowers]

Forget the remote display.

By a WiFi router, run a web server and let those of us with WiFi BlackBerry's and similar to get at the data that way!

[Dave-ROR]

Just hook up the monitor to the VGA output of the laptop, problem solved.

[Alizarin]

Just hook up the monitor to the VGA output of the laptop, problem solved.

But then people might keep asking us to scroll up to see something else.

[Dave-ROR]

Just hook up the monitor to the VGA output of the laptop, problem solved.

But then people might keep asking us to scroll up to see something else.

Tell em to get lost.

It's only for informational purposes, if you can't get to it within what, 5 minutes after your run, too bad.

[Jamie]

I...I rarely set those up in the computer because we can never seem to run without having to split up classes for whatever reason.

What? We split classes a few times last year. Haven't even come close since the classing adjustments in August. Yet the whining goes on....

[Alizarin]

I...I rarely set those up in the computer because we can never seem to run without having to split up classes for whatever reason.

What? We split classes a few times last year. Haven't even come close since the classing adjustments in August. Yet the whining goes on....

Who said anything about whining? I was going to take a cheap shot at Brian for running out of class last month and screwing everything up.

And you're probably right about the new classing. I just haven't really paid attention to it. Call it entrenchment in the old ways if you must.