[CompInaBox-discuss] MC's Control Station---

[Eric D. N. <nie...@MI...>]

During some debreifing with various people after the Harvard  
Competition, the concept of the MC's control station application came  
up again.

If there is anyone interested in working on a stand-alone CIB  
application, here's an interesting project:

This is a day of application for the MC/MC assistant to help keep  
track of upcoming events, judge panel changes, etc.

Ideally the MC station should have color coding for:
1) Which events have been scrutineered and are ready for callbacks
2) Which events are being scrutineered actively
3) Which events have run, but are in the queue
4) Which events have yet to start within these session
5) Some special indication for when extra rounds of an event is  
needed due to odd callbacks

It would also be nice to show how long the various judges have been  
judging (assuming the collegiate model of rotating panels within the  
shift, versus the NDCA version of 1.5-2 hours panels)

It would even be possible to link it to a music library/schedule to  
eliminate the need for a specific DJ.  (Not recommended for large  
competitions, but for smaller comps, or mock comps within a team it  
could be very useful).

If it knew the expected scheudule and could show the deltas it would  
make know if you/re ahead/behind easier.  If it captured the data on  
when the rounds ran it could even forecast and capture the amortized  
timelengths for better estimates for the next year, etc.

The application itself is rather simple, I think, crafting a useful  
communication link between the station and the various information  
sources and sinks is the tough part (ie it should be able to  
automatically accept data from Chester, CompMngr, S3 for  
scrutineering and should be able to power various projectors with pre- 
canned possible display choices   (upcoming schedules, current event,  
callbacks).  Perhaps also provide a way for the deck captain to help  
annotate no-shows/scratches for the initial heat distriburtion, etc

I 'm not likely to get a chance to work on this myself, though I can  
help specifically with parsing Chester data.  And I'm happy to help  
brainstorm, explain the concept more.  Anyone interested in running  
with this idea?

Eric