Discussion: E-punching
in: Jagge; Jagge > 2006-10-07
Oct 9, 2006 8:03 PM
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bubo:
I guess you got all SI cards back in one piece this time ;) - so what was your problem this time?
We (i.e. the organizers) had some problems with our SI cards for a while, but somehow they got their act together...
We (i.e. the organizers) had some problems with our SI cards for a while, but somehow they got their act together...
Oct 10, 2006 7:25 AM
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Three of our runners failed to clear their sticks. They did the "TÖM" and "Check" just right and everything was suposed to be OK. But at the start point sticks were dead and they had to run back to the event center. It was long way, 700 m one direction.
One of them was 12 year old girl. She was using SI frist time, so we expalined all this well to her and there were adults doing the clear operation with her. It is not possible they did something wrong.
We travelled there with two busses, there was tree teams (Lahden Suunnistajat and Kärkölän Kisaveikot and us). Kärkölä had no problem, Lahden Suunnistajat was disqualified for missing last control (I guess the runner just did not wait the signal - she claims she did, but doubt it), we lost about ten minutes due this clear issue.
All this is beginnig to be ridiculous. I have been some kind of SI fan because it is so nice to have such a small stick instead of big emit brick and I have trying to tell my club mates it will go just fine if we do everyting correctly. I even bought own SI stick (if you type JARKKO with your phone keyboard you'll get my SI stick number ;). But my faith is fading, there seems always happen something odd.
I guess it has to be something to do with the fact we are not used to use this system and most of our sticks are used only once or twice a year. Maybe we do something wrong, but we don't know what. Maybe we don't store our sticks right during winter. Or something. Swedish teams seems to use SI succesfully all the time, so it must be something we do. But it is hard to tell.
--
The story of our D43 team is so funny, really something we will always remember! Of course it has nothing to do with IT.
At H43-kavlen one team finished just before us and they had one control missing, they read the stick with the laptop. They were first trying to DQ the team, but the runner put the stick to a different unit (?) to get out paper print of all punches. And there was the missing punch on the paper. I don't get how it was possible.
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We have long history of unhappy SI races. The most funny case before D43 relay happenned few years a go in Smålanskavlen. There was some kind of park sprint at the end of last leg. There was a lot of controls all together, so last leg runners had to use two sticks. The second stick was inside the sprint map bag and the first stick was taken away at the map change. It was not said anywhere - or at least we did not notice it - we just heard it from the loudspeakers during the last leg. We tried to yell this to our last leg runner, but he did not get it. No wonder, we had to try to yell it in our bad English and this Russian was running about 3.10/km pace in a group. So he ended up running to first control, wondering how to puch without a stick, running back to Event center asking what should be done, there they first thought he lost the stick until someone noticed there is a stick in his bag.
One of them was 12 year old girl. She was using SI frist time, so we expalined all this well to her and there were adults doing the clear operation with her. It is not possible they did something wrong.
We travelled there with two busses, there was tree teams (Lahden Suunnistajat and Kärkölän Kisaveikot and us). Kärkölä had no problem, Lahden Suunnistajat was disqualified for missing last control (I guess the runner just did not wait the signal - she claims she did, but doubt it), we lost about ten minutes due this clear issue.
All this is beginnig to be ridiculous. I have been some kind of SI fan because it is so nice to have such a small stick instead of big emit brick and I have trying to tell my club mates it will go just fine if we do everyting correctly. I even bought own SI stick (if you type JARKKO with your phone keyboard you'll get my SI stick number ;). But my faith is fading, there seems always happen something odd.
I guess it has to be something to do with the fact we are not used to use this system and most of our sticks are used only once or twice a year. Maybe we do something wrong, but we don't know what. Maybe we don't store our sticks right during winter. Or something. Swedish teams seems to use SI succesfully all the time, so it must be something we do. But it is hard to tell.
--
The story of our D43 team is so funny, really something we will always remember! Of course it has nothing to do with IT.
At H43-kavlen one team finished just before us and they had one control missing, they read the stick with the laptop. They were first trying to DQ the team, but the runner put the stick to a different unit (?) to get out paper print of all punches. And there was the missing punch on the paper. I don't get how it was possible.
---
We have long history of unhappy SI races. The most funny case before D43 relay happenned few years a go in Smålanskavlen. There was some kind of park sprint at the end of last leg. There was a lot of controls all together, so last leg runners had to use two sticks. The second stick was inside the sprint map bag and the first stick was taken away at the map change. It was not said anywhere - or at least we did not notice it - we just heard it from the loudspeakers during the last leg. We tried to yell this to our last leg runner, but he did not get it. No wonder, we had to try to yell it in our bad English and this Russian was running about 3.10/km pace in a group. So he ended up running to first control, wondering how to puch without a stick, running back to Event center asking what should be done, there they first thought he lost the stick until someone noticed there is a stick in his bag.
Oct 10, 2006 5:27 PM
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bubo:
It sounds like there may have been more teams affected by this TÖM and CHECK problem. One of the runners on our second team (leg 5) had to run back and clear again (I don´t know for sure if he had just forgotten the first time or if this was actually some problem of the same kind you encountered) and lost about 5 minutes. This may have been in the same time span as your problems?
I´ve never had any problems whatsoever with my own E-punching in 8 years of competitions since O-ringen in 1999 when everything more or less started.
There have been an increasing number of 'incidents' with SI (and EMIT) reported the last few years though, so there has to be something starting to go wrong with hardware or software or both... (or lack of functioning routines from the organizers´ side?)
Very often the human factor plays a great role in this type of activity - and it may often be as much a mistake by the organizing club as by competitors.
I´ve never had any problems whatsoever with my own E-punching in 8 years of competitions since O-ringen in 1999 when everything more or less started.
There have been an increasing number of 'incidents' with SI (and EMIT) reported the last few years though, so there has to be something starting to go wrong with hardware or software or both... (or lack of functioning routines from the organizers´ side?)
Very often the human factor plays a great role in this type of activity - and it may often be as much a mistake by the organizing club as by competitors.
Oct 10, 2006 7:02 PM
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We haven't had any real technical issues before this. All previous ones had been based 100% on human factors. this might be the first technical one.
I have used emit from -98 or 99 (can not remember?) without any problems and I have not even heard of any serious problems. Some dead batteries, that's all. But it is made quite bulletproof. For example I have not ever cleared my emit without an organizer looking and counting those tree flashes. Not even once during all these years. If it does not work, they don't let you go to forest with it. If you think about events like Jukola or Halikko, there is always gate to start area, they register your emit, there is man at each clear unit making sure it goes right. It is not possible to forget to do anything important.
I have used emit from -98 or 99 (can not remember?) without any problems and I have not even heard of any serious problems. Some dead batteries, that's all. But it is made quite bulletproof. For example I have not ever cleared my emit without an organizer looking and counting those tree flashes. Not even once during all these years. If it does not work, they don't let you go to forest with it. If you think about events like Jukola or Halikko, there is always gate to start area, they register your emit, there is man at each clear unit making sure it goes right. It is not possible to forget to do anything important.
Oct 10, 2006 9:57 PM
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bubo:
Well, EMIT problems in Sweden often seem to be mainly due to bad handling by the organizers. From what I heard the manuals aren´t quite as detailed as what you get with SI. Not many clubs use EMIT in Sweden, so whatever is done is not always common practice - fewer people know correct routines I guess.
Good point about actually having people at the gate to change-over/start to check that every 'clear' is done properly... This seems to be one point where impact of the human factor ('fast punching' competitors) could be reduced.
Good point about actually having people at the gate to change-over/start to check that every 'clear' is done properly... This seems to be one point where impact of the human factor ('fast punching' competitors) could be reduced.
Oct 11, 2006 10:10 AM
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What I relly like to see is a big event like 25manna with men sitting by each last control puch unit, and each spectator control unit. And writing on paper the time stamp of each puch without sound/light. Usually whan a puch is missig and runner claims he/she saw the light, it is last control or spectator control. And there you are in a hurry I believe it always is to fast puch and no light. But if a punch is lost and those men did not notice it, we would have an real issue.
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Yet an other bad experiece with SI.Tvåmila 2006, one of our girls had to wait almost 5-10 minutes before she cuold puch at second control. Too few too slow punch units. You may have seen the video, our runner is one of the girls standing there. Her hand was injured, so she just could not fight with the other girls, she could only wait.
Summary of our 2006 events in Sweden.
- 10mila / 2mila. Girl's team lost chances at first leg second countrol for this SI puch issue.
- 43kavlen. D43 team was disqualified because the tip of the last leg runner´s Si stick (hired) dropped to the hole last controls punch unit and she could not get it out from there.
- 25manna. 3 sticks out of 25 were dead at start point, caused 3 x 1.5 km extra running to re-clear at event center.
Those were all events our club had this year.
But I was aslo at an individual event at Kinnekulle before 43 kavlen, I did not run there but my wife ran there. The epunch units were dead at first and second control. After second control she believed her stick is dead and she pin-punched next few controls without even trying to epunch, until she saw a man epunching succesfully at one of the controls near the finish. There she found out it was working after all and she got about 2-3 epuncehs before finish. Her map was full of pin punches, she said it was difficult to figure out where to punch, map was small and already full of punces.
I am not sure should I laugh, cry, yell or what. I think I'll do all of them.
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All of those were based on human factors I guess. But there should be ways to reduce the possibility to do human errors, and if one happens there should be ways to fix it, not immediate DQ. Like the start gate system we have here in both individual and relay races. And like registering sticks for runners, so if something happens we will know who it was, when he started etc. For exmaple in Halikko/Jukola it is difficult to run with wrong brick, because they register it at startgate, not before.
I also don't understand how those punch units can be dead so often. Is it battery issue? I can understand it, if batteries last only couple of months, you can easily forget to change them or just think there is power left. But you could change batteries in regular basis, you should ahve always enough power (for exmaple if batteries last 3-4 months, could change batteries every second month and have always enough power).
(With EMIT this is not an issue, because batteries last for years. You can drop them into to forest and keep them there months/years. There is "fasta controller" at IdreFjäll like you know i guess. Emit issue is the brick battery, this is why startgate with controlled clear is important with Emit - organizers will see if someone is trying to run with dead brick and they don't let him start with it).
---
Yet an other bad experiece with SI.Tvåmila 2006, one of our girls had to wait almost 5-10 minutes before she cuold puch at second control. Too few too slow punch units. You may have seen the video, our runner is one of the girls standing there. Her hand was injured, so she just could not fight with the other girls, she could only wait.
Summary of our 2006 events in Sweden.
- 10mila / 2mila. Girl's team lost chances at first leg second countrol for this SI puch issue.
- 43kavlen. D43 team was disqualified because the tip of the last leg runner´s Si stick (hired) dropped to the hole last controls punch unit and she could not get it out from there.
- 25manna. 3 sticks out of 25 were dead at start point, caused 3 x 1.5 km extra running to re-clear at event center.
Those were all events our club had this year.
But I was aslo at an individual event at Kinnekulle before 43 kavlen, I did not run there but my wife ran there. The epunch units were dead at first and second control. After second control she believed her stick is dead and she pin-punched next few controls without even trying to epunch, until she saw a man epunching succesfully at one of the controls near the finish. There she found out it was working after all and she got about 2-3 epuncehs before finish. Her map was full of pin punches, she said it was difficult to figure out where to punch, map was small and already full of punces.
I am not sure should I laugh, cry, yell or what. I think I'll do all of them.
---
All of those were based on human factors I guess. But there should be ways to reduce the possibility to do human errors, and if one happens there should be ways to fix it, not immediate DQ. Like the start gate system we have here in both individual and relay races. And like registering sticks for runners, so if something happens we will know who it was, when he started etc. For exmaple in Halikko/Jukola it is difficult to run with wrong brick, because they register it at startgate, not before.
I also don't understand how those punch units can be dead so often. Is it battery issue? I can understand it, if batteries last only couple of months, you can easily forget to change them or just think there is power left. But you could change batteries in regular basis, you should ahve always enough power (for exmaple if batteries last 3-4 months, could change batteries every second month and have always enough power).
(With EMIT this is not an issue, because batteries last for years. You can drop them into to forest and keep them there months/years. There is "fasta controller" at IdreFjäll like you know i guess. Emit issue is the brick battery, this is why startgate with controlled clear is important with Emit - organizers will see if someone is trying to run with dead brick and they don't let him start with it).
Oct 11, 2006 12:36 PM
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bubo:
I suppose some of the things you mention about dead controls and non-functioning clear units possibly can be human errors - and most often are - caused by lack of experience and mistakes in programming.
Another human error is using the units without checking and changing the batteries often enough (something we do regularly). With the new smaller SI units with better long-life battery this problem should be more or less eliminated.
Things may be aggravated by the fact at that larger meets there is often a need to borrow equipment from many neighbouring clubs - and you never know what state their units and batteries are in. Another typically human factor: Relying on 'someone else' and hoping everything is OK. Time may be a part of this too - there may not be enough time set aside for these simple but time-consuming actions (i.e. checking batteries).
The technical issues I can see are based on not knowing if the SI units actually work as well as they did when they were new in 1998... As I said, we physically check batteries and measure battery staus several times per year before our major meets (for smaller club events we rely on the software measurements) and change whenever this is needed.
What has happened over the last few years is that some of our club units have been malfunctioning despite our checking and changing batteries. There may be hardware lifespan issues here, but I´m not skilled enough in electronics and such to really know about it - it´s just a guess...
Another human error is using the units without checking and changing the batteries often enough (something we do regularly). With the new smaller SI units with better long-life battery this problem should be more or less eliminated.
Things may be aggravated by the fact at that larger meets there is often a need to borrow equipment from many neighbouring clubs - and you never know what state their units and batteries are in. Another typically human factor: Relying on 'someone else' and hoping everything is OK. Time may be a part of this too - there may not be enough time set aside for these simple but time-consuming actions (i.e. checking batteries).
The technical issues I can see are based on not knowing if the SI units actually work as well as they did when they were new in 1998... As I said, we physically check batteries and measure battery staus several times per year before our major meets (for smaller club events we rely on the software measurements) and change whenever this is needed.
What has happened over the last few years is that some of our club units have been malfunctioning despite our checking and changing batteries. There may be hardware lifespan issues here, but I´m not skilled enough in electronics and such to really know about it - it´s just a guess...
Oct 12, 2006 12:25 PM
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This 25manna issue is now under investigation. But I think what have happened. But it is not sure yet. Let's see how it goes.
Oct 14, 2006 5:50 PM
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bubo:
I found an interesting analysis on Alternativet - but you may have seen it already? This shows how much time this SI problem cost you - particularly on leg 4... (isn´t this too obvious to be just coincidence?). Do you have any new theories/possibilities?
Here are all the 'unofficial' results.
Here are all the 'unofficial' results.
Oct 15, 2006 4:19 PM
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Memory burnging theory and "check unit was a finish unit" theory. Bit the UFO theory is the hottest lead at the moment.
Oct 16, 2006 7:23 PM
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Those times to start are not correct, our ream 4th leg I mean. Men's times should be faster and girls longer.
Oct 16, 2006 9:51 PM
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bubo:
I guess this depends on whether Peter´s 'guess' about running order is correct or not...
To me the 'finish unit' theory sounds most probable. There are obviously other teams (even in the very top, SNO for example) without complete results for all their runners in Winsplits. Still they are OK after checking punches in SI software.
I´d say this supports the theory and what Sandy/Valerie said about this possibility. The reason these runners won´t show up in results for the actual leg may well be that they don´t have the start punch, but all the controls correct (my guess...)
To me the 'finish unit' theory sounds most probable. There are obviously other teams (even in the very top, SNO for example) without complete results for all their runners in Winsplits. Still they are OK after checking punches in SI software.
I´d say this supports the theory and what Sandy/Valerie said about this possibility. The reason these runners won´t show up in results for the actual leg may well be that they don´t have the start punch, but all the controls correct (my guess...)
This discussion thread is closed.