Which one?

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Rob Shafer
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Which one?

Post by Rob Shafer »

hello al,l some of you have been following and helping me with my dilemma about using derby software to run our woodturners battle top event. Ive decided to bite the bullet and just buy some new software and start there. so recommendations please on software.
I need to be able to assign up to eight lanes, no need ever for electronic finish must have manual finish entry and allow ties. no need for multiple divisions etc.
Right now I need it to assign four guys in four random lanes. They compete we enter 1st -4th finish position software scores 0 for first 1 for 2nd 2for 3rd 3 for 4th. you are eliminated at nine. It keeps randomly mixing players and lanes in heats until its down to the last four guys than starts over with finals. Clean slate starts over 9 points youre out. Also need it to video out display
any help would be great want to get it within the next hour club meets tonight for planning thank you all
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Vitamin K
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Re: Which one?

Post by Vitamin K »

I've had no complaints with GPRM, and it does support manual entry just fine. I'm not certain about your system of points elimination, though. That seems pretty unique.
Rob Shafer
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Re: Which one?

Post by Rob Shafer »

unique?, how is the scoring done if a points system (based on finish position) would be used for a four car race.
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Vitamin K
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Re: Which one?

Post by Vitamin K »

Rob Shafer wrote:unique?, how is the scoring done if a points system (based on finish position) would be used for a four car race.
If you're running by points with a Perfect or Partial-Perfect -N configuration, all of the cars will run the same number of times and once on every track. The scheduler will also try to match up each car an equal number of times against opponents. Each car receives points at the end of the heat for finish position. At the end of all of the heats, all of the points are tallied. So scoring is finish-dependent, but there's no 'elimination' aspect, unless you choose to have a second round of racing, in which only a certain number of finishers are promoted to the next level.
Rob Shafer
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Re: Which one?

Post by Rob Shafer »

let me explain what we're doing. We're running a battle top event. We turn tops on wood lathes they bang into each other and fall down one by one causing the finish order.
20 -30 people. When you say heats and rounds is a heat when all the racers have gone once and been scored. then they progress to another heat? The way we run it, worse case, you go a min of three heats could lose every one and be out by having 9 points, for the fourth heat. After each heat after the third one, we could see somebody eliminated by points and not selected by our old software (raceview) to continue. what kind of points are tallied in gp system?
Rob Shafer
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Re: Which one?

Post by Rob Shafer »

so I guess i'm asking are "heats" one round of racing?
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Re: Which one?

Post by Rob Shafer »

Well I reread your post and answered my own question in your system everybody races the same number of times, I need an elimination style to cut down on the time it takes to run the event. We're all big boys,, grown men really so we can take being eliminated in front of the group, which is how it was when I was a scout. "aw Rob was eliminated in that round thanks for racing Rob, now take a seat" but I guess in this pc world things are kinder??
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gpraceman
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Re: Which one?

Post by gpraceman »

Rob Shafer wrote:Right now I need it to assign four guys in four random lanes. They compete we enter 1st -4th finish position software scores 0 for first 1 for 2nd 2for 3rd 3 for 4th. you are eliminated at nine. It keeps randomly mixing players and lanes in heats until its down to the last four guys than starts over with finals. Clean slate starts over 9 points youre out. Also need it to video out display
any help would be great want to get it within the next hour club meets tonight for planning thank you all
I know of no software that will run that particular format. GrandPrix Race Manager is very flexible, so can be run many different ways, but not in that exact fashion.
Rob Shafer wrote:unique?, how is the scoring done if a points system (based on finish position) would be used for a four car race.
With GPRM, 1st = 1pt, 2nd = 2 pts and so on. So, lowest total number of points win.
Rob Shafer wrote:so I guess i'm asking are "heats" one round of racing?
In your case, with GPRM, a heat is a set of 4 cars racing down the track. Multiple heats make up a round.
Rob Shafer wrote:Well I reread your post and answered my own question in your system everybody races the same number of times, I need an elimination style to cut down on the time it takes to run the event.
With GPRM, while everyone gets to run the same number of times in a round, you can create one or more additional rounds of racing where you only advance the top X number of racers to the new round.

GPRM does not have any type of arbitrary point elimination threshold. The only software that I knew to do that was RaceView and they went out of business many years ago.

If one of the built-in schedulers doesn't work for you, you do have the ability to create a custom schedule.
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Re: Which one?

Post by gpraceman »

I had to look up that type of event. Pretty interesting. It looks like when my kids used to do Beyblades. So, a "heat" would be 4 tops going at it, in your case.

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Randy Lisano
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Awana Grand Prix and Pinewood Derby racing - Where a child, an adult and a small block of wood combine for a lot of fun and memories.
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Stan Pope
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Re: Which one?

Post by Stan Pope »

Elimination racing is in the class of "adaptive scheduling" which does not lend itself to a high degree of "lane and opponent equity." The best (I think) that can be done there is to insert a degree of randomness plus a follow-on attempt to achieve some degree of equity.

For a first cut (at new software, because I know of nothing that will do what you want) is to go totally random in lane and opponent assignment for each round (1 round is every non-eliminated entrant races once)... something like this:

0. Set all elimination totals to 0. Assign Entrant ID's (e.g. names) to entrant numbers, starting with 1. Translate entrant number to Entrant ID when displaying.

Start of each round:
1. Count number of non-eliminated entrants = E
2. Compute number of heats needed = H = CEIL(E/4) CEIL(X) is the smallest integer that is not less than X.
3. Beginning with Heat 1 and cycling through Heat H: Randomly select one lane and one entrant for that heat, removing both from the lists of available. Repeat until all entrants have been assigned.
(Example: if E=5, then H=2.
For heat 1, Randomly select a Lane, e.g. 3 from lanes 1-4 and randomly select an entrant, e.g. 4, from entrants 1-5.
For heat 2, randomly select a Lane, e.g. 1, from remaining lanes 1-4 and randomly select an entrant, e.g. 2, from remaining entrants 1-3, 5.
For heat 1, randomly select a Lane, e.g. 2 from remaining Lanes 1-2, 4 and randomly select an entrant, e.g. 1 from remaining entrants 1, 3, 5.
For heat 2, randomly select a Lane, e.g. 4, from remaining Lanes 2-4 and randomly select an entrant, e.g. 5, from remaining entrants 3, 5.
For heat 1, randomly select a Lane, e.g. 1, from remaining Lanes 1, 4 and randomly select an entrant, e.g. 3, from remaining entrants, 3.
4. Run the heats. For each heat display the Entrant ID / Lane assignment, accept inputs of finish order, assign elimination points to each and add to respective totals. Here code needed to start and stop the video capture and store for the corresponding heat.
5. When round is finished, remove any entrant from the list who has reached the elimination level. Display Entrant ID of eliminated entrants. Optionally, display finish places for each.
6. If the number of non-eliminated entrants > 4, repeat from step 1.

Finals:
7. Display remaining 4 entrants.
8. Randomly assign entrants to a CPN schedule, and run the schedule, removing those who reach elimination level and repeating the schedule as needed, until only one is left after a heat.

This is "fair" in that no preferential treatment is arbitrarily given to any entrant by any person. However, this is not guaranteed to have equitable opponent and lane assignment, and, so, accuracy may suffer.

When this is working well, including the video capture features, start of Version 2, which changes step 3 to reduce the pools from which lane occupants can be selected. This still does not achieve absolute equity, but improves it quite a bit.

Version 1 is a good evening's work for someone who knows how to capture video!
Version 2 will take some extra time!
Stan
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