Hand-Held Tablet Testing a Huge Success!

Last weekend, Zone4 very successfully tested our new hand-held tablet entry timing system at the Sinister 7 Ultra race in Crowsnest Pass Alberta.  The Sinister 7 Ultra is a challenging 100 mile (161km) race through the rugged remote terrain of the Rocky Mountains.  Racers can enter as a solo or on teams of up to seven, and they have 30 hours to complete the difficult course.  Zone4 was able to collect data from seven extremely remote timing points, from approximately 1400 racers, and produce instant results throughout the two continuous days of racing.  Dan Roycroft said “Everything was working so well, the volunteers were fantastic, and the data was coming in so easily.  We could have gone away for the entire race, and all the times and the results would have come in perfectly”.

Sinister 7 Start/Finish Area July 5, 2014 Crowsnest Pass Alberta

This was a great demonstration of the hand-held tablet entry which we used in combination with the timing chips.  Where the density was very high with 400 teams and solo runners passing by at once, the chips served as primary times with the tablets as backup at timing points.  Where the density was low at the later stages of the race, the tablets were primary time with the chips as backup.  It was our first race where we had seven remote timing points all transmitting tablet data back via cell service and it worked very well.  We had good coverage on Rogers cell network through most of the Sinister 7 course, however one timing point was very remote, and the cell service was intermittent. We were very happy that the tablet was able to store the data at this remote point, and as soon as it came into the cell network range, the data immediately uploaded into the Zone4 timing program.  This is good news for timers who are timing a race in a remote area.

Hand-Held Tablet Timing Entry

The live results feed from all the remote timing points was a big hit with the racers and spectators.  Times could be viewed on a TV screen at the start/finish area, but also checked on mobile devices.  Teams could follow the progress of their teammates who were out on course, and a runner could track their own time on a cell phone as they were racing.  Everyone was very excited to watch the progress of the race as it was happening.

Now that we have had a successful test run of the hand-held tablets, our programmers will head back to the Zone4 lab to continue to add features to the tablet timers.  There are more races scheduled this summer to test this new system, and we are confident that in these trials, we will continue to have positive results.

Dan Roycroft at the Sinister 7 finding a quiet area to work on his computer.

Sinister 7 Webpage Here: http://www.sinister7.com/main.php . Thanks to Brian Gallant for all his hard work and serious organization in running this event, and to all our fantastic Timing Volunteers!