New possible contest formats - Discussion

[Mitchell Baker]

Discuss New possible contest formats, from National Chair post.

Here is a repeat of his post:

Hello US Scale Master members,

I would like to share some of the ideas recently talked about at the 2012 AMA show in Ontario CA in Jan 2012.

The ASSMA team at the Show was
Curtis Kitteringham (West Coast VP)
Mike Peck (AZ Area Director)
Richard Barndt (Director of Finance)

We talked between us about a Scale Starter contest format. This format would be for Fun and Open class only with the venue being a one day event. We through all sorts of ideas like judging from within the classes. These contest could be the beta testing for new scoring software and rules?

Mike Peck signed up as the owner and is working to try a few of these in AZ very soon. I will let Mike jump in and share his traction.

The big view is to get people at the lower level back engaged and flying. Growth of USSMA will be guided from the top and driven from the bottom in my view for us. Please jump in and share your ideas and views on things like this.

[Mitchell Baker]

Chat with the NW folks.  They have been doing something like this for a while.  One day fun scale events or even fun scale event rolled into a flyin.

See-ya
Mitch

[bwboland]

We need Mike Peck to chime in here he has done bunch of work that made add to there efforts!

Bernie

[Michael]

The idea of a starter scale contest was conjured up in Bernie's truck on the way from Phoenix to Ontario.  The idea was driven by the age old question of 'how can we get more r/c pilots to become interested in scale competition and increase participation & membership in the USSMA?'

We knocked around several ideas of what to call it, came up with a verbal outline of what a starter scale contest could be like, and who our target r/c pilot groups would be.  Bernie shopped the idea to a number of vendors, USSMA members, and his audiences during the three ½ hour USSMA discussion segments on the stage at the Expo in Ontario.  Vendor response was excellent and supportive, and the scale pilot community at the show thought it was a good idea as well.

When I got back to Phoenix, I presented the idea to two of our local clubs and got a favorable response from both to canvass their memberships to see how many people might be interested in participating in such a contest.  A number of questions about the specifics of a starter scale contest did come up at these meetings, so I realized we needed something in writing to define what this idea actually consists of before going too much further in presenting it.

The attachment I have included is a basic draft of the program.  Some local USSMA advisory people have had a chance to critique it and I've changed a couple of things for clarity, but this is still a proposed concept and a work in progress that has not received approval from the ScaleMasters officers & Board. 

Take a look and see what you think.

Mike

[j_whitney]

Who has or will supply the normalizing program?  I assume it is Excel.  It would need to be modified or constructed in a way to add in the static score to the total.

Sounds like a good idea.

[waconut]

I (and with a friend) have developed an EXCEL spreadsheet(s) "program" (written in MS EXCEL2007) which has been tested and used at a few local area scale meets over the past few years and is capable of handling up to 50 contestants. Curtis K is familiar with it.
It's called WSR ScoreKeeper and is available for the asking.  It is written along the lines of the current Scale Masters "program' and provides the same results with additional flexibility. 
/chuck

[j_whitney]

Sounds good Chuck - does it provide normalizing?

[waconut]

Am not sure what your definition of normalizing is.
I doubt you mean isolating statistical error in repeated measured data, or referring to the division of multiple sets of data by a common variable in order to negate that variable's effect on the data-etc.

The EXCEL "program" consists of:
A.  Initialization of 3 parameters. (4 really- provision for a sub-category can also be specified)
   1.  Specify Entry Classes (Expert/Team/etc)
   2.  Weight of Static Score (K-factor)
   3.  Number of counted flights
B.  Pilot Data Entry
Registration No. / Name / Entry Class / Aircraft / etc.
C.  Reports

Computations are "automatic" and occur upon completion of any specific data entry.  Say a flight round score entry or a Static score entry for a pilot.  One does need to define sort parameters for various Reports.
Enuf for now.
/chuck

[Michael]

Jeff, I believe that Bernie has a source for a normalized flight scorekeeping program that also adds in the static scoring we use as 50% of the total score.

[j_whitney]

Chuck, normalizing is where you wait untill the round is finished, take the highest score for that round and call it 100 (maybe 1000 - been a while).  Then all the rest of the scores are a percentage of 100.  That is - if I remember it correctly,  Evens out the bumps.

Mike - thanks!

[Jeffrey Pike]

When I began competing in the 70s, scale contests were on Sunday afternoons after a pattern contest while the pattern scoring was being tabulated. One day scale events may attract local talent.

[waconut]

In reply to Mike's comment : "Chuck, normalizing is where you wait untill the round is finished, take the highest score for that round and call it 100 (maybe 1000 - been a while).  Then all the rest of the scores are a percentage of 100.  That is - if I remember it correctly,  Evens out the bumps.   Mike - thanks!" ---
If this is what you want a scoring progam to do, "my" Excel scoring program (WSR ScoreKeeper) can be modified to provide such a normalized flight scoring program.
As an aside, The WSR ScoreKeeper was used for flight scoring at the SoCal Scale Masters qualifer held in Hemet, CA without any problems being encountered.
/chuck

[Jeffrey Pike]

What does normalizing have to do with contest formats? We could partner with the pattern guys again and do a Sunday only scale competition with flying Sunday afternoon after the pattern contests like we did years ago.

[waconut]

Actually, My WSG ScoreKeeper "program" has a switch enabling Normalizing.
As an aside, May I refer readers of this post click on the following link:

http://usscalemasters.org/forums/index.php?topic=712.msg1311#new

It reads as follows:

Hello US Scale Master members and friends,

Scoring update 6/2012, the USSMA BOD and my advisors team have agreed that scoring normalization will be used at the 2012 championship event in Rosewood Indiana this September. This is the first large step into the future improvements of the USSMA. The final scoring software will be released prior to the Finals and will be used for all future events.

Please email me with any questions and or comments on this news.

Best regards,

Bernie Boland
USSMA National Chairman
nationalchair@usscalemasters.org
.................................................../chuck