Automatic countdowns

[jome]

Hi,

This came up on our national forum and I remembered something I thought might be useful.

I was playing around with the idea of automatic countdowns and developed a fairly complex system for that. It sort of worked, but we noticed that there was a bit of lag (during 2 hours it was about 2 minutes) and thus unusable and I buried the idea for a while (still, it could be done with a little effort).

Anyway, I then found out a way to do it really simple.

We've been using a program called "teatimer" for a while in competitions to aid the countdown. Basically it's a free sw that can be used to set different kinds of repeating timers on a computer. The announcer would for example set a timer at 6 minutes to remind him to start the countdown.

The solution is so simple that it's almost embarassaing. Well, in teatimer, you can set the sound file that it plays as the "alarm tone".

Right, so record a sound file that is precicely 2 minutes long and goes:
2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 20 seconds, 10, 5, 4, 3, 2,1 official top

Then set the timer to 4 minutes and the alarm to that file and you have a 6 minute cycle repeating the same countdown again and again.

For warmups, you can set up a parallel timer with a different recording.

Simple! And what's best it works and doesn't cost a thing

 

[BennyB]

That sounds pretty good Simo!

At the Berlin Indoor Championships in Feb 2008 the guys from AIDA Deutchland had an automatic countdown on a laptop. It had a couple of hiccups but all in all it worked well.

Cheers,
Ben

 

[panob]

Hi Jome,

I think I can use this on our competitions.. it's possible to give us the link of this software?

Thank's alot

 

[rxcnc2]

Right, so record a sound file that is precicely 2 minutes long and goes:
2 minutes, 1 minute, 30 seconds, 20 seconds, 10, 5, 4, 3, 2,1 official top

Then set the timer to 4 minutes and the alarm to that file and you have a 6 minute cycle repeating the same countdown again and again.

The countdown should extend ten seconds after top of course.

The reason why this might not work in a completely automatic fashion
is that even if you make a 1s error in your sound recording, when you repeat
it for the whole duration of the event it might easily add up to being
off by tens of seconds. One should use some sound editing program
to make sure the wav file is exactly 130,00 seconds long (i.e. including
top+10s). Also note that normally there are breaks of 10 min, which
makes the repetition impossible. This could be helped with a more
sophisticated approach, easily implemented in excel/vba: a macro
can read the table with the tops, and start the countdown at the
appropriate times. However, also this does not help you in case the
judge decides to delay a performance for whatever reason.

I think for our needs, basic is best. Just record a 130 s sound file,
and play it manually each time 2 minutes before top. It's simpler than
having a human do the full countdown, and it avoids mistakes.

 

[martin_gk]

That sounds pretty good Simo!

At the Berlin Indoor Championships in Feb 2008 the guys from AIDA Deutchland had an automatic countdown on a laptop. It had a couple of hiccups but all in all it worked well.

Cheers,
Ben

Ben, what hiccups? I did not hear no hiccups...

No, seriously, we made very good experiance with this system. As far as I know you set the time and tell the program what sound file to play at what time. The length of the soundfile is not important as the clock keeps ticking.

It took a lot of stress away from the organization. The only disadvantage that appeared was that you will need to record and give all times all the time. So not only 10s after OT but also 20s and 30s after OT. Usually you would not do that when all divers are down. But when you automate, you will need that.

Now, as an athlet, I can tell you (!!!), it is very anoying when you are starting your STA dive and someone is counting the first 30s of your dive. Loud and clear...

What you would need is a computer and a way of connecting it to the speaker system of the pool or even extra speakers for it.

Cheers
Martin

 

[jome]

Martin is right, the sound file length isn't really critical - the software starts playing it on precise times so there is no "cumulative error".

I don't have a direct link but I found it my self just by googling "tea timer" - if I remember correctly there are actual several freeware sw for that (there seems to be a whole sub-culture of automating tea brewing or something - wouldn't know, I'm a coffee guy currently)