Join the ISSA 25 cone series. One cyber race every second month!

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Pat Chewning

Following up on WT's post, I'm putting together a TrakMate down here in Oz. Finally we'll have some timed races! I had the same questions as WT regarding the tapeswitches. But my other question is in regard to the wire cable you use between the tapestrips and the timer. What sort of cable do you us...

Pat Chewning · Masters Pat Chewning 48 14 January 1957

Pat Chewning 48 14 January 1957

Pat Chewning

I tried to answer this question for someone in the past and this is what I told them: ================ The Chronocone timer is better than the Trakmate for certain things. The Trakmate timer is better than the Chronocone for certain things. I would choose a Trakmate: For small local contests If I di...

Pat Chewning

No, I don't have any more of these. I think only 3 of the 6 systems are actually being used, so you might give a shout to the people on the list I posted earlier..... Maybe someone with an unused system can shoot it your way. If you are at all handy with wiring or electronics, its a relatively simpl...

Pat Chewning

After every contest, I think it is very useful to do a "postmortem" and write down what went well and what could be improved on for next time. Typical things that can go wrong and should be analyzed: 1) Coneheading -- was it quick and accurate and the results clearly made available to contestants? 2...

Pat Chewning

stupid german boy add his 2 cents to the discussion about 6wheelers. there is a word which is called friction. more friction from wheels and other moving parts creates less speed 4 wheels in the rear mounted on 2 different truck sets creates even more friction due to the nature of the trucks turnin...

Pat Chewning

One argument for using the Qual times is that the head-to-head racing is a TRUE/FALSE outcome. So people who are largely mis-matched (#1 vs #32) are likely to be just cruising along easily (#1) or going all-out for a miracle (#32) with the likely DQ or cone-plowing result. Some people could propose ...

Pat Chewning

This is the way ski racing is done for slalom. You don't get to run the course before the race, you can inspect by walking or slipping through. The course is usually set by a team drawn by random, the course setter's don't race. A couple of forerunners (pros running the AM course or AMs running the ...

Pat Chewning

Elisa, If this is only a 1-week project then I suggest that you keep it simple. You might try something like this: Assume a skateboarder enters a turn with radius R at velocity V (use reasonable values based on experience). Assume that skateboarder pushes her mass a certain distance towards the cent...

Pat Chewning

Yesterday it rained all day, and this morning was cloudy, so the street was not fully dried out. We found a path to set a single lane race that was dry enough. We ran jam format, then anounced times and let the racers get in a couple more runs before shutting down just as it started raining around 2...

Pat Chewning

Cascade races are Grass Roots.

No entry fee.
No "Pro" grouping.
Ladder bracket for more racing runs per person.
Courses set for the masses (i.e. most people can make it through the course)

There is usually some grass of one form or another near the course.

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

Karl,

Tell us more about the process you used and how the club is organized and run. Other people might be able to use your ideas to start their own clubs.

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

We bought some tape switches from Tapeswitch.com We bought 5-feet long switches. Chris Barker (timing guru from Colorado) has 2-foot long tape switches that exactly fit the width of the starting ramps, and 7-foot long tape switches for the finish lines. I think this makes a lot of sense because the ...

Pat Chewning

Jani, I agree that a self-contained HW timer with ability to download times to a PC would be great. Lynn Kramer has built a self-contained timer that has the possibility to upload times to a PC (with some more development work). You might contact her. As far as software timers (Chronocone and EttSex...

Pat Chewning

How about a spreadsheet that the organizer puts together, and somehow the web links for "Signup" let the racer fill in his data which can go to the spreadsheet. If this spreadsheet were standardized in some fashion, then it could also be used as a uniform method of reporting results. (e.g. For easy ...

Pat Chewning

Chris, Trakmate does not sell a "complete" timing system. You still need to add wire and tape switches. Here's a comparison of two timing systems: http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=771&start=50 The Chronocone system might be suitable for what you want, but there is a bit of ove...

Pat Chewning

I wanted to compare the total # of runs for each bracket system. I used Rick's proposal of splitting into A,B,C,D groups after qualifying, then the best 2 people move up after each group is run. I call this the ABCD bracket. I also used the traditional 32-man binary elimination bracket (after qualif...

Pat Chewning

My recommendations for race status in USA West are: Major (1): Slalom Week, Morro Bay, Sept. Main (3): La Costa, CA, June Hood River, OR, July US Nationals/HD, Breckenridge Colorado, Aug. 20-21 Prime (3): Colorado Cup, June 11-12 Cascade Series Final BLR Pump Station Final ...

Pat Chewning

You might want to leverage the ski or snowboard club or race team (if you have one). They might be interested in using skateboarding as a training tool for ski racing.

You could also leverage their insurance/permission forms....

Pat Chewning

YES: The World Championships should move around the world from year to year.

QUESTION: Is May too early in the season for a World Championship?

Pat Chewning

I think one of the basic problems in ANY attempt to organize skateboarders is that in general skateboarders don't want to be organized. Especially skateboarders in the USA! Even attempts to form a USA country organization have failed over the last 2 years. I swear, organizing skateboarders is like h...

Pat Chewning

See tapeswitch specifications here: http://ftp.tapeswitch.com/pub/cfrs.pdf We have had sucess with models 131 and 101 . They are about $50 each. I did have limited success with my home-made tape switches (see "low cost timer" on this forum). Not really recommended unless you have a lot more time tha...

Pat Chewning

Yes Jani, a stand-alone timer with an optional PC interface would be ideal, as you would get the best of both worlds. Lynn Kramer has built a timer using a STAMP microcontroller which would potentially have the capability to upload times to a PC. You might ask her what her plans are.... If something...

Pat Chewning

How to set the 2nd of two parallel courses: Set up the Right-hand (Red) course. Duplicating this course on the Left (White) will take at least 4 people. (2 measuring teams of 2 people each) Decide how far apart the courses will be. 4m works usually. Depends on the width of the road. Use a tape measu...

Pat Chewning

Six Chronocone systems were built and delivered to users near the end of March. Two of those six systems have been put to use in races. The other 4 systems have not yet been tested. People who are experienced using Chronocone for races: Pat Chewning Chris Barker Dan Gessmer People who own a Chronoco...

Pat Chewning

Hey what is up with the Trakmate? We've heard about Pats timer all summer but not much about the Trakmate. Is Pats timer better? What is the pricing breakdown for a Trakmate these days? The Chronocone timer is better than the Trakmate for certain things. The Trakmate timer is better than the Chrono...

Pat Chewning

I will make some tests of the Chronocone accuracy against a calibrated traceable standard. We have several calibrated pulse generators, counters, and digital oscilloscopes at HP where I work. Chronocone uses the QueryPerformanceCounter function and QueryPerformanceFrequency functions available in th...

Pat Chewning

I added the ability to save the configuration (penalties, start mode, etc) to a configuration file and then retreive those settings. So you could theoretically have your favorite Qualification setup and Head-to-Head setup saved and then just retreive them. Included in REV 4.6 I took an existing spre...

Pat Chewning

Jack, My suggestion is that you use your considerable influence in the skateboard community to mend fences between the slalomskateboarder.com site and the NCDSA.com site. It would be really nice if users could at least post a reference to "slalomskateboarder.com" on NCDSA without a hidden editor pro...

Pat Chewning

http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=84779 MATT MONAGHAN Statesman Journal August 8, 2004 Years from now, when the Exit Skate Classic is an annual competition drawing hundreds of skateboarders to Salem, no one will remember how the first event really began. So for the sake of history, thi...

Pat Chewning

If the goal is to see how fast you can go, why not accept speeds over all three course distances? Some people will have access to long courses and hand timing, some will have access to shorter courses and more precise timing. All of them are valid: the racer DID go THAT fast on THAT course. A parall...

Pat Chewning

Paul Howard attacks the slalom course. Paul was on fire! <img src="http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/events/2004/GorgeGames/d31ce15c_GorgeGames_PaulHoward.jpg"> The tight slalom course was very difficult. Lots of cones hit. A beautiful setting: <img src="http://www.slalomskateboarder.com/events/2004...

Pat Chewning

I'll try to describe a pump: It IS: Good timing of motion and conversion of angular momentum -- like pumping on a swing. Very similar to ice skating -- think of generating speed by pushing the skate away from the center of the turn. Upweighting and down-weighting combined with turning -- like skiing...

Pat Chewning

In the Chronocone timing system the secret embedded code is:

If (txtRacerName.value = "Pat Chewning) Then
Rawtime = Rawtime X .75
Else
Rawtime = Rawtime X 1.10

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

Somehow missing from this contest calendar.

See details at: http://www.ncdsa.com/contest_registrati ... testID=140

< Ed note: Event added. /Jani >

Pat Chewning

You might try using hot-melt glue from a glue gun. It might work since it's designed to be heated up. The material might be a little bit too soft for a pivot cup though....

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

Chris Barker would like to see a unique "Alert" tone optionally sounded before the tone count-down for the race. This is evidently what some people are used to. Something like: "BEEEEEEEEEEP" - meaning: Alert! Race count-down starting. "BLIP" count-down pulse "BLIP" count-down pulse "BLIP" count-dow...

Pat Chewning

Chris Barker and others have come up with a penalty for false starts that they'd like to see: A racer who false starts will have a fixed-amount of time penalty that will usually be set to the amount of a cone penalty. This amount will be added to his "normalized" time. The "normalized" time is the r...

Pat Chewning

Excel files prepared for racing should be able to receive selected Chronocone outputs directly. This will speed up the race results process. I've figured out how to do this. The user interface looks like this: 1) Chronocone will be run in a smaller window at the top of the screen. 2) The Excel sprea...

Pat Chewning

If you have a racer who doesn't run over the STOP switch, his timer contines to run. If you hit RESET before STOP, it goes into a mode that can only be escaped by hitting RACE again. This can be fixed by issuing a STOP for any lane which is running, once the RESET button is pressed. Done: Fixed in R...

Pat Chewning

GORGE GAMES -- Hood River Oregon Cascade Slalom Association members would like to offer hospitality services to those out-of-town racers who might need extra help or a friendly face during their visit to Hood River for the Gorge Games races. Members in Portland Oregon are about 1.5hrs from Hood Rive...

Pat Chewning

If anyone wants to try this out and let me know how it works: The "guts" of the hardware in Chronocone is a standard USB game pad that can be bought for about $10. Tear it open and connect a tape switch to buttons 1,2,3, and 4 Connect it directly to the tape switches without any of the "special" ele...

Pat Chewning

I have no desire at all to "market" the Chronocone system. Clearly I don't know what I am doing in that regard since I have built 6 systems -- one for myself and 5 for other race organizers -- and I've only received payment for two of those 5 systems. When I put out these systems to other race organ...

Pat Chewning

I imagine it is very difficult to get official results from all the races in order to enter them into the database for world ranking points. Heck, I can't even get results for one of our Cascade Slalom races, and I helped organize it! So I'm wondering if you have a preferred method of reporting the ...

Pat Chewning

Sorry to say, but we are not going to have a race on Aug 15th in Corvallis as originally set forth.

Cannot get permission to use the street.

We might be adding another BBQ slalom "gathering" type event in Salem this summer.

-- Pat

< Ed note: Event cancelled, now displayed in red. /Jani>

Pat Chewning

I received a copy of SLALOM magazine from Gareth Roe today at our race in Salem OR. Nice work! I noticed several pictures of mine in the magazine. If anyone needs a high-res copy of these, let me know. Cover shot: Luca pg 7 racer card: John Gilmour pg 17 racer card: Luca pg 19 racer card: Michael Do...

Pat Chewning

It was extremely HOT here, close to 90 degrees F. The Salem track is a beautiful place for a race, smooth and fast. We wanted to encourage cleaner runs, so there was a .2s penalty per cones AND a .5s bonus (subtraction) for a clean run. So in reality, that 1st cone you hit cost you .7s There ...

Pat Chewning

I'm adding in the speed-trap feature, doing a little testing, and updating the documentation, then I'll post it.

I'm shooting for Wed June 23 .....

When it is available, it will be at: www.home.comcast.net/~pchewn/

DONE: Added speed trap feature to REV4.5

-- Pat

Pat Chewning

Jack Smith wants an interface to a "Christmas Tree" light display. This would be a visual count-down to start in addition to the tone count-down. I offered to do this by connecting another computer monitor. Jack really wants a real live drag-race-style Christmas Tree light with huge bright light bul...

Pat Chewning

Yes a hammer will work. However, make sure you are hammering the right way. One side of the axle has a knurl on it to press into the hanger. You want that knurl to exit the hanger instead of going all the way through. You will usually not need to ream out a larger diameter in the hanger. The 8mm axl...

Join the ISSA 25 cone series. One cyber race every second month!

Regular sessions allow newbies to join our community and discover slalom racing.

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