Record Times For A Race

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RaceApp has several ways for you to input the times for an event. There is no ‘best’ way. It’s a matter of personal preference and dependent on the type of race and what equipment and helpers you have available to you at the time of the meet.

Your options with RaceApp.net are:

• RaceApp’s built-in FAT timer - coming soon!
• The built-in Video Assisted Timer (VAT)
• The built-in hand timer
• Import hand-written data with OCR scanning
• Manual entry
• Pull times from a video you recorded with our built-in video timer
• Import data from Sprint Timer or other CSV data

Built-in Video Assisted Timer

Our Video Assisted Timer (VAT) is a step in between a manual hand timer and a Fully Automated (FAT) system. It is a great option for distances races where you do not need FAT-level precision.

Key points:

• Use with a laptop and an external webcam pointed at the finish line. This particular method is not suited for mobile devices.
• As each person crosses the finish line, you or a volunteer will still manually click a button.
• A series of images are captured both before and after the athlete crosses the finish line. This gives you a visual record of each finisher without having to scroll through long videos.
  • Saved images are also imprinted with the timestamp.
• Times for each button press are auto saved to your race results and immediately published to the public results page along with the images.
  • Your athletes, families, and spectators will be able to see the times and finish line images before the race is even finished!
• You will still need to input the athletes separately to match them up to their times as described in this article. For the smoothest and most reliable results, we recommend scanning QR codes.

See this article for more details on how to use the VAT system.

Built-in Hand Timer

For longer races such as the 1600m and up, or Cross Country, the built-in hand timer is a great way to go. We always advise you have a second (and maybe 3rd) back-up timer helping you with a printing stop-watch or a smart-phone app that has an unlimited lap timer. We (the developers of RaceApp) used the built-in hand timer at all of our own high school cross country league meets this year with great success.

To use the hand timer:

• Navigate to editing the race result.
• Tap the ‘Hand Timer’ button.
• Tap ‘Start’ when the gun goes off at the start of the race.
• When each athlete crosses the finish line, tap ‘Mark’
• After the final athlete has finished the race, tap ‘Stop’
• Tap ‘Back to race results’
• A blank entry with just the time will have been added to the race results.
• Tap the first entry and begin scanning in the athlete info (or manually entering)
• Tip: For long races like Cross Country, we had athletes attach their name tags with small binder clips and collected them at the finish line. These were kept in order, then scanned into the system all at once after the race.
• Tip: You may have multiple helpers with multiple phones sharing duties. One can be the timer and another can scan in athletes on a separate device. Two devices can edit the same race without conflicting.
• Tip: If your device screen goes dark or even if you navigate away from the timer and come back, it will not be messed up and can be resumed.

Manual Entry

The most time-consuming (but easiest to understand) way to capture times for a race is to manually type in each time.

If you have a timing system outside of RaceApp, just tap on the time field and enter the time. No puncuation is needed. Just be sure to enter the time down to the hundredths of a second and the system will fill in the rest.

Below is an example of full manual entry using the athlete auto-complete to fill in the athlete details rather than scanning in QR codes. Whether or not you use the QR codes has no bearing on time entry.

Pull Times From A Recorded Video

The built-in video timer is a very accurate way for a single person to time a sprint event and can give you ‘FAT’ quality times by simply using the video camera on your phone with no additional software to install.

To use the video timer:

• Record the race using your phone. For best results:
  • Set your phone to record video at the highest frame rate possible - but do not use any slow motion settings.
  • Be sure to stand in a clear spot with a good view of the starter and exactly perpendicular to the finish line. Use a step stool or ladder for the best view if needed.
  • Start your recording BEFORE the gun goes off
  • End your recording a couple seconds after the last athlete finishes.
  • Hold the camera steady on the finish line as athletes cross the line.
• Switch over to your browser logged into RaceApp
• Navigate to the race result editor.
• Tap the ‘Video Timer’ button.
• Select the video from your device
  • Note that files do not get uploaded and stay private on your device. We cannot see them.
• Turn your device to landscape mode for easiest use of the controls.
• Play the video and use the slider to get a rough position of the start of the event.
• Fine tune the position of the start using the forward and back buttons at the bottom.
  • The smoke of the starting gun is the best cue.
• Tap the ‘Set Start’ button to set the start time of the event.
• Use the slider or the fast forward buttons to move to the end of the event.
• Tap the ‘Mark’ button for each finish place you wish to record.
• Controls:
  • Pressing any of the control buttons will also pause the video if it’s playing.
  • <<< >>> Move 1 second
  • << >> Move 0.1 seconds
  • < > Move 0.02 seconds (roughly 1 frame at 60fps)
• Tap ‘Save’ then ‘Back to race results’

Import CSV Data From Other Systems

You may paste in times or manually enter data from any app or system you like. The only requirement is that the data be in the format: place, time OR simply time With each entry separated by a new line. Times should be in the format MM:SS.HH down to the hundredth of a second. Example:

 1, 10:01.23
 2, 10:03.45

Follow the below process for the SprintTimer app, available for iOS. We are not affiliated with them in any way, but like the app and know many teams use it.

• In RaceApp, navigate to the race editing page to have everything ready before the race.
• Switch apps over to SprintTimer.
  • Record the race as normal.
  • After the race, tap ‘Results’ > ‘Base videos’ and open your race.
  • Find the first finisher and tap ‘MARK’.
  • Start a new list > ‘New list, times only.’
  • Tap ‘MARK’ for each finisher.
  • Tap ‘SAVE’.
  • Choose:
    • Export Results: ‘CSV’
    • Save image: ‘NO’
    • Save base video: ‘NO’
  • Tap ‘SAVE’
  • You’ll now be prompted where to export.
  • Pick ‘Copy’
  • Switch back to the RaceApp race results page.
  • Tap ‘Import From Clipboard’
  • Check the results and tap ‘Save’.

Next: Scan athletes into event results
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