Clachs Scorekeeper +/- Electronic diary

STAGE 1 - The basics

Go and get a cup of tea or coffee and read this a few times - before you start using the system.

By keeping a diary and logging scores you stand a better chance of improving your shooting than if you dont. Some of us wont coach you if you dont have a suitable set of historic notes.

There are two basic concepts you need to know

Cards
Diary

CARDS

Cards can be used to record lots of things about the card. Most fields are optional and you dont need to put them in unless you wish to. The more data you enter the more the system can do for you - like produce graphs, last 10/12 average, rolling average etc.

Fields on the card include:

Where each bullet landed (optional) - these go to make up your estimated score
The competition the card is for - and if appropriate the round and card in the round (optional)
notes for the card (optional)
the date the card was shot YYYY-MM-DD format
(after they have been scored) your actual score

So the minimum you need to enter in order to get graphs and averages is the date and the score.

If you choose to enter more the system can do more for you.

For example if you put in the fall of each bullet, then we can do cummulative plots - where each card is sat on top of the prvious. This can help show you zero errors - in that particular diagrams are always poor.

If you enter the competition - and if appropriate the round and card - then the system can do you a wee score table showing how you are getting on in each competition.

Before you start to use the system think about organising your data. As part of the data entry you will need to put in competition names and notes. We suggest that you include standard "keywords" in the notes field like handicap/bench/practice/kneeling. This will allow you to select/reject cards when you come to graph and display them - and so have the machine analyse group shapes etc.

Cards are set up for 25 prone/kneeling/standing as well as 50 and 100.

eDIARY

The eDiary system allows you to collect longer-term info about your shooting.

eDiary entries have a date and notes. Thats it.

Use the notes copiously, it will help you improve. As well as noteing any deviations from norm - stock changes, sight changes. Also think about recording your objectives and feelings - it will help you pull your shooting together.

I keep getting asked why I have notes on cards and the eDiary entries - why?

Well the eDairy is kind of long-term items such as "I am not happy with the pressure in the supporting hand. I think the pressure is too high. At the end of 40 shots my hand is sore, I have to break before the last 20. I need to find out what to adjust - sling or handstop or glove - to try to fix this problem".

The notes on the card are things specific to the card - like "changed the front sight to 3.8 as the target was very bright" or "shot this card with some old RWS ammo I got a few different detonations that corresponded to flyers".

STAGE 2 - set up

OK, you are getting to a position where you can try logging on to the system and experimenting. You will see that that you need

a username
a password
a "card type" - 25 prone, 25 kneeling etc
which database to use. The TEST database is great when you are learning how the system works. The test database is never mixed up with live cards and can be used for "how does this work?" sort of things. Login and try it now. Make sure the the big red letters TEST SYSTEM appear on screen. Then you know you are not messing with actual cards.

CALIBRATION

The first thing you should try to do is to try to enter a card. Make sure that when you call up a card that the initial bullet holes are in the exact middle of the target and that as you drag the bullet about the displayed score - 10, 9 etc matches what you expect for the bullet position.

If the bullet is not in the exact middle - which depends a bit on your browser and operating system - not you will need to put in a calibration card - essentially where you teach the machine where the middle of each target is. Once you have set up a calibration card it will remain in force for that distance until you change operating system/browser etc.

If you are still with me we can move on to more detail.

eDairy

The eDiary editor allows you to keep all kinds of things in the notes - not just words - but to insert pictures/diagrams, links to web sites etc etc. A wee sketch in notepad, or a photo of a position can be worth a lot to a coach. Think about it.

When you come to display a selection of cards, the system will intersperse eDairy notes with the cards. I use the dates on the eDairy notes to try to intersperse the correct eDairy notes just prior to the cards that were shot. That is to say if you put in an eDiary for 1/1/2010 then that note will proceed all cards shot on or after 1/1/2010 until you put in a later dated notes.

You can see the eDairy entries by themselves if you wish too - it is hard to know what is "best" for people - so I kind of give too much functionality rather than too little.

Stick an eDiary entry in now. Something brief and date it for today.

For those of you shooting multiple pieces of kit (hooks/rifles etc) or multiple disciples - 3P/Bench/Air you should put some notes in the eDiary so you determine this later!! I was half considering having eDiary notes for each discipline but that seemed just tooooo much?

Cards

Great, if you are still with me, move on and put in a card or three. Put one card in with yesterdays date and one with todays date and one with the day after tomorrow. You can use whatever Competition you want.

Note that the Competition is a "drop down" of Competitions the machines knows about. If you dont see your comp in the list just type the data into the "New Comp" field below the list. I will do the rest and insert it into the list for future reference. For that reason it is best that you dont put too much data in the comp - like year info - unless you really want to.

Each time you enter a card the system will jump to a "score-table" presentation where you see an overview of your cards and your eDiary notes. At the end of the report you will also see a graph of the selected card scores and some stats on last 10/12 and last 5/6 cards.

Made a mistake - that is easy to fix, if you click on the show/edit button you can modify the data in the card or in the eDairy note.

The graph has two lines. One lines is the "estimated" score - based on where you said the bullet landed, the other line is based on the "actual" score. This allows you to see if you ability to estimate scores is any good!

Once you have entered some data you can view existing cards in any of three modes - table, graphical or cummulative (where cards are overlaid on top of each other). Using simple search rules (including dates/comp names etc) you can select and look at groups of cards - like show me all practice cards shot in November, or show me all handicap cards.