The TScore Judge’s App

The latest version of TScore includes the ability to use Android tablets for each judge to enter their deductions for each athlete.

This currently works with Trampolining, DMT and Tumbling. Note that Synchro, Acro, Artistic and Pole do not yet have this capability.

As you can imagine, this is a more complex system to operate and test that standard TScore, so please take the time to familiarize yourself with it thoroughly before running a live event.

There are a few things to note:

  1. This will eventually support ‘median deduction’ scoring, but at present although it shows the median score, this is is just for information.
  2. You will need a router that allows broadcast UDP to take full advantage of the solution. Note that some more expensive routers might detect this sort of broadcast as a potential attack, and block it after a few minutes! A router with built-in cable modem is more likely to behave badly in this respect than a general purpose WiFi router. The £20 plug-in routers that I use operate flawlessly with it.
  3. If you can receive broadcast notifications, the system is more automated. If you cannot, you will need to set the database server and name manually on each tablet, and judges will have to click the ‘Refresh’ button themselves.
  4. The app runs on Android only. An Android tablet can be picked up for as little as £25/$35 (from China, £30-50 elsewhere), compared to about 10x that price for an iPad.  Note that Amazon frequently have sales on their Fire tablets – recently down to £30 each, which is brilliant value for money. I do not currently intend supporting iPads due to the significant costs to us as developers and to you as users.
  5. You will need to be running Android v4.4 (Kit-Kat) as a minimum. If you run it on a phone or other high pixel density device, you may need to change the text size setting on the Settings page.
  6. I aim to put the app onto Google Play store eventually, but for now you can simply download it to your tablet and install it directly – Android will ask permission before installing an app from an unknown location.  You may also need to change settings on the tablet to allow non-Play store apps to be loaded, but you will not need to ‘root’ the device or anything nasty!
  7. Windows 10 has a limit of 20 concurrent inbound connections, and every PC and tablet will use at least one.  If you are running a large event where the total number of PCs and tablets will reach 20, you must either use a Windows Server or Linux computer as your database server. I have tested using Linux Mint 17.3 and PostgreSQL 10 and it worked perfectly.

Please download the latest version of the app from the Downloads page.

To use the app you will need to be running the latest version of TScore

Here is a summary of how to install the app.  You can find the most up to date information in the TScore User Guide.

How to install the app:

Most Android devices support the Google Play app store. However, Amazon Fire devices use the more limited Amazon store. The instructions for each type of device are below.

So far the app has been run successfully on:  Amazon Fire 7″,  Nexus 10″, Nexus 7″, ZTE Axon 7 mini, a generic ‘Softwinner AStar A33’ 7″ Chinese tablet.

Google Play Store Devices

On your Android device (phone or tablet) use the browser to navigate to the download page and click the App download link. It should offer you the option of installing the app (it will ask you to confirm because you are downloading from somewhere other than the Google Play store).  Be assured that TScore contains no adware or nasty surprises!

In an ideal world that just works. However, some browsers and versions of Android make life a little harder. You may find that instead of downloading the app as an ‘apk’ file, instead it lists as a txt file. To get round this, you need to install the Google Chrome browser from PlayStore or Amazon store. Then navigate to this page using Chrome, and the download should appear correctly as an apk file.

You might now be able to run the apk file directly to install it. Sometimes though, you cannot! In this case, you should download an Android File Manager app from the Play store. ( I use “FileManager”). With this app, navigate to the Downloads folder and click on the apk file from there. It should now install.

Amazon Fire Devices

Fire tablets are great quality, but a little constrained when it comes to installing apps. However, the newer versions of their operating system have made it much easier to install from the TScore website.

On your Fire tablet, click Settings, then Security and Privacy. Find the ‘Apps from Unknown Sources’ switch and enable it.

Check whether your Fire has the ‘File Explorer’ app installed. If not, run the Amazon Appstore app, search for ‘File Explorer’ and install it.

Now use the Amazon ‘Silk’ browser to navigate to the download page and long-press the App download link. A menu pops up – select ‘Download Link’ and wait a few seconds while it downloads.

Now run the ‘File Explorer’ app and click the Downloads folder. You should see a file in there called something like ‘Unconfirmed 123456.crdownload’ (the number will vary).  It should be about 19.6Mb in size. (If it is less, the file may not have downloaded properly – try again from the browser).

Click on this file and select Open from the menu. You should now be asked whether you want to open the file with the Package Installer. Click ‘Just Once’ and confirm the next screen. TScore should now be installed.
If that doesn’t work, click the file and then use the menu on the top right of the screen to pick ‘Rename’. Change the filename to have a ‘.apk’ ensension (e.g. ‘tscore.apk’). Now click on that and the installation should proceed.

 

How to set up your TScore competition and connect tablets

  1. Create the competition as normal in TScore.
  2. Install the TScore app on your tablets and start them all up. On each tablet, set the Panel and Judge number in the Settings screen. You can also set the text size to best suit the screen size and font preferences on your particular tablet.

  1. Once all of the tablets are set and connected to the WiFi network, run TScore on one of your laptops
  2. Decide which panel(s) will use direct entry and set this on the (new!) TScore Preferences screen, ‘Judging Panels’ tab:

  1. Click the Connect button and after a few seconds the red lights should turn green and TScore pushes the connection details to each tablet
  2. If some stay red, double check the Panel and Judge settings and WiFi connection on each tablet and try ‘Connect’ again.
  3. If you still have trouble, click Reset, then Connect
  4. If this still fails, check the Settings screen on the app for each failed tablet and enter the server and database name by hand if necessary.
  5. Save the TScore Preferences

You can now go to the Scoring screen as normal. When you select a class on a panel that has Direct Deductions (DD) enabled, you will see a new button on the scoring form:

  1. Click the Deductions button:

  1. Choose the gymnast and click the Start Scoring button.  TScore will notify the tablets on that panel that the next gymnast is starting. As each tablet receives the message, it sends back confirmation to TScore and the buttons turn to amber, showing they are ready to enter the scores.
  3. If a light stays red, try clicking the offending red button to re-send the notification to that judge.
  4. If a light still stays red, ask the judge to click ‘Refresh’ on their tablet
  5. Once the routine/run has been completed, the judges enter their scores by clicking the deduction buttons for each move (including the end deduction).
  7. The next move to be scored is shown in green
  8. Blanks deductions (“-“) are shown in red
  10. The buttons shown will change when you get to the end deduction, so that only valid deduction scores are presented.
  12. To make a correction, click the move you want to change – it will turn green – then touch the new score button
  13. When you are happy with your entries, click the Confirm button
  15. As each judge clicks ‘Confirm’, the scores are transferred to the main TScore screen and the lights turn green
  16. When all the lights turn green, TScore will stop checking for scores and show the Save / Undo buttons.
  17. At any stage, you can enter the additional scores – penalty, horizontal displacement, difficulty etc.
  18. Be sure to click out of the boxes once you put these values in, otherwise they will be reset when a new score arrives from the judges.
  19. Now Save as normal
  20. If you need one or more judges to correct a score, click their green light to reset it to amber, and click the Resume Scoring button.

  1. You can return to the main ‘totals’ scoring screen by clicking the Totals button
  2. To see the full set of deductions, use the Export Results option as usual – there are additional sheets showing all deductions.