Namespace Technologies

The word is out, and the rumours are true. After years of good ideas, rough designs and not enough time, 2020 cleared our schedule and we got working on our remote judging project, the InTime Virtual Judging Room. A little sooner than we planned for, Flyspot presented an opportunity to test this proof-of-concept for remote judging, in which we aimed to keep the same panel-interaction, accepted processes and control mechanisms in place but move the judges a few thousand kilometres apart. They kindly agreed to bear with all the lumps and bumps of an untested prototype, and our new baby – warts and all – took its first test flight with the 2020 Flyspot Tunnel League. Finnish judge currently living in Poland, Agnieszka “Aggie” Sobczynska, was the Chief Judge and “Instigator of Early Testing”. She and her judging panel convened (remotely from their homes in 3 different countries) for 3 real-time judging sessions in the Virtual Judging Room to judge the meet as a true panel. Critical to our assessment of the concept was the ability to implement standard meet rules and judging processes that would have applied to an in-person judging room. We judged 114 FS and VFS flights across a range of categories and skill levels, allowing us to test a wide variety of situations and the full range of judging activity and functions. By the 3rd sitting, the major bugs were ironed out and the panel was comfortable with the system. Voice communication had dropped to much the same as a traditional judging room (bust reasons, requests for a break, etc.), plus one or two hungry cats reminding us of dinner time. The experience was really good and it is exciting to finally see the obvious next chapter in action. We miss meeting up with friends and colleagues across the globe and can’t wait to do that again. There is an important place and need for live local events, with everyone present, and all the pressure, emotion, motivation and energy that it brings to competition. But we see a future with more and more distributed, and semi-distributed, meets too, and they deserve the same scoring, management, publishing and viewing standards we have come to expect at our meets. We hope that InTime Scoring can bring a professional and rewarding product to deliver just that to competitors, spectators, organisers and judges. Let’s see how we do. A big thanks goes out to Flyspot, their operations and sports manager Agnieszka Olczyk and Aggie for organising the events and allowing us to test on their league, to the judges for their patience (and some unplanned coffee breaks), and to the teams for supporting competition in tricky times and giving us something real to work with.