in·no·vate
From the moment that scent hurdles introduced a catapult that launched tennis balls into the air for the dogs to catch, "Flyball" has been a sport constantly evolving and changing. The latest innovation to create a "buzz" in the flyball community is "FlyballGeek.com".
Flyball Geek is the brainchild of Andy McBride of the Go-Dog-Go Flyball Club. For years, the flyball community has used various ideas and methods to provide race information to participants. Large numbers for displays set both inside and outside were most often used. The problem was that no matter how big they were, they often were not readable at great distances and other buildings often blocked their view.
Next, we tried two-way radios set to a specific channel for the tournament. These were great but, sometimes were drowned out by barking dogs at camp. Static often garbled the message. People forgot to announce races. Many did not trust their reliance on them and if they did not understand the message being broadcast or simply missed what was said, you would send a runner to ringside or risk being late to a race.
In fact, sending a runner to report where the host was in the race schedule was the only truly reliable method for keeping track of racing but, it was exhausting for the person(s) doing the running. I blame that for the reason I would need to take Monday off to "recover" from a weekend of racing.
The growing popularity of "smart" phones, tablets and laptops along with an ever improving broadband internet access made creating a web app that kept track of the racing schedule desirable. Andy McBride took up the challenge and successfully created such an application that worked so well, NAFA offered to pay him to develop a much more sophisticated program to handle the demands of the CanAm Classic.
Flyball Geek is available in limited beta. Go the website and sign up for an account which simply involves creating an ID and a password. Email Andy at Andy@FlyballGeek.com with your reasons for requesting an account and he'll finish setting you up allowing you to upload race schedules and do other administrative functions.
As Chief Correspondent for Flyball Today, I set up an account so that viewers watching the livestream of an event could access race information and know exactly who they were watching race. It was so much simpler for me to use Flyball Geek than to upload that information at Livestream.
What I want to emphasize is that Flyball Geek is simple, simple, simple to use! Do NOT let fear of all things technical keep you from exploiting this service for your event! Andy will answer all your questions and guide you through step by step. In fact, the instructions on the Flyball Geek website seem to be very clear but, if you get confused, there is plenty of help available.
Sign up at least a week in advance of your event so that you can familiarize yourself with the program and do the necessary testing to make sure it works for you and that you understand what is normal behavior for the program.
As an example, it was necessary for me to change my uploaded schedule for three small changes on Sunday. I wasn't sure that deleting the existing schedule and uploading a corrected version while the schedule was in progress wouldn't mess something up. Andy answered my question with plenty of time for me to upload my corrected schedule for Sunday's racing. AND, there were no glitches with the program!
So, rest assured that anyone can use this and you can even correct your mistakes! Help is only an email away!
Another benefit is that all of your event's participants will love you for doing this. Your tournament will move quicker, too, since there is no longer an excuse for a club showing up late for a race due to inattention. (Of course, a human will still have to look at the updater every now and then!)
Remember the name, Flyball Geek. It just might be the most important innovation in flyball since the swimmer's turn!
Good Luck and Good Racing!
Chris
I'd also like to see an app for counting flyball points! So you could just enter them in after your race and it would keep track.
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