Highly accurate competition timing

[Octillion]

I’m with Raccoon on this one, what is the current standard? And how accurate is it… If I’m bored and have enough free time before school, I might just prototype one of these ideas, so long as it accurately and easily measures the standard.

[Gordon Airporte]

It just occured to me that the locks that can be picked (or zapped) so fast that you need .001 second resolution to decide winners aren't going to be very interesting locks. The competition should be structured so you win or lose based on locks that take enough time where the half second it takes to grab a stopwatch doesn't really matter.

[Varjeal]

Let me try this again as I neglected to mention the starting.

Quite simply, whoever is in charge of the competition should have some sort of a switch that starts all timers simultaneously after giving the command "go" or whatever else is appropriate in conjunction with a mounted lock on a board and include the bolt. Simply have a switch attached (depressed) against the bolt. When the lock is turned it opens (or closes depending on what you want) the switch and stops the individual clock. That means very little human interaction other than starting the timers and the individuals stopping their own timer by opening the lock. It's not really that complicated.

I would think that a timer accurate to within a hundredth or tenth of a second would be plenty accurate. We'll have to work some more on designing a specific system that can be easily adapted for the LSI crowd and for events like the LPCONs

[Raccoon]

In all the videos I've watched, people pick locks in their hands and never on a board. From DB's vids to TOOOL's, I have yet to see anyone timed on a lock board.

As far as accuracy goes, I would hate to see 2 people tie for first place with a 0.3 second difference which could EASILY be attributed to human error. Especially when money and title is at stake.

Naturally, if everyone is going under the same start time, all working at once, there's no big deal-- everyone starts together. But if you're the in the 8th round with 60 people and the person running the stopwatch is getting craps in their thumb, I'd hate to think that the someone else might have walked away champion if only a sophisticated timer was used. It's not asking very much-- a little techno-burden goes a long way.

Though, I'm still eger to learn of any standard procedure practiced in competitions. Do You Lay Down Your Tools Before Saying OPEN?

[Shrub]

Open is shouted as soon as the lock plug turns,

I had thought about wireing up the tooling but no matter how thin the wire i would still see that as a hinderance and what if you wanted to use a differant wrench?

Picking in the hand could still be done if a way of mounting a micro switch to the lock can be done,

I wasnt interested in this thread i must admin but now ive read it and see there is a need its getting my brain cells working,

Is it normally cylinders or profiles that are picked? i know at tool and the open etc they are profile locks but im guessing the LSI locks are cylinders? in that case a small transmitter with micro switch can easily be made to bolt to one of the mounting holes or clamp around the body to provide a switch to turn the clock off when the lock is 'open', this would be even easier to do on a profile cylinder,

Im with Varjeal, as long as all the clocks can be started at once then everyone has the same opportunity,

The split second picking times is for the record book comps and not really the real comps due to as already said comp locks arent that easy,

[Varjeal]

I think it is becoming generally accepted that timed competitions are done in groups working from the same start time start, and locks mounted either in boards or firmly mounted in vises. At least I'm sure that the locks for LPCON will be mounted, and I know the Edmonton LSI guys tested with locks mounted with the exception of the master padlock.

Likely having the locks mounted will become standard as it will make events more "film friendly".

[maxxed]

Varjeal's idea with the micro switch on the lock stopping a timer is similar to a cuircut I built for a racetrack. This unit displayed the finishing order for 6 cars and was not originally built to display time, however that shouldn't be a difficult mod.
To do single event timing I would suggest useing a prox sensor ( like a touch lamp) to start then a micro swith on the lock to stop time

[Raccoon]

A lot of these methods are subject to error and if implemented should require redundant backup timing. For instance, switches don't always make contact, especially if the participant doesn't apply enough force or if the switch has seen a lot of use. The static electricity "lamp contact" circuit is also susceptible to false triggers or non-triggers, if the contestant has especially dry hands or if there is a radio frequency spike in the room (caused by florescent lighting or a neighboring contestant's switch).

[Mothrog]

I don't know what variety of locks are typically used in these competitions, but I imagine you could fashion a flag for the end of the lock in question and then use a photogate timer to measure the time it takes for the participant to open the lock. While commerical photogates are typically somewhat expensive, you can actually fashion your own photogates using cheapy stop watches and get reasonably accurate timing. I have a paper from a journal somewhere about making the necessary modifications that I can dig up if anyone's interested.

[Lakes]

Folks, I think the timing device used for Speed Stacking would work great at sportpicking events.

Tag the pads, pick up the lock and your tools, pick the lock, put down the lock and tools and tag the pads again. No disputes.

http://www.speedstacks.com/TheGear.html ... unction%5D

Lakes

[Omikron]

As some people on this board can attest, I am already developing a 99.9% accurate timing mechanism for competitions that will be completely objective and highly accurate. More details as soon as I have the first prototypes out the door.

[digital_blue]

Unacceptable. We want to know now!

j/k

[What]

let me guess, it interacts with the tailpiece of the lock, as the cyl turns past a point it completes a circut and stops the time.

correct?

[digital_blue]

Nope. Incorrect. I've talked with Omi. He'll probably be upset with me telling you all this, but my mod buttons are bigger than his mod buttons, so I'll tell you his plan.

It's an old man with Parkinsons and a rusty stopwatch.

[dosman]

...Also, video cameras only sample at 24 to 29 frames a second, where audio is sampled at 44,000 samples a second.

Your accuracy with video would actually be twice as good as the frames-per-second count. A frame is made up of two independant fields (upper and lower), so in effect you would get 59.94 images per second for a regular NTSC video camera (Minus a few drop-frames). Sorry, I couldn't resist .