Cascade Striders Track Meet Network Set-up

So the Cascade Striders are hosting their track meet on Saturday, May 31 at Samammish High school and as a parent of one of the kids who practices and competes from that team, I have been enlisted to help host the meet. As a spectator, I have watched how the other teams host track meets this year (and last year) and I am always extremely disappointed. The meets are disorganized. There are not enough volunteers in the field events. The heats take forever to start. The athletes, coaches, and spectators wait impatiently as the meet coordinators lazily arrange for the next event or wait for some unknown reason. The meet is always hopelessly behind schedule by the second or third event.

Among the reasons for these failings is the lack of communication among the meet coordinators and hosts. They hand-write results, heat lineups, timings, then need to "run" (they usually walk slowly) these results to the different stations. So this year the Cascade Striders are trying to bring the organization of a track meet into the 21st century. We purchased a 6-license pack of Hy-Tek's "Meet Manager" software and arranged to borrow a bunch of laptops from parents. I set up a wireless network and we arranged for a blackberry to be used as a modem attached to one of the laptops to give it public Internet access.

The announcers in the booth can either WAP the results down from the Internet on a cell phone to announce them or access a text file exported by "Meet Manager" to read the results. The registration, awards, and administrative laptops in the concession booth and admin building keep track of who paid, who is registered, who gets which medal, etc. The start/finish machines interface via meet manager to the electronic start / finish equipment.