The Concept

Overview

Even though fringe sports are very action-packed and generate great enthusiasm among both athletes and spectators, the budget for such sports is rather low. This means that larger purchases, such as a professional time and score display system, often remain just a dream.

 

In order to change this, we have set ourselves the goal of attacking this problem with our diploma thesis SimpleScore – The Open-Source Time and Score Display System. On the one hand, we are building a system for the Austrian canoe polo scene, whereby there are special requirements for operation near water, and on the other hand, we want to support other clubs, nations and other fringe sports by offering a replica manual on our website, or by lending our system to any clubs in the Vienna area.

 

We laid the foundation for a transportable display system for matches and tournaments with a 4th grade project. This year, the aim is to expand this during the diploma thesis with features such as an additional display board for team names, a smart control module with touch screen, as well as an online game plan and an automatic game result upload.

The Functionalties of the System

There are four important things that need to be displayed in canoe polo. First, the remaining game time, and second, the score. If a player commits a deliberate or dangerous foul he will be penalized with a penalty card, eighter green, yellow or red. All three of them punish the player with a two minute time penalty in which the player is required to stay of the pitch without a substitution. For each team there is a two minute timer to show a penalyzed player how long he has to remain of the pitch. Fourth and most importantly, the shotclock. After a team gains ball possesion it has 60 seconds to attempt a shot. If there is no attempted shot in this time, the other team gets the ball. The operation of the system – the score and the timers – is done by the referee team.

Construction

The module consists of a watterproof casing made from aluminium and acrylic glass. The individual segments are cnc routed out of a mdf sheet (wood) and lighted by ultra bright led strips. The frame is made of aluminium L-profiles to give it a good structural stability in order to withstand shots from a ball. Furthermore foldable stands are mounted to the L-profiles.

Block Diagram

The displayed numbers consist out of seven segment digits. The lightsources are ws2811 ultra bright adressable RGB led strips. Those are controlled by a microcontroller within their module. To get the data from the command module “LoRa”-modules (radio) are used. In order to supply electricity to the displays, 48V are used to make it first of all safe in case of a wire cut and furthermore make it law conform.