Kompusport Cross Country QR Labels
Covid-19 has hit the sports industry rather hard in 2020. It has either shutdown or brought the sports world to its knees. Yet, we've tried to persevere and get through it as best we all can. Yes, Kreppert Kompusport Software has been hit hard with it as well, having the entire track & field season shutdown and the cross country season reduced to requiring schools to hold only small meets which prevents our usual large invitationals from being held. We have been sheltering in place to keep safe from the virus, and so far have managed to avoid it.
During this unprecedented time we have spent our time trying to come up with ways to make cross country season better. To that effort, we now present to you our latest work. With social distancing rules in place and small meets being the norm in 2020, we've come up with a way that anyone can record the order of finish for a cross country race which helps you remain safe from Covid-19, while being fast and accurate. To do this, we've invented the QR Label for Cross Country Meets:
 Sample QR Label |
The above QR Label is a sample of what our labels look like. We print these ourselves. They are 3" wide by 4" tall. We ask athletes to place these on the front of their uniform, high on the right front shoulder. Using a smart phone we then scan the code after the athlete finishes the race, in the order in which they finished. We use a free app from the Play Store which allows for a batch mode scan. This allows each code to be scanned, one after another, without attempting to process what the code contains. The data is stored in a history list within the app, which can then be saved and exported to a computer to be viewed in Excel or any other spreadsheet type of program.
Try scanning the QR code above. You will find that it contains contact information for Kreppert Kompusport Software, which can automatically be saved into your phone's contact list.
Our Cross Country QR Labels contain a QR code with text which contains the athlete's name, year in school, gender, school name, athlete ID number and meet ID number, all in comma separated fields. An overall order of finish can be quickly assembled from this information. The athlete ID number can be used to identify the athlete in most cross country results software. The meet ID number is unique to every meet. All of the meet ID numbers from a meet should be the same. If an athlete uses a label from a previous meet, this can easily and quickly be detected by looking at the meet ID number. If you are using the athlete ID number to identify the athlete in a cross country results program, that number can be different for each meet. The meet ID number insures that you are only dealing with labels from your meet, and not another meet. Yes, we have actually had this very situation happen with tags over the many years that we have worked cross country meets.
Clearly printed in human readable form on the label is the athlete's name, year in school, school name, gender and athlete ID number. It also contains the name of the meet in which it is inteded to be used for above the QR code. This information is on the label so that the labels are given to the correct teams and athletes.
Since these are labels and not tags or bib numbers, they have an adhesive on the back side which allows them to adhere to the athlete's uniform. No safety pins are needed with these labels. They can easily be scanned on an athlete from between 1.5 feet to at least 4 feet away. The QR code itself is large enough that it can be read from as far away as at least 8 feet, but in actual practice at a meet, on a moving athlete where the phone's camera has to constantly keep trying to focus, a shorter distance is usually required. It is contactless, and does not require collecting anything from the athlete, yet effortlessly collects information which can then be used to construct who participated in a race.
Although these QR codes are very reliable, and have built in error correction, it is possible that a label may become unreadable or even lost during a race. We also provide Unknown Athlete labels which the person scanning the codes can scan when this happens. An Unknown Athlete label is therefore used as a place holder. The mobile app allows for editing the data in the QR code so that once the athlete has been identified, it can be manually entered into the app. If the QR code is unreadable but the athlete ID number can be read on the label, it too can be manually entered in the app. The athlete can then be identified by that number as well.
If you are interested in using these Kompusport Cross Country QR Labels at your meet, scan the QR code above and contact us.
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