Background
FeisMark was written to handle the championships at an open feis (around 1200
competitors) held in England. Our original brief was simply 'to provide championship
scoring facilities', but we quickly decided that we could do much more. In particular,
we wanted to:
- Enter scores quickly and accurately.
- Perform all calculations without human intervention.
- Free ourselves from wrestling with spreadsheets and pieces of paper.
- Produce recalls and results very quickly.
- Make 'marks packs' immediately available for sale to parents, dancers
and teachers.
- Enable checking of all marks and calculations in case of adjudicator queries.
- Keep details of each championship on file for future reference.
With the software finished and tested, and our systems set up, we were feeling
relaxed. Imagine the nightmare when a hardware problem knocked out our computer
the night before the feis.
We needn't have worried. FeisMark ran happily on the laptop we had as backup,
and performed like a dream:
- Dancers were thrilled when recalls and results were announced within five
or ten minutes of the last dancer leaving the stage.
- Adjudicators were amazed to have results returned so quickly and, more
importantly, accurately.
- Marks packs were available for sale immediately the results were
announced.
- Parents and teachers were happy that competitions ran smoothly and to
time.
- The whole feis finished an hour ahead of schedule.
Since then, we have made the software more robust and even simpler to use.
You don't need a degree in rocket science to run FeisMark -- just a PC, a
printer, and a couple of careful people to enter adjudicators' marks and push
the buttons.
Simple!
