Competition Website Tool
Flo (2010-09-12 21:06:33 +0000)
Hey guys,
in late 2008, I started writing some tools to help us organize Aachen Open 2009. Since then, my software has become quite advanced I would say. I hosted 10 competition websites with it so far, 11th on the way. The software consists of two parts. A public website for competitors to register on and an administration frontend which helps with a lot of jobs of a competition organizer. Sébastien (WCA delegate of Germany) used it a lot lately and Ron also had a quick look.
Here are examples of the public sites:
* [url=http://cube.hackvalue.de/ao10:3g9xuwzy]Aachen Open 2010[/url:3g9xuwzy]
* [url=http://cube.hackvalue.de/dd10:3g9xuwzy]Düsseldorf Open 2010[/url:3g9xuwzy]
* [url=http://cube.hackvalue.de/co10:3g9xuwzy]Cologne Open 2010[/url:3g9xuwzy]
* [url=http://cube.hackvalue.de/alania10:3g9xuwzy]Alania Open 2010[/url:3g9xuwzy]
* [url=http://cube.hackvalue.de/ego10:3g9xuwzy]East German Open 2010[/url:3g9xuwzy]
* [url=http://cube.hackvalue.de/lo10:3g9xuwzy]Lemgo Open 2010[/url:3g9xuwzy]
* [url=http://cube.hackvalue.de/gn10:3g9xuwzy]German Nationals 2010[/url:3g9xuwzy]
* [url=http://cube.hackvalue.de/muc10:3g9xuwzy]Munich Open 2010[/url:3g9xuwzy]
The layout/structure is similar on all sites, but that is due to my lazyness, not a missing feature (East German Open looks very different, as you can see).
The usual workflow is as follows:
* People register on the public page
* The registration gets saved into a database
* Admin has to activate/confirm the registration
Some other features:
* easy multi-language support for the public page
* add/edit/delete registrations (add and remove events, edit the entered data, etc.)
* support to put events in a "waiting list" status
* create a schedule for the competition (which automatically corresponds to the events one can register for)
* add news to the website (without actually knowing any HTML)
* CSV-export the registration database in ready-to-use format for the WCA excel scoresheet
* create nametags
* create a "checklist" for the entrance (list of registered people and how much money they have to pay for easy cashing)
* show financial statistics (mark people as "free entrance", set entrance fees for guests and competitors, see how much money will probably get in, ...)
* one-click confirmation mails for registrations with pre-defined texts ("Hello XY, you are now registered for 3x3x3, 4x4x4, ...")
* mails to all registered competitors
* ...
As far as I know, there is no comparable software so far, at least not public. Every competition organizer has to create a website and I guess most just fumble around some ugly stuff, write all confirmation mails by hand or copy&paste and work with the WCA scoresheet to keep track of the registrations. I saw some advanced stuff from the US guys, but no source code. So here goes my question. Does anybody care?
My software is not ready to be released, but if enough people are interested, I would go the effort to polish up the source code, fix some known bugs, do some more intensive testing and write some documentation on how to use it and then finally publish it. (For the interested reader: It's written in the web framework Ruby on Rails and you will need a hosting service which supports RoR or an own server).
So, if you are planning on doing a competition, but the effort to create a website or to manage the registrations in an easy way is holding you back, this might be of help for you. Tell me what you think.
Florian (Aachen, Germany)
flo@hackvalue.de
![Smile :-)]({SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif)
BryanLogan (2010-09-12 22:56:23 +0000)
CubingUSA has code where we can quickly deploy competition websites and it has many of the features you talk about. It's written in PHP and MySQL. If you'd like to see the source, we'd be glad to share. But it's done in a way where organizers don't need a host even, since they can only modify their own competition, so they get free hosting on CubingUSA. This is also beneficial because it's tied in with the CubingUSA registration system.
Flo (2010-09-13 06:07:51 +0000)
Yeah, I'd love to see the source code or maybe a demo installation where I can play around. Maybe I can steal some ideas from you
As far as "free hosting" goes: So far, I also hosted all the competitions which use my software on my own machine. I just wanted to give some requirements for people who [b:3hn6rji3]want[/b:3hn6rji3] to host on their own.
![Smile :-)]({SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif)
MadsMohr (2011-02-01 10:53:56 +0000)
I've also added some features to help organize competitions to my [url=http://live.speedcubing.dk/:76vunol7]live results system[/url:76vunol7] like [url=http://live.speedcubing.dk/documentation/wca_spreadsheet.html:76vunol7]spreadsheet generation[/url:76vunol7] and certificate generating and latest I back ported [url=http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=912:76vunol7]scramble generation[/url:76vunol7] in as well. (Scrambles are not approved, [url=http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=920:76vunol7]yet[/url:76vunol7])
There is also a very crude email function.
Radu (2011-02-01 11:29:55 +0000)
[quote="MadsMohr":10jt0bwp]I've also added some features to help organize competitions to my [url=http://live.speedcubing.dk/:10jt0bwp]live results system[/url:10jt0bwp] like [url=http://live.speedcubing.dk/documentation/wca_spreadsheet.html:10jt0bwp]spreadsheet generation[/url:10jt0bwp] and certificate generating and latest I back ported [url=http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=912:10jt0bwp]scramble generation[/url:10jt0bwp] in as well. (Scrambles are not approved, [url=http://www.worldcubeassociation.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=920:10jt0bwp]yet[/url:10jt0bwp])
There is also a very crude email function.[/quote:10jt0bwp]
Great work! It's good to have people like you
. I will study these in more detail.
![Smile :)]({SMILIES_PATH}/icon_smile.gif)