Get ready for a ridiculously long post.
What can I say...this was my first time ever attending a Stunt CL event anywhere. I had no idea what to expect, and I was not disappointed at all.
I was inspired to see so much sharp talent at the field. To everyone who didn't show up to this meet for one reason or another: y'all missed out on lots of great flying and on a huge lot of delicious food! Just sayin'.
I want to thank Joe and the gang for organizing everything: setting up the permit so that we hadn't driven six hours in vain; having the field mowed early in the morning; letting me and Jerry set up all the perimeter markers for video tracking; setting up all the pits and tents; managing all the flights; tabulating the scores; bringing all the food and drinks; letting me hang out near the judges with my camera without annoying them too much; and everything else I failed to mention. Thanks to Bob and Jim for their input about their experience with active timers and competition judging. It was all I could do to keep up while soaking up all the knowledge.
I was there merely for the support of all Stunt Beginners worldwide (as the only Beginner participant). I hardly deserve the 1st place award
Kidding aside, more importantly I wanted to record video footage of as many flights as possible to further the development of the VideoF2B software application. If anyone hasn't heard by now, I've set my sights on the rather ambitious goal of tracking Stunt figures in 3D for automated scoring. It should be an interesting adventure.
Toward that end, I am processing all the footage as fast as I can in order to share my ultimate vision with everyone. I have prepared all the originals (no tracers, no audio) so far.
There are a total of 18 recorded flights that day:
- 2 Intermediate (1 pilot, 2 rounds)
- 4 Advanced (2 pilots, 2 rounds)
- 12 Expert (4 pilots, 3 rounds)
I managed to capture all of them despite the afternoon's changing wind. They now reside on a new YouTube channel here:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_qSycHQlXgv9PKjmaHFKpw Go to
"PLAYLISTS" and you will see the
"NYCLST 2020 - originals" playlist. This contains all the flights of the day in the order they were flown. There's a bonus video in there with a closer look at Joe's unfortunate mishap. I made sure Joe wouldn't mind me sharing it.
Please consider subscribing to get further updates, as my next step will be to post the traced versions of all these videos as soon as I'm done processing them all (by the end of this week, I hope -- it's a rather slow process). Tom asked me at the field, "Will it show me how bad my patterns are?", and I will answer here: "No, this app only shows how AWESOME your square loops are!" I'm serious, they're tight.
Furthermore, once the traced versions are up I plan to post excerpts of 3D-traced individual figures of everyone's flights.
For example, the inside loops would be the first batch.
You will be able to see three, possibly four things in a given video:
- The original traced path
- The nominal "perfect" path as defined by the rules
- The "best-fit" path that most closely matches the actual executed maneuver
- A plot of the deviations between the best-fit path and the actual path
...and I hope the judges will join me in a discussion on how to auto-score each figure based on that information.
I hope this will be educational and fun for everyone involved. Enjoy all the videos of your skills, and stay tuned for future analysis!
To echo Bob's concern -- perhaps the posted videos will help to generate some interest in the hobby in general so that we can engage more newcomers to keep the spirit alive.
Big thanks to all and see y'all next time,
-Andrey