My goal is to create an app that fills a need that is not currently being met. So I am going to step back for a bit and dig further into research. I am starting to realize there are more software solutions to Tournament Management than I had originally suspected.

I want to make sure it will be worth my time to create yet another tournament management software solution. Or perhaps it would be better to team up with an existing software team to create an Android/iOS app which works with an existing system.

I think that there's a niche market for a tablet app that is setup so that one person could easily run a small tournament on their own. From my research I haven't found any software that does what I'm looking for. This doesn't need to be a particular complicated app at first and like you mentioned you may be able to find an existing code base to start from. If it works well on a small scale then you can scale it up with additional features for larger tournaments if you see a market.

The difference between small tournaments like the Nickel City monthly tournaments and the bigger tournaments like CAX is that with the larger tournaments you have multiple people running the tournament. The larger tournament can have people running score sheets to other people who are entering the results into the computer or software package and generating upcoming matches. Right now I'm trying to manage 20 to 40 people on 5 or 6 different games at once. I'm constantly running back and forth between the games to fill out the score sheets and the computer to fill out the spread sheet. I definitely get behind and there are times when people are waiting because I'm having to manually enter data and try to figure out who's up for the next games. I'd like to see the score sheet and the computer spreadsheet / tournament software merged into a single tablet package with a little more intelligence than a simple spreadsheet.

This is basically what I do manually for a tournament.

Step 1) - Register tournament players and assign players numbers
Step 2) - Pull up the spreadsheet tournament bracket for the number of players that are registered.
Step 3) - Randomly populate the tournament bracket (I pull players numbers out of a hat / bucket)
Step 4) - Assign a match to an available game.
Step 5) - Enter in results on a score sheet and get the players to sign off on them.
Step 6) - Enter the results into the spread sheet and generate the next matches based on the results
Step 7) - Return to step 4.

If I had a simple tablet app that could streamline the process it would make my life a lot easier. Basically here's an outline of how I think such an app could work.

Step 1) - Select Tournament Type (Single, Double, etc)
Step 2) - Enter the list of pinball machines being used in the tournament.
Step 3) - Register Participants
Step 4) - Start the Tournament which triggers the software to create the brackets and randomly populate it based on the player list.
Step 5) - The tablet tells me who's up next up and assigns the match to machine. (I would like to be able to skip a pin or take it out of the list on the fly if there's a problem with the game)
Step 6) - The completed match results are entered into the tablet, simple player X won would be sufficient for single / double elimination.
Step 7) - Players initial that the results are correct using a stylus. (How to do this well might take some thought)
Step 8) - The software incorporates the results into the brackets.
Step 9) - Return to Step 5
Step 10) Once the tournament is over, the results are emailed out or uploaded to a server.

Maybe we should get together and discuss this in person...

I think that there's a niche market for a tablet app that is setup so that one person could easily run a small tournament on their own. From my research I haven't found any software that does what I'm looking for.

That is my conclusion as well. I believe there is a definite need for a better way for small tournaments to be managed.

This doesn't need to be a particular complicated app at first... If it works well on a small scale then you can scale it up with additional features for larger tournaments if you see a market.

While I am developing it I would like to keep in mind ways I can simply it to start as well as the possibility of adding support for larger tournaments and multiple scoring tablets. I know from experience that being short sighted in a rush to get software out the door can paint me into corners that are harder than they should be to get out of later.

It sounds like large tournaments have their own systems, so I am not going to target that market unless I get requests later.

Step 7) - Players initial that the results are correct using a stylus.

Besides the implementation challenge this brings up two questions.

• Wouldn't the photo be enough of a confirmation?
  
• Will players be willing wait around for this?
  

Maybe we should get together and discuss this in person...

Thank you for your suggestions, they have been really helpful.

If you haven't recently, please read through the design document again. I have spent a lot of time refining it daily during the past week. I still need to sketch out how the player match up screens may lay out, but I feel like we are getting really close. I will Email you to discuss a potential meetup.

UPDATE

Last month I learned a design technique called User Experience (UX) Design. After working through the process several times I ended up with what I think is a killer interface prototype. I shared it privately with Zach and he said:

That looks great! You're 100% on the right track here and I think that this is going to be a great app.

There I stalled for the past few weeks while I regrouped and tried to determine how I was going to develop this app for both iPad and Android Tablets. I finally came to the realization a few days ago that there is no "magic" tool that will allow me to develop this simultaneously for multiple platforms, without compromising the quality of the User Experience.

With that revelation I decided to develop for the iPad first, then, hopefully rewrite the app for Android Tablets. On Wednesday I took the family on a trip to Barnes and Nobel and settled on "Teach Yourself iPad Application Development in 24 Hours". I hope to start actually writing the app next week. :)

I am still trying to keep this project on the down low, but if you would like to check out the Interface Prototype link can be viewed. The interface has some clickable elements (like buttons) which will take you to a different view of the app. The idea was to try to give me an idea of how to navigate around the different sections of the app. For example on the first screen click the "Email Results to the IFPA" button, then click on the "+" button to add a new tournament to simulate how the app might work.

My Pinball Tournament Manager: Interface Prototype

PROGRESS!

OK, I am starting to get the feel back for programming. I'm getting excited... but I'm only talking baby steps here.

A couple of days ago I actually created the project files and started tentatively writing code. I have the database setup and a couple of quick and dirty test Tournaments entered. I started figuring out how to read some of that info from the database yesterday and today I have the first hints of visible progress to share. Here is a screenshot of two sample tournament records being listed. However, as you can see the Detail page is empty... for now.

There is a long ways to go, but this is an important step.

Looks real good so far Brian!