UKARA Alternative

[Deva]

Yeah you could do it kickstarter style. Good idea

I'm not sure UKARA has the same flaw, it's possible, but not quite as possible. If I'm already registered at a site and then I start trying to get registered again a few months later they might think it was strange my name had changed and that I looked rather familiar.

Glad you have people with the technical knowledge, as a system you describe is quite complex, with the wait to upload to the internet and all that, you're going to need more than just a scanner. The first thing that popped in to my head was a Raspberry Pi, but by the time you'd kitted that out for 250 sites across the UK, you'd have blown a lot of money. I suspect a Pi is overkill, but do you see where I'm coming from? If you want to automate the sync process to the database that's going to be impossible without an end user plugging it in, unless you package them with some kind of pre-paid SIM. A cheap system isn't going to have Windows on it, it's going to have some kind of Linux distro on it, will the people running the sites be familiar with this? Will they know how to plug it in and all that? You'll have to forgive me if you've come up with a solution to this.

 

[typefish]

Hi, I'm "Dave" and I'm one of the guys mentioned on that list back in the previous page.

I was suggesting something like a Google Chrome App - that browser seems pretty ubiquitous on machines now, and can run in persistent offline mode, on OS X, Linux and Windows.

 

[jcheeseright]

Would involve a pretty radical rethink of the system, but why not do a smart phone app and have a QR code for each player instead of a barcode?

since most modern smartphones have cameras good enough to read a QR code from another phone's screen you could dispense entirely with the ID card/wrist band etc. Then all people need to do is take their phone to get scanned. If you forget your phone... no problem, just log into someone else's phone app with your unique username/password combo and it'll display your personal QR code as well as your membership number underneath.

Using technologies like this would take away the vast majority of your materials overhead as well as make the whole thing much less labour intensive. People can sign up for an account online for free and enter their details etc, the membership numbers, QR codes are all automatically generated and all the admin team will need to do is validate their membership by having them upload a picture/scan of some form of photo ID to prove their age.

Not only that, site owners/marshals etc won't need to have another bit of kit knocking about to get broken/lost, they'll just need to download an app to their phone and scan people's codes.

To make it more attractive to retailers/site owners you could have 2 versions of the app, one for businesses which is free and contains the scanner function as well as database lookups, another for players which costs a small sum (99p?) and allows them to display their QR code and see a record of their skirmishes.

You could even make both apps free and charge an annual fee for membership as you're already planning to do. The apps would run in tandem with the online service that I expect would be used more by retailers for checking of defences.

 

[Longshot]

The Home Office set "the 3 skirmishes in more than 2 months" rule

Just to check, are you SURE that's the case?

 

[Deva]

A Chrome app will still need some hardware and requires Chrome. I like Chrome and use it, but not everyone does. It sounds like another hoop to jump through.

I think if it was me I'd be tempted to make it a bit simpler, have a scanner just spit out a text/CSV file or something. Site owner gets home, logs on to your website, uploads the CSV, done.

With the QR code, cheese, how would that work? If you have a unique QR code for each player, the site has to know who is coming so they can produce all these QR codes? You can't have a QR code produced on your phone because you can't take a photo of your own phone, and how would the app know when it was supposed to display the code? The site would have to switch it on at the beginning of the day to allow you to do it, but it still doesn't make sense.

If a site prints off a QR code for each game day, that makes more sense. Everyone scans it, duplicates aren't accepted and as you are logged in to the app it knows who you are and can be sure of this. So people can't log visits more often the code will have to change week to week but I can't see sites having too much issue with printing a piece of paper off each week. Disadvantage, not everyone has a smartphone. Using other peoples phones = slow registration, people have to get their earlier etc.

 

[typefish]

I don't have an Android nor an Apple smartphone (I'm a Windows man) so heh, that's at least £180 quid used in getting access to the toolkit to publish apps!

 

[Ian_Gere]

I think QR codes are not error free enough to go with yet - if it goes wrong it will be admin intensive to sort out. A barcode is bombproof these days.

 

[jcheeseright]

The QR code would be on the player's phone and the site would scan that to register their attendance. The QR code for each player would simply be a representation of their membership number, for example if my number were 123456JSC my QR code would look like this:



The site owner/marshal would scan that code which I'd have displayed on my phone screen (the app would generate it based upon a dataset that's unique to me, presumably my membership number or a hash of it) and that'd register my attendance. The best thing about a QR code is that it's not only got redundancy built in (less chance of an error than a barcode) they're also extremely versatile in the amount of data you can store in one, all the way up to names/addresses/etc if required.

I think I could have probably worded the initial suggestion a little better, the consumer app (as opposed to the business app) wouldn't have a QR read function, it'd just produce your unique QR code to allow the site owner to scan you in, exactly the same as a barcode on a card but with no requirement to print and post a card for every member. The business app would have the QR reader function that'd tell the central database which players had been scanned at their site that day as well as tell them that player's skirmisher status if they wanted to.

 

[jcheeseright]

I think QR codes are not error free enough to go with yet - if it goes wrong it will be admin intensive to sort out. A barcode is bombproof these days.

QR codes have been in use for a long time now, since 1996! They're very, very error resistant, more so actually than a barcode;

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xc94eq_qr-barcode-custom-embroidery_tech

check that out, a company embroidered one and it read without error.

 

[jcheeseright]

having thought about it, my narrative explanation above is actually quite confusing so I'll re-jig it:

Consumer app:

- Produces a QR code based on the player's Luther membership number/name/DOB/hash.

- Allows the player to check their own skirmisher's status and see a log of games where they've been checked in.

Primary use for the consumer app is to display the user's membership number in an easily scanned format; the QR code. You open the app, log in and the whole screen becomes one big QR, site owner scans it, their device acknowledges the player by displaying their name, DOB, membership number and the next person gets scanned. Swipe the screen to the left and you get your skirmish diary, swipe it to the right and you get your personal information that's stored on the Luther database.

Business app:

- Scans player's QR codes to register their attendance and saves a list of names/numbers for that day's skirmish, or if data is available uploads them to the database in real time.

- Allows the user to check the skirmisher status of a player either by scanning their QR code or inputting their membership number (for privacy possibly just have the name show as either red or green, maybe have a tick if they've met the requirement to prove a defence?).

Using this method, even if you had to borrow someone else's phone to check in it'd still be quicker than the traditional form filling and just as quick as an ID card without the financial and admin overhead required with the ID card production and distribution.

Those without smart phones would be able to print their own QR code onto a bit of paper using the web interface and just take it with them. Not only that, because QR codes are so readable, you could actually get a patch made with your own personal QR code on if you were that way inclined!

 

[Deva]

Makes sense now, I hadn't understood your first explanation. But yeah that could work.

 

[Southdown Airsoft]

Just to throw my hat in the ring, As a site owner who is UKARA registered I'm not sure the admin is dissimilar to what is proposed by Luther so perhaps not the strongest selling point to sites (although I'm sure not the same for retailers), having said that, a digitalised sign in is a great selling point! I was contacted by BAC two days ago and to be honest this sounds like a much more appealing option to that! If you can deliver the product you are proposing on a user friendly platform (which it sounds like you can) you could count us in. Also do get in touch with sites including us about funding, if you are providing a good service or trying to make ours and our players lives easier we would like to help.

 

[Southdown Airsoft]

In the time it took me to write my post on the phone you've gone from cards to full digitalisation or even QR patches ... Great idea

 

[jcheeseright]

Ah, I should point out at this point that I'm in no way involved in the development of Project Luther and was just suggesting a way of cutting the initial cost while streamlining the joining procedure. As far as I know the plan is still cards and traditional barcodes!

Only potential sticking point I can see with the fully digital sign in is insurance waivers, I expect insurance companies will still want nice easy to produce in court signatures on a bit of paper. That said, I'm no expert, I'm just a massive pessimist when it comes to insurance companies.

 

[Ian_Gere]

A big positive of Luther imo is that it is proposed that ordinary users could check the skirmisher status of other people for the sale of 2nd hand guns. So the consumer app will need that ability.

 

[jcheeseright]

good point, could have that functionality just on the web version though, potentially for both player and user versions. Would save on development time.

 

[Mike636]

Just to check, are you SURE that's the case?

I was hungover and doing a poo at the time so I may of not been at my best but when we initially contacted the Police and appropriate Gov we were told that there was no wriggle with how many games are required to establish a defence but I'll check just for you

 

[fivezerothree]

Hey guys thanks for all the feedback!

The one thing I will not shortlist as a possibility unfortunately, is QR codes. It's a failed system, a gimmick in my personal opinion and experience. And never, ever reliable. Relying on someones camera phone is not acceptable. The actual time it takes to register and read the QR code is also a factor. Unless the lighting is perfect and the angle correct it takes longer.

Reading a barcode with a laser is a different ball game and a super quick, reliable one. We were initially going to use NFC/RFID tech but people felt alienated by it because, well, I can only assume they don't understand it. However it is by far the best.

We will introduce alternate, multiple ways of automated attendance registering in the very near future.

The attendance recording part also has to be done by a member of the site's staff to ensure that's its a genuine attendance, all other methods leave gaping holes.

In terms of Raspberry PIs – we looked into it and cheaper smaller kit but it would work out too damn expensive in total.

So far we think the best method is to look into getting sites and retailer to endorse and truly champion this system whilst we tweak it to be more flexible to their needs. We aren't simply creating an alternative but an alternative that closes gaping holes and tightens security. It's also a great resource and can hopefully at once point be used as a skirmish diary.

All the records will be available to everyone who needs them in differing quantities and levels. If a retailer wants to know their eligibility and address and last recorded skirmish dates then they can. If a user wishes to check another users defence they can do (of course with limits, you can't just look up people on a whim). If a site wants to export its sites attendance records for the last three months, it can! We are creating an all in one solution that all parties can benefit from. Once we get to a nice, usable beta we will start rolling it out to sites and retailers.

Which brings me nicely to pre-member enrollment investment. I will go into further discussion with interested parties but we estimate a £500 investment would get this off teh ground and buy demo kit and the initial batch of membership cards. Sites who wish to fully automate their admin work and just click 'upload' would need to invest in a little bit of tech which would cost around £100.

While we initially wanted to provide this equipment, the system has changed considerably since the first proposal and £100 per site is simply not feasible for us. However we know this small investment would pay itself back pretty quickly.

So yeah, the quicker we get this off the ground the better and we can start whizzing round to sites and retailers showing them how easy it can all be.

No more admin work and automatic defence for players. Winner winner, chicken dinner.

 

[Longshot]

^ I only ask because my understanding is that there was a law made (VCRA 2006) that effectively made selling RIFs completely illegal. The air soft community, led by the retailers whose businesses were at stake, then argued that selling RIFs should have some form of defence against prosecution. This was then granted in the Commencement to the Act number 3, which says:

"The regulations provide for two new defences. The first is for the organisation and holding of airsoft skirmishing. This is defined by reference to “permitted activities” and the defence applies only where third party liability insurance is held in respect of the activities."

Part of the reason for this being granted was that the leading retailers formed as the UKARA and told the Home Office that they make most of the sales and that they would be coming up with a way to ensure they had their defence covered. This is just written into the Commencement as:

"For airsoft skirmishing, the Association of British Airsoft is putting in place arrangements to allow retailers to check that individual purchasers are members of a genuine skirmishing club or site. The key elements of these arrangements are:

- new players must play at least three times in a period of not less than two months the two months before being offered membership

- membership cards with a photograph and recognized format will be issued for production to retailers

- a central database will be set up for retailers to cross-check a purchaser’s details

- a member’s entry on the database will be deleted if unused for 12 months."

That, to my knowledge, is the only place that mentions he 3 games/2 months rule, and it's just a description of what UKARA proposed they would do (then proceeded not to fully do), not a legal requirement.

 

[CaptainSwoop]

Sounds good.

I don't see why it can't just use a Phone App as well as a dedicated barcode scanner.

Phone Apps are more useful 'in the field'

As well as the cost of cards, readers and software development you have to factor in the cost of your database hosting and bandwidth.

Someone is going to have to spec and supply a server and it's connection.

A 'standard' PC won't be enough. You will need either hosting or a proper server. Raided and backed up.