Penalty Box Staffing - rollerderby/scoreboard GitHub Wiki

The CRG PBT/PBM interfaces are NOT intended as a one-to-one replacement of stopwatches and paperwork with each timer tracking blockers of one team and the PBM tracking jammers. This setup does not work well with a touch screen interface because operating a touch screen to start a penalty cannot be combined well with giving a hand signal as part of a stand/done instruction to a different skater at the same time (or close to the same time).

Instead the intended setup for a CRG timed box is to split duties between starting clocks as one job we denote as ePBT and giving instructions to skaters as a second job we denote as ePBM.

Based on number and experience of available officials there are some variations of how to set up the crew:

Default setup (2 NSOs, optionally 3)

This setup uses one ePBT and one ePBM as described above.

• The ePBT position can be staffed with an entry level NSO. Our experience shows that timing accuracy has a similar distribution as with a stopwatch and the ePBT's workload remains very managable.
• The ePBM should be more experienced as their workload will generally be higher than the ePBT's.
  • It is recommmended that the ePBM places their screen such that they can freely move their hands. This could be a on phone strapped to hand or wrist or a monitor/tablet that is fixed somewhere in their field of view, e.g. overhead. In the latter case, if the display is placed such that the skaters can also see it this can smoothen box operations further.
  • If a third NSO is available or the ePBT has some routine in their position, they can assist the ePBM when things get busy.

Short Staffed (1 NSO)

This option combines ePBT and ePBM into one role. When the box gets busy, this will require compromises regarding which of the penalty box officials' duties are actually performed. It is not recommended to use this outside of scrimmages if you can avoid it.

Full redundancy (4 NSOs)

This setup combines an ePBT with a traditional stopwatch based PBM + 2 PBT setup. Thus each penalty gets two independent timers. It can be a great way to allow people to get experience with either of the positions without immediately having the full pressure of any mistake affecting the game.

• With this setup it is recommended to declare one set of clocks as official ahead of the game and inform both teams of which clocks are the official ones. Stand/done instructions should then by default be given by the NSO with the official clock.
  • If the official clock is unreliable for a particular penalty the NSO with the backup clock can take over giving instructions to that skater. The crew should sort out how they want to communicate this situation with each other ahead of the game.