wireless...

[graphixaddict]

i think fencing should go to wireless, all this theory that it could be tampered with yada yada, wireless would be cool. this is in reply to wires getting tangled.
Graphix

[WoodsideDr]

I'm with you. The state of wireless technology has changed dramatically over the last few years. Surely someone out there could figure out a way to make wireless work for fencers. The old wire and pulley thing seems so clumsy.

[shenyingwu]

Lol that would be cool attach the sword or watever to a transmitter on your belt. Wouldn't that make it easier to tamper with scoring etc? Lol have a guy come with you when you fence. Create a remote or other device to emit similar if not a disrupting signal to the one emitted when you(or your opponent) score a point. Have him use it whenever it looks like ur gonna get scored on lol. There are a lot of toys now adays that can pick up and copy a wide array of transmitted frequencies. Like the garage door openers built into your car. LoL, i'm sure these problems can be fixed easily though. And plus if it goes wireless then fencing can become more circular without having to worry about wires getting tangled

[epeemike81]

Originally posted by graphixaddict
i think fencing should go to wireless, all this theory that it could be tampered with yada yada, wireless would be cool. this is in reply to wires getting tangled.
Graphix

its not that it COULD be tampered with, its that it HAS been tampered with.

they tried it. it was tampered with. it doesn't get used anymore.

-m

[jeff]

The technology to provide an encrypted connection between the weapon and the scoring box wouldn't be that hard, and that could be used to establish (sorry, I'm going to resort to work jargon) an authenticated session between the two parties. That would prevent a 3rd party from pushing a button that worked as if one of the fencers had touched target. I don't think the problem is technical: I think it's inertia and cost. There's an awful lot of equipment that would become obsolete, and would require considerable design work for a relatively small market.

For the techies here: imagine if each weapon, or the clip where the body cord now connects to the reel, had a small SSL-encrypting web server in an embedded microprocessor. That would be pretty cool. Maybe some day...

[oiuyt]

They were testing a wireless system at the world cup in Peabody last year. It works, at least for sabre (last report I had was that maybe it worked finally in foil, earlier versions didn't, and still didn't work correctly in epee). Of course it requires a team of Ukranian technicians to operate it which requires flying said team to each event (the company which currently is making the system is Ukranian, apparently the system bears a striking resemblance to an older French system that was discontinued during testing because it resulted in electrical burns to the fencers).

The FIE is committed to coming up with a reelless solution (note: they don't like the term wireless, for a technical reason that I've been told but don't remember off hand). If you think it's an easy task, go ahead and invent a system. Make money as every fencer in the world shifts over.

-B :)

[edew]

They can keep the reels for tournaments. The place where money is made is at the clubs. With 4 to 10 or more strips, it's a constant hassle to replace broken wires or reels. If there is a simple wireless solution, then clubs will take them on because it's more convenient and cost effective to use a wireless system. And there are plenty of clubs to sell to.

One won't make money selling for tournaments since it'll be the same 40 strips at most. USFA won't buy 320 sets just because they run 10 tournaments a year with an average of 32 strips. FIE won't buy 1000 sets because of the world cups all over the world; they'll just ship the same twelve sets all over the world.

The Ukrainian system for sabre is a hack as if there ever is one: a huge capacitor to generate a tremendous charge so that when it hits the other person, the charge is, er, discharged into the other person's detection unit.

There's got to be a cooler way.

My problem is how to determine a valid versus invalid hit in foil. Where is the common ground, or is that even necessary? Some people suggest that the vest can be made into a signalling device and so when the foil tip hits the vest, the vest can signal via a change in the radiation of whatever RF signal. Am I spewing BS out of my mouth or what?

[oiuyt]

Actually doing this for club use also removes the problems with needing to deal with spoofing and jamming. If you feel the need to cheat to win at club you have issues.

Local tournaments are another issue again. New England has something like 20 strips worth of equipment as a division, independent of what the clubs themselves have. The 50 strips that the USFA needs for nationals aren't the only compeition strips required in the country by a large stretch.

-B :)

[reawl]

I concur the technology is there to establish a secure relationship between the fencers and the scoring device. And we've all seen the wrist machines used for practice (usually they emit a buss and have a light on them). It would be easy enough to embed a technology like bluetooth into one of them. The drawback to these devices is that they make no distinction between on/off target, so why not electrify the lames? Snap a small battery on your back and you're ready to roll for 5,000 touches...

Any hardware guys/gals out there that want to give a stab at such a system? I'd be willing to write some software for it and contribute some $$$.

[neevel]

As EDEW mentioned, the real issue for foil is not so much security as being able to distinguish between hits on a variety of surfaces without a common ground. A wireless foil system would need to tell the differences between the following situations:

-touch on an invalid surface
-touch on a vaild surface
-touch on the weapon
-touch on the strip
-touch on the weapon while it is in contact with the valid surface

If you read through the scoring apparatus specs in the rule book, you'll begin to see why a practical wireless system for foil has yet to be produced in spite of some 3 decades of effort. A big part of the idea behind no-off-target foil is that is would simplify the development of a wireless system (since, like sabre, you'd only need to be concerned with recognizing touches arriving on the lame).

-Dave

[DHCJr]

Officially, there is no box for wireless sabre as officially there is no extension lights for electric fencing. The box and the extension lights are for the audience, not for the referee or the fencers. The fencers carry the lights on them in their masks. The fencers still are connected to the box, but not to an external box.

If someone were to find a way to spoof the box on the table, it wouldn't mean a thing, if they couldn't spoof the box that the fencers are carrying and since they do not have any input except what is directly wired in, there is no way to do it. If there is discrepency between the mask lights and the box on the table, the mask wins.

The FIE does not allow any RF or Radio frequencies to trigger the box. I personally liked the system that St. George came up with, which read signals through the shoes into the piste and took care of when both feet left the ground by storing the information until they landed. But that ran into another of the FIE rules, no additional equipment needed by the fencer.

I have also heard the horror stories of the Ukrainian system. I hope someone comes up with something soon.

[rvergara]

the problem with wireless r the lights. it's been said by the FIE that those lights in the masks r not as clear to the audience as the big ones from the box.

[retardedspleen]

I was talking to Dan Duchane about wireless scoring equipment, and they do have it, and it does work, except for in epee i think, i think in epee they cant seem to make it work correctly (or maybe it was foil, i cant remember for sure, but i think it was epee) the main problem is, FIE or USFA or even clubs for that matter, dont want buy this equipment, is because 1. its is ungodly exspensive. 2. reels although they are a pain to deal with, work fine for right now. It would be a big hassle for everybody to have to buy new equipment just to be able to use these wireless machines. It was a good idea when somebody came up with it, it was still a good idea when it was made, and it will be an even better idea when its about 1000 dollars cheaper! untill then....i'll spend the extra time using, and fixing a reel. besides the new prieur reel looks like a pretty nice alternative (I herd its really really durable, and a lot easier to fix too!)


Chris T.

[CarlKnoch]

Originally posted by neevel
As EDEW mentioned, the real issue for foil is not so much security as being able to distinguish between hits on a variety of surfaces without a common ground. A wireless foil system would need to tell the differences between the following situations:

-touch on an invalid surface
-touch on a vaild surface
-touch on the weapon
-touch on the strip
-touch on the weapon while it is in contact with the valid surface

-Dave

I'm not sure you would need to distinguise between all those different situations... I would be satisfied if the system pulled up an on target light when I hit the lame, and an off target when I hit anything else. I know that this would be simplifying the scoring somewhat, but that's not always a bad thing.

And while I know that there could be tampering, short of running an SSL encrypted server, I don't think that there would be any more tampering than there is now to be honest. Forst of all, you would have to go out of your way some to tamper, and there could be very strict rules about the punishment for being caught. Like banishment from fencing for life. (That's just my opinion.)

And on this subject of wireless, and the possibility of freeing us from a linear strip, I think that fencing could evolve into an enjoyable specator sport in several different ways. (That is the purpose of wireless isn't it? To make it more markettable to the lay person?)

[oiuyt]

The final one that Dave mentions looks a LOT like hitting the lame, electronically. As such it kind of makes your one light for lame, another for everything else difficult. There's a reason for his list, these are all different situations which are currently dealt with differently. They should continue to do so.

-B :)

[Dave]

So something like this then

http://www.phaedrusltd.co.uk/pages/html/foilmaster.html

would be ideal (provided you could get a wide enough range of frequencies).Shame they have stopped making them.

[edew]

Originally posted by CarlKnoch
I'm not sure you would need to distinguise between all those different situations... I would be satisfied if the system pulled up an on target light when I hit the lame, and an off target when I hit anything else. I know that this would be simplifying the scoring somewhat, but that's not always a bad thing.

And while I know that there could be tampering, short of running an SSL encrypted server, I don't think that there would be any more tampering than there is now to be honest. Forst of all, you would have to go out of your way some to tamper, and there could be very strict rules about the punishment for being caught. Like banishment from fencing for life. (That's just my opinion.)

And on this subject of wireless, and the possibility of freeing us from a linear strip, I think that fencing could evolve into an enjoyable specator sport in several different ways. (That is the purpose of wireless isn't it? To make it more markettable to the lay person?)

Go ahead and banish the person from fencing for life. In the wireless situation, the most likely tampering case would be someone sitting in the stands with a jamming or spoofing device. The fencer who benefits might not even know who that person is.

I personally don't see how wireless can improve on the spectator aspect. On television or even live, the presence of a cord strapped to the back of the jacket is almost impossible to notice. If it's live audience and the audience is sitting five rows back, the reel cord is basically invisible.

As for non-linear fencing, why? Two points determine a line. The two fencers make the line. Why have them rotate when there's absolutely no tactical or strategic advantage to do so? There's a tactical advantage now to hug one end of the line, as it might cause the other person's attack to not be counted if it started outside the boundary. But in a non-linear "fencing in the round" case, there's absolutely no advantage to moving one way or another. And so the fencers won't.

[graphixaddict]

hmm, i think its just about improving the sport, its such a barbaric way to do things now, i mean i think it could easily be set up so that you have basicly a protected palm pilot attached to your uniform and then a scoring wbox which can be set for epee, foil, or sabre, the two transmitters set up a peer to peer connection, encrypt it do whatever, i mean you could prolly if you even needed to build in a jammer alarm, something that detects high amplitude signals and warns the people or whatver, i mean i dont think that epople need to be so parnoid about this kind of security issue, it can easliywith todays technology be worked out. i would be willing to bet that you could even make these somewhat afordable, and with anything new, top clubs organizations get them first, then slowly the the price drops and smaller clubs and orgnizations get them. this is very possible, if i knew anything about mechanical engineering i would surely be hooking up with reawl to work on it. i mean its definatly a project that has potential to make alot of money with the right patent, if you can make it at a affordable price. which is possible, i mean the actuall math is not that difficult i mean were talking about a machine that has less brains than a TI-89, maybe not with encryption and such but its still not going to be as expensive as even a affordable desktop computer. im curious what does a competition legal all weapon scoring system cost?
Graphix

[DJ Apostrophe]

Why would the clubs who have everything set up already in their permanent spaces buy these? Wireless systems that fencers can 'accidentally' walk out of the room with? It isn't going to happen, and in case you haven't noticed, the clubs with permanent space are usually the larger ones, the larger ones have more influence. And if they aren't going to buy them, but the FIE does for their competitions, and only the FIE buys them, the price will never come down so that anyone else buys them. In order for this to work, you'd have to make them more marketable than the wired systems available today... which means you would either need to make them cheaper then the wired systems, have fewer problems, or make them easier to use. More likely a combination of all three. The system we have now works just fine, and any y-10 fencer can handle it by themselves. The technology to do this would be cool, but you couldn't market it sufficiently for it to actually get a foothold in the market.
-w

[reawl]

I'm reminded of the phrase "Don't knock it till you try it."

I like the concerns that people have brought up. Cost is oviously an issue. Function (what does this system offer that the wired system does not) is clearly an issue as well. Security is important and compatibility are valid concerns as well, but these issues have been addressed in other systems already (If a wired system can handle a touch on the weapon a wireless system should be able to as well with minimal effort).

I'm envisioning a system with 3 main components. A scoring box that acts as a reciever, and 2 mini-boxes that clip directly into your weapon (no body cord to fail, yay!), something simialr to a glorified mini-machine used to notify you if the tip is depressed sufficiently.

Again, anyone who is a comp engineer, EE, hit me with a PM. I'd love to give this a go and see what we can see.