TargetTalk

Hello all
I'm a high school physics teacher that is just getting into precision air rifle. I'm volunteering as an assistant coach for my high school's rifle team.

It seems to me that there must already be a spreadsheet out there (somewhere in cyberspace) that will keep track of scores, graph, do averages, etc. I haven't found one yet, but thought I should look around more and ask before I go through the trouble and try to make my own.

So you if can point me to a good spreadsheet or other application, that would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Keith

PM me your email address and look at a thread I started sometime back for the directions on how to use what I email you.

I've always made my own when ever I was interested in doing this kind of thing. Then I realised it didn't really acheive very much...

So as a coaching tool it's next to useless. But for a team manager it is useful to pick squads etc.

I say useless for coaching, which is partly true. It doesn't tell you the reason behind for example poor or high scores. It can though help you track progress and monitor improvements, it's just that there are better ways of doing that.

Anyway I digress :( I made my own because I wanted to see specific things. It can be useful to see for example if string n is always high or low - are the shooters getting fatigued then etc ? Or after a poor shot do they recover and shoot a 10 or follow it with another poor shot, or is there no pattern.

I suggest you think about exactly what you want to see and then see if solutions are there that do that. If not modify or make your own. As a Physics teacher you should be a whiz with excel ;)

Rob.

I agree with Rob that tracking score alone has limmited usefullness.
I think that Acsess could, if set up right give you much more usefull infomation but unfortionately I'm not smart enough to set up the reports so that I could quary out good information.

My spreadsheet is different since it tracks your groups as well.

Soupy44 wrote:My spreadsheet is different since it tracks your groups as well.

With respect, tracking groups isn't particularly beneficial from a coaching perspective either. Depending on how the data is entered, that will also be much more time consuming.

So to work out what the shooter is doing well, versus what they need to work on, you need to understand what they are doing. You can only do that by detailed observation, discussion and assessment.

Rob.

Rob,

This thread is on the youth shooting board and started with a question on a high school rifle team. My experience working with beginning juniors is that scores is the first motivator for them. We are not talking about shooting deeper 10s or longer strings of 10s, many times were talking about staying inside the 7 ring or even staying in the black. I find it useful when a kid hits the dreaded slump and gets discouraged and frustrated to pull out a record card from a year or 6 months past to encourage them by demonstrating the progress they have made. Please don’t take this as an attack on you, I have nothing but respect for you from what I read in posts and experience that you share with us here. As a matter of fact if you ever are in western Pa. I would welcome you to hold a shooting clinic for our junior team!

Soupy44,

Sounds interesting, I would like to have a look at that.

kkeduda,

I see you are in Reading; will you be taking any kids out to the NJOSC or Camp Perry Open? Shoot me a PM if you want to discuss this of the board.

caveman wrote:Rob,

This thread is on the youth shooting board and started with a question on a high school rifle team. My experience working with beginning juniors is that scores is the first motivator for them. We are not talking about shooting deeper 10s or longer strings of 10s, many times were talking about staying inside the 7 ring or even staying in the black. I find it useful when a kid hits the dreaded slump and gets discouraged and frustrated to pull out a record card from a year or 6 months past to encourage them by demonstrating the progress they have made. Please don’t take this as an attack on you, I have nothing but respect for you from what I read in posts and experience that you share with us here. As a matter of fact if you ever are in western Pa. I would welcome you to hold a shooting clinic for our junior team!

Soupy44,

Sounds interesting, I would like to have a look at that.

kkeduda,

I see you are in Reading; will you be taking any kids out to the NJOSC or Camp Perry Open? Shoot me a PM if you want to discuss this of the board.

Hey no problems, I don't mind you disagreeing with me or whatever I'm just putting forward my thoughts for consideration. I'm always learning as well and I totally understand your comments.

So to perhaps elaborate my thinking;

Score motivates for sure, but can be harmful. A very simple example is that when you train your scores will drop. You have to go down to rebuild stronger. How therefore do you really demonstrate that in a meaningful way if score is your primary goal ? You therefore need other measures of improvement that you can also track.

So an alternative is not to use score, but for example using somehing like staying in the black or staying in the 8 ring (x% of the time). Score will improve naturally as the groups tighten.

You obviously need to shoot for score in training matches, and that can be very helpful when a youngster (or adult) crashes in a competiton. When they say 'I cant do this' or similar you have the proof from their training that they can and have done.

I too coach a set of youngsters, in pistol in this instance. One shoots very well, one pretty reasonable and the other less so. But the worst shooter has made the biggest improvement. When she started she would get 2 or 3 shots on the card, now she gets 9 or 10 out of 10. In her event, tetrathlon, shooting is never going to be her strong point, but she has improved enough that she now often medals and has won a few of her competitions.

Anyway I'm rambling, hope you continue to enjoy and motivate your young rifle shooters :)

Rob.

i have spreadsheets to help track scores....and I agree, for a junior, to look like the other kids on the team when he/she gets better equipment (jacket, pants etc) they shoot better. SURE the equipment helps and most likey attribute to better scores but what important to them is .....they look like the rest to them......and their score s start to go up. I can speak from experience....it had helped my son. There were some good days and spome bad days. The bottom line is he has gotten better.

pmelchman

i have spreadsheets to help track scores....and I agree, for a junior, to look like the other kids on the team when he/she gets better equipment (jacket, pants etc) they shoot better. SURE the equipment helps and most likey attribute to better scores but what important to them is .....they look like the rest to them......and their score s start to go up. I can speak from experience....it had helped my son. There were some good days and spome bad days. The bottom line is he has gotten better.

pmelchman

I suggest that you investigate the substatial analysis features of the Orion scoring system. It already has native capability to display historic information for each shhoter's performance: score, group size, group center, group roundness, group major axis, and group minor axis. I think it is great, and so do our young shooters. The graphs produced can quickly provide the trend analysis you appear to be looking for. An added benefit it that no data entry is required. Here is a starting place: http://www.orionscoringsystem.com/orion/Home.aspx

Spreadsheets can help when used in conjunction with a shooting diary. I use mine to monitor performance against changes in setup. Obviously you need to make a single change at a time and have enough scores to see the difference. I also use a 5 session rolling average to smooth the graph trace. It is easier to spot trends amidst all the ups and downs in score (I'm not that good a shot)

The comments about scores on their own not being that useful is correct in my opinion as well.

The key to progress are trends. Is the shooter trending upwards? If they are in any way, then progress is assured.

How to trend it? I use running averages of 3 or 5 scores. This automatically takes out the humps and hollows and a couple of bad shoots does not have anywhere as much mental anguish as seeing a score rocket to the bottom.

So my spreadsheet has pages that divides the different shoots (10, 20, 30 60 shot matches) and then columns next to them with the 3 and 5 running averages down the page. I use the AVERAGE formula, grab the 3 or 5 scores immediately above the 3rd or 5th score from the top and copy the formula down [bottom right corner of the cell dragged down does that]. Use dates if you like but I throw a column of numbers down the left hand side of the sheet and plot both 3 and 5 shot trends on the one graph.

I coach a high school team and my experience of shooters with slumps is to go back to the beginning and ensure they rebuild the basics. This is done after showing them the evidence of what they were doing right before. They agree to go back as well!!!

FYI - The things I pick up that either I have missed or the kid has "forgotten" are: They have lost the idea of what the sightpicture should be; their cheek is not sitting ON the cheekpiece (been caught out with 2 NZ Junior shooters!!! with that one this year much to my annoyance); holding the rifle up with the left forearm (RHder); Stopping or pushing the breath out to get the "right" elevation. The last one is death to a good shot!!