Speed Climbing at USA Nationals in Atlanta, GA 2010

Synopsis: The ESawdust speed climbing timing systems were deployed at the Stone Summit Climbing gym speed wall in Atlanta, GA for the 2010 USA Climbing Nationals July 8-11. This was the first time the US has done a 3-day speed climbing event and a 4-day overall climbing event. No timing system has yet survived an entire national event, so my hope and goal was these systems would function well and survive the event. Thankfully they did.

In the previous article, “ESawdust Speed Timer Headed to USAC Nationals 2010”, I discussed some of the technology of the speed climbing timing system. I’m happy to report that it went well and though both systems took a beating in three days of literal pounding - we had the best, cleanest (from a technology perspective) finals event in speed climbing I’ve ever seen.

I got some video of the semi-finals and the system both up close and far away so you can get the whole perspective. Since I was an official for finals, I didn’t get a chance to video tape finals, but it was well done and I think highlighted the achievement of these speed climbers. They had spotlights on the climbers and a completely juiced, revved up crowd. It was loud, rambunctious, intensely competitive, and a lot of fun. Some of the male juniors and the male A category practically looked like they ran up the wall. It was quite an impressive athletic display.

Here’s are some video excerpts of the semi-finals event, various age groups, and the timing system in action. The speed wall on the right side in the video below had the official IFSC speed holds installed, a modified IFSC route pattern, on a 10 meter, 5 degree overhanging wall so you can get a sense of the scale.



The Stone Summit Climbing gym was a fantastic venue and contributed greatly to the success of the overall national event but especially speed because they have a standard speed wall and have carved out a sizable niche within the gym for it. That meant that I didn’t have to disassemble portions of the system in-between sport and speed events and different days. Stone Summit is the nation’s largest gym - pictures simply cannot do it justice. I saw photos of it before going, but once inside, I was blown away.

Here are some pictures of Stone Summit during setup and some during the competition. I had the great fortune of being able to pilot one of two the sky-lifts used to set routes in this gym. It was a lot of fun and more than a little exhilarating to be in a basket 60 feet up on the end of a stick working on the wall. I was hopeful the mechanical engineers of those lifts did their math correctly since a couple fat guys telesoping 60 feet off the ground makes for quite a lever arm.







Stone Summit is, without a doubt, the most spectator-friendly climbing gym in the United States. Every seat had a great view of nearly the entire length of the gym. It sits on a footprint roughly the size of a football field.

This is a shot of the 10 meter speed climbing wall and the ESawdust speed climbing timing system installed:

This is the system laid out after the competition was over and ready for packing:



Clearly there was lots of chalk buildup on the hand sensors after thee days of national competition, but it was not a problem. What came close to being a problem was the temperature and humidity which imperceptibly changed the flatness of the board and caused the laser on a couple of sensors to become marginally aligned. I fixed those, but in the future I plan to use a lens to slightly widen the laser beam so temperature and humidity will not affect it.
I may possibly switch to an aluminum back for the hand sensor, however, I’m concerned that the force at which the male Junior and male A category boys hit these things that aluminum would simply bend. Aluminum would be more temp and humidity tolerant but not physically as robustand cheap as wood.
There were many times the male A and male juniors hauled off and practically drove the hand sensors through the wall when they hit the finish. So, I’m happy to say this design held up to the severe punishment teenage boys can mete out during an intense competition.
The foot sensors faired well after many hundreds of climbers started in them. The only collateral damage after 3 days of intense use was the green line on one foot sensor wore through.

My plan now is to commercialize the speed climbing timing system and provide either completely assembled, ready-to-go systems or components and preassembled subsystems for any DIY guys. Since there was interest in building more systems similar to the ESawdust system, I will commercially offer various subsystems such as the sensors, timers, displays and standardize on the protocols and wiring. That way others don’t need to build the entire system from scratch yet they can develop new types of sensors or improve aspects of the system and still be plug compatible with existing ESawdust timing systems.

If you have interest in this system, please contact me and I’ll put you on a distribution list to receive information as updates become available.

Landon Cox
www.ESawdust.com

About the 2009, previous generation speed climbing timing system:



2009 speed climbing timing system articles:
Speed Climbing Timing Part 1 - Sensors
Speed Climbing Timing Part 2 - Controller
Speed Climbing Timing Part 3 - Integration
Speed Climbing Timing Part 4 - Touch Pad Construction
Speed Climbing Timing Part 5 - Schematics
Speed Climbing Timing Part 6 - Perf Board
Speed Climbing Timing Part 7 - Display
Speed Climbing Timing Part 8 - Hand and Foot Sensors
Speed Climbing Timing Part 9 - Demonstration
Speed Climbing Timing Beta Test Boulder Rock Club
Speed Climbing Timing - Sensor Improvements
Speed Climbing Timing SHIPPED!
Speed Climbing Timing Schematics (shipped v1)
Speed Climbing Timing Installation
Speed Climbing Timing - Laser-based Hand Sensor Design

Tags: ESawdust, Speed climbing, Timing, Timing system, Landon Cox, sensor, Stone Summit, IFSC