As someone who competed in the Vex Robotics Competition for four years, I know just how important time management is at each tournament, and how much effort one needs to put in just in terms of logistics at each tournament. There were also many shortcomings at tournaments, like delays and inaudible announcements. That’s where the idea of the new Elapse app was born, right in the heat of the competition!

Three key problems were identified: the current official tournament schedule app’s poor user experience, inaccurate match timings due to delays, and difficulties for the tournament organizers to announce information to everyone. The current tournament schedule app has a poor user experience since multiple taps are required to find information, and vital information is spread out over multiple different screens. The app also has feature differences comparing iOS to Android. At Vex Robotics Competition tournaments there are often technical difficulties and other delays that skews the originally planned match schedule. Unfortunately, the schedule is not updated with these delays, so finding the actual time of your next match is usually difficult. Tournament organizers frequently make announcements, but currently this is done by just a microphone. If one is not close by or is too caught up amid all the competition, they may miss the announcement completely.