The Orion screen lets a human verifier review electronic scoring results and evaluate any scoring anomalies.

2006 has been a milestone year for CMP Competitions. One of the key factors in this success was the continued development of CMP’s innovative system called Competition Tracker or “CT” as it is known by the CMP staff. CT is a computer software program that performs a variety of competition management functions, including maintaining a database of competitors, taking on-line entries for matches and providing real-time score updates from events like the National Matches and CMP sanctioned matches around the country. CMP rules even specify that the official results list for a CMP-sanctioned match is the results list posted in CT on the CMP web site. By utilizing scanable scorecards, CT enables the CMP to post scores for National Matches events within 30 minutes after they are fired. Last spring at the JROTC Nationals, CT was able to show live, instantly updated results direct from Fort Benning’s electronic target system. Fellow students, teachers and parents back home were able to log onto the CMP web site and see live scores from this competition.

Now one more feature has been added to Competitor Tracker’s bag-of-tricks, electronic scoring of 10-bull paper air rifle targets. For the past eight years, the CMP has overseen the Navy, Army and Marine Corps JROTC postal competitions. These annual postals determine which JROTC unit teams and individual cadets advance to represent their services in the JROTC Eastern and Western Region shoulder-to-shoulder competitions. From those Region Championships, the best unit teams and individuals advance to the JROTC National Championships. This year, for the first time in the history of target shooting, 10-bull paper targets from the JROTC postals were scored electronically by using this new Visual Image Scoring (VIS) technology.

An Orion shot group display of the three-position score fired by Lauren Strebel of Owen J. Roberts High School in Pottstown, PA. Strebel’s 282 score was the highest sporter total in the 2006 JROTC postals.

In the first or “postal” round of the 2006-2007 JROTC Championships, thousands of targets needing to be scored poured into CMP Headquarters at Port Clinton, Ohio during the first ten days of December, 16,008 targets to be exact. Before this year, all of those targets had to be scored by hand, by a large group of staff and volunteers. These numbers are up from the 15,063 JROTC postal targets received by CMP last year, so CMP’s new addition to Competitor Tracker couldn’t have come at a better time.

The new program is called Orion. It was developed by Erik Anderson, a former All-American shooter at the University of Kentucky and now a doctoral candidate in electrical engineering at the University of Kansas. The Visual Image Scoring (VIS) technology works by digitizing and scoring scanned images of the target bulls. The scoring program is designed to work with images that can come from any 8.5 x 11 inch flat-bed, consumer grade scanner that can scan at 300dpi or better. The program used by the CMP is officially a beta version, but a final version that is being designed for use in scoring 10-bull rifle targets at clubs and ranges across the country is scheduled for release in the second or third quarter of 2007.

To facilitate the use of a standard scanner, and to make the program useable by typical computer owners, a new 8.5 x 11 inch 10-bull target was created and printed by American Target Company. This required that the white space on the traditional 10-bull target be reduced, but the small change did not seem to have any effect on the competitors. In fact, scores are up from last year’s postal competitions, which were shot on traditional 10-bull targets.

Kyle Phillips of Luella High School, Stockbridge, Georgia fired one of the 295 totals that ranked as the top individual precision scores in the 2006 postals.

With the high volume of targets, CMP scoring operations were sped up by using the same batch scanner that the CMP uses to scan the thousands of scorecards that are turned in during the National Matches. Each day large baskets of air rifle targets were unpackaged and loaded into the scanner. Once scanned, Orion went to work evaluating the scanned images of the ten bulls-eyes on each target. Orion’s scores were then checked by a human verifier. Three CMP staff members did almost all of the verifying work this year, compared with as many as 20 to 25 staff and volunteers that scored these matches in the past. The deadline for JROTC units to mail their targets was 5 December. The CMP’s deadline for having all targets scored and posted on the Internet was 15 December. Thanks to Orion, all 16,008 were scored and posted by the deadline.

As an added, special feature, Orion software makes it possible for this year’s postal participants to download printable PDF files that show their three-position shot groups together with the scores, tenth-ring scores, X and Y coordinates and radii of each individual shot. Anyone who wants a printout of these scores can click on the total three-position score for an individual shooter and the file will download. Since this year’s postal scores were first posted, nearly 10,000 copies of these individual score printouts have already been downloaded from the CMP’s Competitor Tracker results for the JROTC postals.

Danielle Poteete of Spanish Springs High School in Sparks, Nevada also fired a 295 precision total to lead all individual shooters in the 2006 JROTC postals.

Scores for the 2006 Army, Marine Corps and Navy Postal Competitions are found on the CMP homepage at http://www.odcmp.com. The top individual scores in the 2006 JROTC postals were a 282 sporter total fired by Lauren Strebel, a Navy JROTC student at Owen J. Roberts High School in Pottstown, Pennsylvania and identical 295 precision class scores fired by Danielle Poteete, an Army JROTC student at Spanish Springs High School in Sparks, Nevada and Kyle Phillips, a Navy JROTC student at Luella High School in Stockbridge, Georgia. The overall top team scores were a 1,114 sporter team total fired by Ripley High School, Ripley, Tennessee, and a 1152 precision team score fired by the Spanish Springs High School Army JROTC Team. To see all of these scores including the top scores in each of the three service individual and team competitions, click on “Results” below the icon for the JROTC scores you want to view.

The top Army, Marine Corps and Navy unit teams and at-large individual cadets are now qualified to advance to either the JROTC Eastern Region Championships that will take place on 15-17 February at Fort Benning, GA or the JROTC Western Region Championships that will take place on 1-3 March at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, CO. Congratulations to all the competitors for another successful JROTC Postal!