Fun in-house project
Two of our developers have created a web app to record results from our table tennis tournaments.
Making enjoyment a part of work culture
At Datek there is focus on enjoyment to increase the cohesion. Last year we invested in a table tennis table in our work place. This is often in use – both for a small stretch during the day or a match after work. The table had not been in the room for a long time before we saw that this was a lot of fun for the employees.
The next step was therefore to set up a tournament where the best player of the office is awarded. The tournament is held last Friday of the month in connection with after work. This is a fun social evening for both the ones playing for fun and those who are really serious players.
Two birds with one stone
“Why not explore new technology in a fun context” thought some of the developers in Datek, and yes why not – the combination of professional development and enjoyment is perfect! And then the web app to register the results from our tournaments were developed. The participants think this is top notch – after all, we are an innovative technology company where digital solutions are part of our everyday lives, so we prefer encoding instead of pen and paper.
A bit technical
The application has been developed in Ruby on Rails with Bootstrap 4 and uses the WebSock (ActionCable) for real-time update of multiple monitors so that you can have a monitor with the status of the audience while registering new results. The operation of the application is on Heroku which is a good alternative to renting a server at Amazon.
And the developers do not stop there. Plans for future releases are in mind and good ideas around new functionality are constantly evolving. New release was released recently, where you can check if the table is available via the app using a sensor installed in the roof over the table tennis table. The sensor used is a PIR sensor that is connected to a Particle Photon. Nice if your office is far away!
Other features that come in releases in the future include, among other things, ranking of players, double races in tournaments with fewer participants (“Double Runs” means continuing in the tournament even if you lose a match), slow-motion camera for instant replay of balls and streamlining point registration along the way.