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SCATT Basic

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:40 pm
by JacketCoach
Our High School team recently acquired a SCATTT basic. I am hoping the collective wisdom here can help us use it to best advantage. We had previously bought a TRACE and could not get it to work properly and returned it. The SCATT however works very well and I am pleased except one thing. When working around a 12 bull Target we shoot in this order: bottom spotter, top spotter, top center and then clockwise. somewhere usually about the bottom left bull we leave the SCATT behind. Has anyone else experienced this? Am I expecting to much and should I stick to shooting a single bull? Is there a fix?

Also how do y'all incorporate it? We do not have enough space to use it during a regular practice so I am having my shooters take turns staying after for an hour to get some time on it.
Lastly is there some specific guides or instructions out there to help. I found the instructions to be a bit thin and the more comprehensive guides I found on line have all been for the more expensive models.

Thanks for your help

Re: SCATT Basic

Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2020 9:41 pm
by jhmartin
I'm amazed it works at all on a 12 bull target!

It is really meant to stare at a single bull.
I know our MX-02's and some others MX-W2 won't work a 12 bull. It "sees" too many bulls.
I know they have a vignetting attachment, but have never found that to work well. Well ... probably like what you are seeing.

But we are also spoiled in that if we want to live fire, we have Megalinks.
Not really relevant as I really never consider score when working w/ a SCATT.

I find that most of the most productive work with a SCATT is not on the range per se. And we do not really use them as electronic targets.
(One collegiate team I know of (hmmmmm) does almost all their SCATT work in a separate classroom outside the range)

In my opinion, your most productive work with these devices is for a coach to be right with the shooter, looking at:
1) The approach, & calling the shooter off when they are not in a consistent "band"
2) The Hold and a coach learning the "pattern" and (damn ... for want of a better word) "dance" that a particular shooter has in that hold pattern ... calling them off when it starts becoming a forced & erratic
3) Watching the triggering process ... watching & seeing if the shooter snatches & pushes the gun out of a hold ... which can mess up the follow thru as well as (in the case of smallbore) the muzzle bounce/recoil movement after the shot.

If you do those, the coach will be as mentally worn out as the shooter after a training session (at least I am!)
Teaching them how to be disciplined and recognizing a bad situation and scrubbing that shot will gain them soooooo much.

If you ever get a chance to attend one of Rick Marsh's clinics or chat with him, to me he is the guru.

Re: SCATT Basic

Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 8:25 am
by JacketCoach
Thanks
That is along the line of what we have been doing; one on one after normal practice. I think I would get a lot more out of it if I had another competent coach so one could work with shooters in another room during practice but that's not happening. I have not tried it dry yet. It would be nice if I could incorporate it on the line during practice but you would need the wireless version and a tablet for it to be practical. It was still worth the money.
About using it with multiple bull targets. I wrote to SCATT, they responded promptly. see below. I have not had a chance to try calibrating on the top left target I had assumed the middle one would be best.

Thank you for choosing SCATT.
The SCATT is not designed to recognize multi-bull targets. The problem is that it can get confused which target the shooter is aiming at if there are several identical targets in the field of view simultaneously. But generally it still works in most cases. Couple of things that can improve this situation for you are the following. Always calibrate on the top leftmost target. Also, make sure that the entire target surface is evenly lit. Because even slight light intensity variations can lead to the bull not being recognized by the sensor if the previous bulls were better illuminated. One other thing is that each black circle has to have enough white background to be reliably recognized by the sensor. Usually you need a white are equal to at least half diameter of the black circle or more.

Hope this helps and please let us know if you have any more questions.

Best Regards,

SCATT Team

Re: SCATT Basic

Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 10:08 am
by jhmartin
JacketCoach wrote: Wed Jan 15, 2020 8:25 am I think I would get a lot more out of it if I had another competent coach so one could work with shooters in another room during practice but that's not happening.
Think of this too ... The person behind the shooter does not have to be a coach.
Teach your shooters to be the coach. In this manner they will very quickly pick up what you are doing and why.

Ask your school if they have some old laptops. You do not need the wireless version. Just set up a small table behind the shooter ... sometimes it is better if they don't see the screen.

I have also used remote access software (VNC type programs) to place the main laptop in front of the shooter (so that after the shot they can see the trace & we can talk about it) and using another machine to control the main laptop.
I still work with my daughter down the hallway of our house (dryfire of course!) where she has a laptop on a folding tray table in front of her while I'm in a room off the hallway (my office) on a controlling machine ... I don't even see her. But we can easily talk back & forth.

After you get used to working with SCATT in this shooter/coach manner you can almost read the shooters mind and see where their focus drifts and can call off those shots too.