Bullseye is a progressive web application (PWA) that replaces the paper-based darts scorekeeping and tournament organisation process of the darts organisation Volendam Darts.
Previously, the scores were written down on a piece of paper or a whiteboard for each game and calculated manually. Especially in tournaments, this led to lots of paper and markers being used. The board at Volendam Darts also noted that people are becoming less proficient at mental arithmetic. Because of this, Volendam Darts was looking for an upgrade. Wishing to make this process more digital, they requested a more automated scorekeeping system to be built.
We, as team Merge Conflict, were happy to assist. The system consists of tablets with Bullseye installed to be placed at each dartboard, replacing its respective manual scorekeeping. Calculations are performed by Bullseye, such that all that players are required to do is to put in their throws. Additionally, statistics are kept, which are easily visible online. The same holds for current matches, which are kept up to date in real time. For a full overview of the capabilities of Bullseye, see our demonstration video on this page.
The client for this project is Volendam Darts. Volendam Darts is a darts association that trains every Tuesday and has multiple tournaments throughout the year. While it is not an association for just professional darters, the top players each year go to the Dutch Open tournament (Open NK).
Throughout the project, we communicated with Johan, one of the board members of Volendam Darts. He was a very laid-back person, requesting that we approach him like a fellow student. Through his experience, he had a clear vision of what Bullseye had to become. Additionally, being a graphical designer, his ideas and feedback were often quite visual, which was very helpful for a web application like ours. He even occasionally included memes.
Our team used the Scrum framework for the project. The Scrum team consisted of a Scrum master, a product owner and team members. For every sprint, the product owner assigned issues to that sprint, and the rest of the team could pick issues to which they would commit during that sprint. During the project, we discovered that team members often had to wait for others to complete their tasks before they could continue. To avoid delays, we created a position for one team member who would oversee the work of others and merge the work into the final version. Overall, we had good communication within our team, and we were happy to work together.
As a team, we came from diverse backgrounds with varying levels of experience in both web development and programming in general. Looking back, we are proud of the progress all of us have made individually, especially in pursuing and deepening our individual interests while working well together at the same time.