touch pads

Depending on the touch pad, some are a little slippery. If you come over the top of the bad, more into the gutter, there is a chance you will not trigger the bad at the finish. This happens a lot on butterfly. I run the computers at age group meets, and we get the most bad touches on butterfly and backstroke. That is why there are hand times and back up buttons. If you somehow don't trigger the bad, a time from back up will be used.

1. take up very little room in the overall length of the pool--they are figured into the actual distance. 2. you will find the surface on most to be a little rough--meaning your feet can not slip the way they do on tile. 3. they fit over the edge of the gutter and go down about 2-3 feet so IMPOSSIBLE to miss hitting them. 4. they appear to be about 4 feet wide (at least the systems I've used). 5. the pressure of either your feet or your hand is enough to trigger them. 6. Do a search on "touchpads". I believe one of the systems is by a company called "COLORADO".

Colorado Timing has photos and diagrams of touch pads at their web site: www.colotime.com/.../Touchpad standard.pdf Some of the older pads can be slippery, especially for backstroke starts. However properly installed modern pads have better surfaces than the typical wall. And while they are sensitive to most touches, they do require some amount of pressure to activate them. My advice is to always touch below the water surface near the center of the lane. I have run the timing at many meets and the most common problem is with people who grab the top of the wall at the finish or backstrokers who whack their arm on the top of the pad. In these cases what sets the pad off is when the body bumps up against the wall a second or 3 later. Good timing console operators will be looking for these late touches and will take the backup button time.

3. they fit over the edge of the gutter and go down about 2-3 feet so IMPOSSIBLE to miss hitting them. They can be missed. Sometimes with very wide lanes the pads move to one side and the swimmer hits the wall on the other side. The pads go down about 30 inches, so that if a swimmer makes a deep turn, the swimmer will miss the pad. In long races, the 500 and longer, you will see the referee, the starter and the person who is taking care of the automatic timing system checking their lap totals for each swimmer, so that swimmers get the proper credit. michael

One other reason the pads do not register, is a defective pad, or bad connection. michael

I run the automatic timing for my granddaughter's team. If you don't hit the pad hard enough you might not stop the clock, but it is a rare occasion that an older swimmer doesn't hit it hard enough... the most trouble comes with the younger swimmers and, as Dorthy said, back and fly events. I wouldn't worry about not hitting them hard enough. There is a button on the console called split arm. If for some reason you don't hit the pad hard enough during the event the timer, who is watching the swimmers as they come to the wall, can enter a touch for you. However, the timer can not enter a finish for you (have to keep things honest, ya know). And again as Dorthy said, there are stop watches and buttons for back up times. (We have two stopwatches and a button for each lane) If a swimmer doesn't touch hard enough on the finish it shows up on the timing console and the console actually asks if the button time should be used. I make notes on the sheets that go to the clerk of course about button times/watch times, etc. The one thing that gets to an automatic timing device operator, is a swimmer who hangs onto the pad after finishing the race. Take a breath or two then get out of the pool as quickly as you can. My advice, just swim, have fun and pretend as if they aren't there. You will have enough to think about without worrying about that. However, if the pad seems to be floating away from the wall you might want to tell an official or get the timing operators attention. Some air can be bled out of it. But most of the time that kinda thing is discovered during warm-up. Lainey

I've also found that I can get a little bit of a bounce from the pad. They sometimes work like a spring board.

Touch pads are flat on the wall. You can't miss them. They tend to grip better than most walls. You have nothing to worry about. Ande Originally posted by hooked-on-swimming I know that sounds dumb, but I have never been to a competition and I have no clue what touch pads look like, how much room they take and how low below the water they are situated...Also, can you somehow miss the touch pads when you hit the wall or not press hard enough on them and not stop the clock?And how is it doing turns with touch pads on the wall?Are they not an unwelcome thing to land your feet on at turns?

Touch pads are a God send in backstroke starts since they are usually far less slippery. If you find some pictures online of the end of races you'll be able to see them. They are hard to miss.

Originally posted by msgrupp 13. they fit over the edge of the gutter and go down about 2-3 feet so IMPOSSIBLE to miss hitting them. No it's not. :-) I swam a meet last weekend the must have missed the touchpads a few times as a few splits were missed in both my 500 and 1650. I think hit the outer frame a few times (yes, I probably flip turn a bit too deep).