Scopos will close at 1pm on Wednesday, Dec. 24 and we will remain closed through Jan 2. We will reopen with our normal hours on Jan. 5.

A Message From Us

As the year comes to a close, I am reflective of not just the accomplishments we’ve had this year, but the many modernization changes we’ve helped make to the sport.  In particular, I’ve been thinking about just how much more quickly scores are reported now, than they were then. In the 15 years we’ve been in business, we’ve taken the sport from a norm of reporting scores 30 minutes after the last shot was fired, to reporting scores live – updated continuously after every shot is scored. 

When I shot in college, Kentucky had the most modern scoring system of the time. 12 bull paper targets that were hand scored by two coaches (often with errors), whose scores were then manually typed into a DOS-based program (often with typos), and then printed out to hang on the range’s door for all to see (but only if you were at the range). When the system ran perfectly, we had scores printed 30 minutes after our relay was done. 

Scopos’ first technological breakthrough came as a result of a class project I had while studying at Kansas. I was taking a class in computer vision, and as typical for grad school the professor, Dr. John Gauch, walks in on the first day of class as says to pick a semester-long project. So I decided to develop a system to score paper targets using computer vision. That project, which I’m proud to say I got an A on, became the basis for Orion’s Visual Image Scoring (VIS) technology. 

Orion’s VIS solved two big problems; it was both significantly faster than scoring by hand and unprecedentedly more accurate. In a well-run match, scores could be printed 10 minutes after the last shot was fired, shaving 20 minutes off the norm.

I then turned my attention to how to mass distribute results quickly; simply printing result lists and hanging them on the range door wasn’t good enough. With this problem in mind I developed Orion’s Result Center. Match directors could now, with a single click of the mouse, and no additional cost to them, distribute their competition results to the world wide web. Any coach, parent, or spectator could see the results as targets were scanned and digitally scored.

By 2020, ESTs (electronic scoring targets) began to show up on local and regional ranges offering fast and accurate scoring. However, they had two big problems. First, ESTs were fantastically expensive (our competitor ESTs still are).  I saw this problem and worked with my team, developing Athena, to solve it. Athena offers live scoring at an affordable price. 400 clubs in the United States now have access to an electronic range that was previously financially unattainable. 

The second problem with ESTs at that time is they were not connected to a live result system. Shots were scored as the athlete fired them, but there was no system to report scores to the Internet; the world still had to wait until after the match was done to see who won. So I worked with my Scopos team again and developed Rezults.

Rezults, on one hand, is our modern and mobile-friendly online result system replacing Orion’s Result Center. On the other hand Rezults is the most powerful result system in the world; spectators are now treated to live leaderboards showing who’s in the lead, who’s trailing, and by how much. Results lists, with projected scores, are now displayed to the world, continuously, at most 30 seconds after each shot is fired.

Scopos, in our 15 years, has redefined what a well-run match should offer. What was once 30 minutes after the last shot was fired, with results only shown on the range’s door – is now just 30 seconds after any shot is fired with leaderboards instantly updating who’s winning to anyone who's watching from their phone. I am deeply proud and honored to have contributed so much to our shared sport.

I wish everyone a peaceful holiday. After our winter break, Scopos will return in 2026 with a technological announcement – advancing our sport once again.

- Erik K. Anderson, Ph.D.