Published: Sep 28, 2020
Country - Sweden
Country
Sweden
Team - 4 Experts
Team
4 Experts
Industry - Sports
Industry
Sports
Time - 12 Months
Time
12 Months

Overview


A traditional business from Sweden manufactures equipment for club and tournament bridge events. The business produces card dealing machines, sorting devices, boards, tables, playing cards and bidding boxes for bridge, and it caters towards providing their equipment for professional bridge event organizers.

One of the popular variations of club bridge plays is duplicate bridge. Each table and each team plays the exact arrangement of the 52 playing cards (a bridge deal). All the teams compete by playing identical deals, eliminating the element of luck this way, and are scored depending on their performance.

Historically, this was a manual process in which many stewards were required to duplicate a set of initially created deals for each table participating in a tournament. It used to be painstakingly long and prone to human mistakes. 

Enter the dealing and sorting machines, which are intended to automate the card dealing process, speed up the bridge deals duplication process and eliminate human errors. The first efforts to automate the card dealing process were made almost forty years ago. Since then, card dealing equipment has developed along with technological progress. Initially, bulky and cumbersome dealing machines with custom logic boards and hardcoded logic were gradually reduced in size down to a tabletop setup operated from a connected PC with special software. This solution allowed for significant cost savings due to a decrease in logistics requirements for bridge tournaments, considering the smaller dimensions of the equipment, the flexibility of the software running on the standard PC provided to the end users and lesser requirements towards the skills of personnel required to operate the system.

Nowadays, the further proliferation of mobile devices creates new calls for manufacturers of club and tournament bridge equipment, as the new mobile-first era requires relevant modern solutions even in the most conservative businesses.

We've become an IT partner to develop embedded software with a machine vision solution for card dealing devices and to move from Windows-based software to mobile-operated one.

Assigned experts

  • 3 software developers
  • 1 QA engineer
  • 1 BA

Timespan

  • 8 months of implementation
  • maintenance and support

Industry field

  • Mind Sports/Card Games
  • Duplicate Bridge

Solution


Developing software for card dealing equipment that conforms to the many technical requirements and bridge rules is a challenging task. The delivered embedded system runs on a device using Raspberry Pi, which means severe hardware performance restrictions.

We've implemented a multi-threaded web service to connect a server-side and a client. In our solution, not only a client sends requests to a server-side, but a server-side can also request a client. A mobile-compatible web interface visualizes card arrangements and allows an operator to set, configure and manage a deal via a Wi-Fi connection.

As a complementary functionality, the software offers an analysis of deals, scoring and game results presentation.

This is a screenshot from the embedded software developed with a machine vision solution for card dealing equipment, which illustrates a case study.

Technology Stack


Angular
Angular
JavaScript
JavaScript
Node.js
Node.js
WebSocket
WebSocket
Raspberry Pi
Raspberry Pi

Achievements


Duplication of card deals for tournament bridge is a time-consuming process when it is manual. Besides, it causes more mistakes during manual card dealing, and competition can be unfair.

Dealing machines powered by our embedded system can automate the card dealing process, increase its speed, and reduce errors.

Depending on an equipment model and an operator's proficiency, one card dealing machine can arrange 32 boards for duplicate bridge in 3.5 minutes. Moreover, with mobile-compatible software, an operator can use one mobile device to operate several dealing machines.

The delivered solution allowed our customers to package their sophisticated card dealing equipment with modern mobile-compatible software, increasing its value for the end-users and bringing modern technologies to the otherwise conservative market.

Growth</br>

Growth

Bridge tournaments and club events can organize more tournaments and club events by simplifying the dealing process with equipment operated by modernized mobile-compatible software and an innovative AI-powered solution.
Performance</br>

Performance

The duplicate bridge tournaments organization is more cost and time-effective with the dealing machines powered by embedded software and machine vision technology.
Optimization</br>

Optimization

Using the embedded software equipment, a skilled operator deals with 10+ sets of 32 boards of bridge cards in total, per hour.