The Chaos of the Talent Test
Every year, the PYPA hosts a massive competition. It is a one-day event where participants across all ages showcase their skills in over 14 different categories. From juniors to intermediates, the energy is incredible, but behind the scenes in 2013, I realized just how much “strenuous” actually meant.
Managing a list of participants by age group and category was a monumental task. The real headache, however, was not the list itself. It was the logistics that followed.
Nights Spent with a Pen and Paper
Back then, the process was entirely manual. We designed chest cards in Photoshop, but every single chest number had to be typed in, one by one, and saved as a separate file. We then manually arranged them on A3 layouts for printing.
Once the cards were printed, the real “group work” began. We would sit in circles late into the night. One person would read names and details from an Excel sheet while another wrote them by hand on the back of each card. We had to be incredibly careful because one slip of the pen meant starting over.
Picture: Working late into the night for the PYPA Ranny (W) Talent Test of 2013.
We had to repeat this entire exhausting process for judge sheets and tabulation sheets for every single event. It took a team of people four to five days of concentrated effort just to get the paperwork ready.
A Better Way to Work
As I sat there, I could not help but think: We already have this data in a spreadsheet. Why are we writing it by hand?
We had the digital format. We just needed a bridge. I decided right then that I would not let this burden fall on the committee the following year. I wanted a program that could read the data and generate everything like the cards, the sheets, and the layouts automatically.
That was the birth of TalentPro.
Bringing TalentPro to Life
Built using the Imagick API, TalentPro turned those five days of manual labor into a single click. Now, the only task is to enter the participant data into a list. The application handles the rest:
- It generates print-ready chest cards on A3 sheets with all the necessary data pre-printed on the back.
- It automatically creates both the judge sheets and tabulation sheets, formatted and ready for the printer.
Picture: The TalentPro interface, designed to turn data into print-ready assets instantly.
The result? 100% accuracy, no more cramped hands from writing for hours, and a lot more sleep for the committee. Life is much easier now, and it is a reminder that sometimes the best projects come from simply wanting to help your friends get some rest.
Picture: Sample Chestcards final outputs (front and back) from TalentPro: precision and organization without the manual struggle.