What is Group Mode?
Among Athena’s many unique training modes, our newest release focuses on bringing back the advantages of training group size and consistency: Group Mode. A major, if not the only, drawback of switching from paper to electronic targets is the loss of the ability to effectively train groups. Paper targets make it easy for the athlete to focus only on group consistency. Group Mode brings this concept to ESTs, taking advantage of Athena's precise measurement and immediate calculation, greatly improving the training experience.
How Does Group Mode Work?
Individual shot scores are not visible in Group Mode; instead, Athena reevaluates and recenters the group after each shot and generates scores based on the group’s area, roundness, and radical distance. Athletes now have access to a new Group Analytics menu, containing a series of additional specific diagnostic values, such as angle or roundness. This gives athletes a specialized training environment where they may track very precise changes and improvements in group shape without concern for sight correction, allowing them faster and more isolated skill development.
How Do I Use Group Mode?
To start Group Mode, beginning from any course of fire in practice mode, on your DoW100 monitor navigate to Menu > AdvancedSettings > Load COF > Drills. Then from the dropdown menus, first select ‘Skill Based’. From the categories dropdown menu, select ‘Group Mode’, then ‘LOAD’. Once in group mode, the displayed target should be a blank, black circle.
Athletes may change the score configuration between ‘Areas’, ‘Roundness’, and ‘Radical Distance’ via the Advanced settings by using the dropdown menu next to “ScoreConfig”.
The string size for groups is set to a standard of 10 shots. After 10 shots, the athlete will automatically be moved to the next series and must place another 3 shots to begin shot analysis again. If an athlete wishes to score groups of less than 10, s/he must manually continue to the next series after the desired number of shots have been taken.
For more information on using Group Mode, visit our support website.
