Drillbook Next, iPad app, OSU Marching BandNCAA football season is in full swing and not a Saturday goes by that I’m not sitting in front of my TV or at the local Buffalo Wild Wings watching some great college football.

Well whether you’re an Ohio State fan or not, millions of people have taken notice of the “The Best Damn Bands In The Land”. That’s because Ohio State’s halftime shows have featured not only great music but amazing choreography. Featuring over 200 members of the marching band marching in formations that almost looked like something out of the movies.

On October 26th in the Buckeye’s game against Penn State, the OSU marching band did a halftime show called the Hollywood Blockbuster Show”. The spectacular show paid tribute to Superman, Lord Of The Rings, Harry Potter, Jurassic Park and Pirates Of The Caribbean. During the tribute to Jurassic Park the marching band made a Tyrannosaurus Rex formation and the formation of a person. The T-Rex eats the person and the band doesn’t miss a beat.

For added effect, when the band segues to Pirates of the Caribbean they feature fireworks blasting off as two giant pirate ships fight each other.

The previous week the band did a tribute to Michael Jackson complete with a Michael Jackson formed moon walk across the field. At one point the band forms a silhouette of Jackson complete with signature hat.

Now we know how hard these bands work at each week’s performance however the precision that the OSU band has been marching in is almost unbelievable.

This week the Washington Post and the Huffington Post dove into how they are doing it, and not surprisingly it’s with the heal of a mobile app. The app called DrillBook Next was actually designed and created by Scott Rundell a band instructor at a high school outside of Detroit as well as a graduate of OSU rival, the University of Michigan.

The app allows bands and their directors to shed the use of book long paper sheets and see formations in app form on an iPad. It also allows each band member to see their exact position throughout the course of the routine and allows the band or its leaders to stop and pause anywhere during the routine. Band instructors design their performances in a computer based program called Pryware and then use Drillbook Next to load it onto their band member’s iPads.

The Washington Post reports this has saved the OSU band over $24,000 in paper costs. More importantly though, the performances created with the app have helped them receive nearly 20 million Youtube views on their official YouTube channels for the Michael Jackson and Hollywood routines alone.

Find out more about DrillBook Next here.