Moneyball 2.0: How Missile Tracking Cameras Are Remaking The NBA

[Michael Blake]

THIS could be an interesting addition to FRC field technology for team performance improvement and scouting...

MAYBE could influence game design due to the ability to track position and actions to award points?

WHAT do you think? THANKS!

http://www.fastcodesign.com/1670059/...making-the-nba

[Alexa Stott]

Interesting technology. Don't really see it coming to FRC any time soon.

1. They mount it on catwalks, which is fine for events at arenas and convention centers. But district events are in high school gyms.
2. The scoring system for the game needs to be fairly simple and easy for spectators to understand (e.g. higher goals/baskets/etc are more points than lower ones). FIRST is always trying to bring in people who know relatively little about the game or the competition and awarding points for "actions" seems a bit murky to me. Where do you draw the line between what "counts" and what doesn't and, more importantly, how do you make that distinction apparent to teams and spectators?
3. Quite frankly, it really just seems unnecessary and just another part of the field that can break.

[efoote868]

Soccer, Basketball, and Football all have one game piece. The cameras really only have to track 23 things at once. With FRC games, the number of objects tend to vary significantly, and depending on the game could be 50 or more. Also, in certain games, not only do the robots need tracking, but so do the human players (think 2005 and 2006 for human loading, 2007 and 2011 for tube positioning, 2009 for super cell accuracy, etc).

Probably the easiest game for this kind of technology would be 2008, where the robot/human interaction was virtually nil, and there were only 4 game pieces.

[KelliV]

I've installed some of these in the past and let me tell you they are hard to get up there and ready.

While the stats are cool the mobile integration is even cooler. You can check it out on their website at http://www.sportvu.com/ .

I know it will probably not happen for awhile, but I would love to see FIRST be able to stream video feeds to smart phones, tablets, or computers so rather than be stuck looking at whatever the director (who rarely knows much about the game or what you want to see) wants you can iso individual cameras and see what you really want.

[Clinton Bolinger]

Originally Posted by KelliV

I know it will probably not happen for awhile, but I would love to see FIRST be able to stream video feeds to smart phones, tablets, or computers so rather than be stuck looking at whatever the director (who rarely knows much about the game or what you want to see) wants you can iso individual cameras and see what you really want.

Why don't we start with FIRST Archive all of the matches and having the available to teams via YouTube or Vimeo.


-Clinton-

[JosephC]

Originally Posted by Clinton Bolinger

Why don't we start with FIRST Archive all of the matches and having the available to teams via YouTube or Vimeo.


-Clinton-

If this happens I'll never watch anything else on Youtube again. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing.