20 teams participate in 24-hour hackathon
THE FLATS – Georgia Tech athletics hosted its second-annual Sports Innovation Challenge last weekend, Feb. 22-23, at the Bill Moore Student Success Center, adjacent to Bobby Dodd Stadium.
The Georgia Tech Sports Innovation Challenge is a 24-hour hackathon. Participants are invited to design and build new products to address specific challenges presented by Georgia Tech teams and other sports-related organizations. Participants could choose from six challenges:
- Expanding Analytics (Georgia Tech Baseball)
- Video/Object Tracking Technology (Georgia Tech Football)
- Swimming “Power Tower” (Georgia Tech Swimming and Diving)
- Basketball Fan Engagement (Turner Sports)
- Predicting Baseball Game Attendance (Experience LLC)
- Open Category – anything sports/data/analytics focused
A total of 85 participants (mainly Georgia Tech students) spanning 20 teams participated in this year’s Georgia Tech Sports Innovation Challenge. Projects were judged by a panel that included Turner Sports senior vice president for data strategy and insights Scott Doyne, AMB Sports & Entertainment vice president for technology, data and analytics Karl Pierburg, NOW Corp co-founder and president Lara Hodgson and Georgia Tech director of athletics Todd Stansbury.
The winning team of Georgia Tech students Beau Martin, Leon Price and Peter Oliveira Soens chose Challenge No. 3 (swimming “Power Tower”), developing the “Power Tracker,” a device that can automate, record, analyze and communicate data back to swimmers and coaches to help swimmers maintain efficiency and body position. The team will work with Georgia Tech swimming and diving in the future to further deveop the product.
Second-annual Georgia Tech Sports Innovation Challenge winners with assistant A.D./innovation Doug Allvine (left) and director of athletics Todd Stansbury (right)
Runners-up included “Pitchalytics,” a product developed to address Challenge No. 1 by Jack Bennett, Ron Kushkuley, Zach Panzarino and Alan Yadav, and “Datalysts,” a product developed to address Challenge No. 2 by Michael Farren, John Hill, Yuzi Hu, Nicholas Watney Meyer, Jonathan Womack and Max Zuo.
For more on the 2019-20 Georgia Tech Sports Innovation Challenge and its submissions, visit gtsportschallenge2.devpost.com.
Second-Annual Georgia Tech Sports Innovation Challenge
Feb. 22-23, 2020
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