Wasn\'t sure if this was discussed yesterday, but what were the little boxes many of the athletes at BIG were wearing on the shoulder strap of their jerseys? Did they have some of them miked or something? I saw Lagat and Rupp both had them, as well as many others.
I'm going to assume that it took unofficial splits automatically. It reminds me of the D-tag worn on shoes at road races.
Yes, they were timing chips, ostensibly to obtain splits for the runners. The only time I saw them used was in the high school miles, when they gave splits for all the runners on the jumbotron. We were told that the timing company also kept the results and that they could be emailed to runners afterwards.
Sounds Hasidic.
Lol. What was wrong with the previous way in which splits were recorded? And why can't they use the D-tags? One would think they are less obtrusive.
joe mcblow wrote:
Sounds Hasidic.
Not sure about this, but in a lean finish the shoulder mount would be more accurate. Also having something clipped to your singlet seems less potentially annoying than something on your shoe.
Timing mats on the track might not work out too well.
Were they all made out of ticky tacky? Did they all look just the same?
Hunt wrote:
Wasn't sure if this was discussed yesterday, but what were the little boxes many of the athletes at BIG were wearing on the shoulder strap of their jerseys? Did they have some of them miked or something? I saw Lagat and Rupp both had them, as well as many others.
These were most likely a sensor that transmits an RF signal. They are used to track position (on the track), velocity, acceleration, deceleration, etc. It is made by Lynx. I know because I put them on the shoulders of athletes at Texas A&M all last indoor season. It sounds like an awesome training tool for coaches who love to analyze tons of data.
and it is not used for finishing places. It's not that accurate. yet.
This is Giles from Lynx - it was our technology at Boston Indoor Games. The "little boxes" were in fact custom radio transmitters in a velcro pouch (the tags really are small they weigh 0.2oz - about 5 grams - the pouch makes them look a little bigger than they are.) In a conversation with Bernard Lagat after the race he said that he was completely unaware of the tag during the race, and it certainly didn't seem to slow him down!
Unlike conventional tags, which are read at a specific location, the finish line or a split point, these are read constantly by a network of receivers. This means that we know where each athlete is - to a precision of plus/minus 6" - twenty-five times a second. From this information we can calculate velocity, acceleration, separation between athletes, distance traveled, distance to go, projected finish time, etc.. This data enables all kinds of information to be stored for later analysis: graphs, maximum and minimum velocities...the list goes on.
In addition, we can process that information in real time to a robotic camera that will follow the tag assigned to it: the camera auto pans, tilts, zooms and focuses to keep the object in the center of the field of view. Actually, the system can drive up to 128 robo-cams, so we can isolate any player/athlete.
We are still going through what we collected at BIG but we will be posting the videos later. We have some video that was collected at the Northeast Conference High School meet on the Thursday before BIG, but for some reason YouTube truncated the last few seconds of the race (the winner actually runs 4:59). The 'projected finish time' is based on a fairly complex algorithm that uses distance traveled, average velocity, current velocity averaged over last few seconds, instant velocity, distance to go...it jumps around a bit at the beginning as they kick off the line, but it soon settles down. Here is a link to that movie, and when I get the full versions of all the races, I will post them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2RlNRw5Ps0
The camera that took this video was computer-controlled and guided by the tag on the athlete's shoulder.
Giles,
Thanks for the response. I can see a HUGE benefit here with this technology.
Imagine being able to have a split screen of the best or favorite runners in a race. Also the replay capability. You will be able to see exactly where a race was broken, how long and far a surge went, who reacted to it, the list goes on and on....
If I were in the TV or Meet Promotion biz, I would be all over this. I can see some amazing potential here!!
That is awesome....Sounds expensive...think this could be moving to where colleges can license their use for their own meets much like the whole FinishLynx system?
So that's how this video was made:
Actually, we think that some of the real potential for the system is in team sports like Football or Soccer. It just happens that practically everybody at Lynx is a T&F nut of some description...
Check out this - in development - project we are showing to Football coaches to gauge interest:
http://www.finishlynx.com/isolynx/isolynx/iso1.html
All the best,
Giles
With all due respect Giles.... FORGET FOOTBALL!!!!
This can be awesome for track!
During meets, commentators can do share some amazing facts and analysis and make T&F that much more interesting on TV.
Imagine filling up all that time in between races with a replay showing the speed of Lagats kick at Millrose or .....
Man I am loving this!!
We have spent $[seven figures] developing the technology.
At some point it needs to start paying back...(and hoping to do it from the Track and Field market is...well, let's just say...it would probably be a challenge!)
There just isn't enough money in Track. The annual budget of USATF is approx $15m, and there are around 10 individual PLAYERS who earn more than that every year in the NFL.
And that pales in comparison with the worldwide Soccer market.
Glad you like it! I've been with Lynx almost 15 years and it is the most exciting project I have been involved with.
All the best,
Giles.
original message wrote:
Were they all made out of ticky tacky? Did they all look just the same?
Mom, is that you?
Giles,
Is the size what separates this technology from what F1 and NASCAR use? And is it scalable to a non-confined area, such as a marathon course. I'd love to see accurate figures of whether someone is pulling away in a race and by how much (without having to count "one-mississippi"s as they pass crosswalks).
JoeGarland wrote:
Giles,
Is the size what separates this technology from what F1 and NASCAR use? And is it scalable to a non-confined area, such as a marathon course. I'd love to see accurate figures of whether someone is pulling away in a race and by how much (without having to count "one-mississippi"s as they pass crosswalks).
The difference between this technology and GPS, which is what F1 and NASCAR use, is that they mount *receivers* on the tracked object and these triangulate position based on *transmissions* received from satellites. These on-board receivers are relatively large, use a lot of power, have an integral computing chip to calculate the position, and update relatively infrequently.
Our system mounts transmitters on the athletes and does all the computing at the receiver end - which makes it lighter and faster. It only works in an area that is ringed by the receivers, we needed 7 at Reggie Lewis and we have 9 at the football test facility, so it would not be suitable for a non-confined area. That much being said, we are working with a Horse Racing venue to provide information over the last 1/4 mile or so of a race.
The question we are asking is "what information would a viewer WANT to see?" Too much and it just gets confusing. I'd be very interested in hearing what info would be of interest if it was overlaid on the race video.
All the best,
Giles