The Vertically Integrated Projects (VIP) Program is a transformative approach to enhancing higher education by engaging undergraduate and graduate students in ambitious, long-term, large-scale, multidisciplinary project teams that are led by faculty. In Spring 2021 GT Athletics, in partnership with College of Computing, launched the VIP Class - Sports Performance Intelligence Platforms. This team turns an athlete’s movements into measurements; their form into figures; and their strides into strategies. We will store, analyze and effectively deliver the performance data of GT athletes to the players, trainers and coaches who use it to turn work into wins.

Georgia Tech’s Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) and the Research Network Operations Center (RNOC) are looking for undergraduate and graduate students for this semester’s Convergence Innovation Competition.  Program occurs FALL and SPRING terms

Students participating in the competition, also known as the CIC, create technology products, applications, and experiences in categories determined by campus, industry, and community partners. Each fall and spring semester, they work individually or on teams and can submit class projects or projects unrelated to a class. Current Georgia Tech graduate and undergraduate students, as well as those enrolled in the Institute the previous semester, are all eligible to participate.

Here are the categories for the Spring 2021 Convergence Innovation Competition:

>Lifelong Health and Well-Being

>Shaping the Human-Technology Frontier

>Platforms and Services for Socio-Technical Systems

>Smart Cities and Inclusive Innovation

Learn more about the CIC, including sponsorship opportunities, at cic.gatech.edu

Georgia Tech athletics hosted its second-annual Sports Innovation Challenge, Feb. 22-23 2020, at the Bill Moore Student Success Center, adjacent to Bobby Dodd Stadium.

PODCAST - 6 min. recap by winning team - Power Tracker (Swimming):  https://www.dropbox.com/s/bon3hz6uyvwb9gv/Hack-A-Thon%20Only.mp3?dl=0

Online (includes video and photo gallery): https://buzz.gt/hackathon19-20

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:

1. Expanding Analytics (Georgia Tech Baseball)
2. Video/Object Tracking Technology (Georgia Tech Football)
3. Swimming “Power Tower” (Georgia Tech Swimming and Diving)
4. Basketball Fan Engagement (Turner Sports)
5. Predicting Baseball Game Attendance (Experience LLC)
6. 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.

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.

Sponsors included:  Turner Sports, Experience, GT's Business Analytics Center (w/ AT&T), EarthLink and Accenture.

GOALS: Create an Internet of People and Things within Bobby Dodd stadium to enhance the game-day experiences and safety of 55,000 Georgia Tech football fans. This IoPT is a distributed system that includes: sensor networks/systems for gathering and processing information from the game, fans, and the stadium itself; making this information available over 4/5G, WiFi, and other wireless systems to fans and stadium personnel via mobile applications; commercializing this system.

Georgia Tech Faculty/Staff lead: Dr. Edward Coyle (ECE), Dr. Randal Abler (ECE)

The “Future of Technology for Sports” is a part of Georgia Tech’s Vertically Integrated Projects Program (VIP).  The VIP program unites undergraduate education and faculty research in a team-based context.  Undergraduate VIP students earn academic credits, while faculty and graduate students benefit from the design/discovery efforts of their teams.

Future Technology for Sports GOALS: Explore the human technology frontier as it relates to technologies for sports, spanning the continuum from the athlete to the fan. Projects will include wearable technologies to empower athletes via advanced sensing and multi-modal real-time feedback via smart textiles, immersive technologies (e.g. augmented and virtual reality) to improve the fan experience in live sports venues and at home, and the use of computer vision, machine learning, and novel information presentation techniques to expand interest and participation in e-sports.

METHODS & TECHNOLOGIES: Sensors, Machine Learning, Wearable computing, and Smart Textiles, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Computer Graphics and Audio, Computer Vision, Human-Computer Interaction, Industrial Design

Georgia Tech Faculty/Staff lead:  Dr. Maribeth Gandy Coleman, Director, Interactive Media Technology Center & Wearable Computing Center

The course details the common materials science & engineering concepts by relating them to a ‘familiar’ topic of sports (golf, tennis, skiing, bicycles, kayaks, etc.). Students learn: (1) the fundamentals of structure-property-processing relationships of engineering materials used in common sports; (2) the relationship of these fundamentals to the performance of these materials; (3) the relevant properties of past, present and future materials used in sports; (4) materials selection as part of engineering design. Field trip to relevant sports facilities and equipment rooms provide an experiential learning opportunity to connect theoretical lectures to the real world.

Georgia Tech Faculty/Staff lead:  Dr. Jud Ready.  Materials Science & Engineering & Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)