Client:
Rounders England is a non-profit sport national governing body (NGB). Based in Sheffield it provides a structure for the sport from the Board, local deliverers and teams, through to individual members and volunteers.
The challenge:
As part of a strategy aimed at increasing participation Rounders England wanted to collect data from higher-level matches and provide a method for players/ teams to collect their own data at lower-level matches. This collected data would be presented on Rounders England’s website to provide a richer experience to those playing. Rankings of players and teams by basic metrics (e.g. score rate) would be accessible to all, with paid subscription members able to access more detailed data on themselves/ their team. This SIP project supported Rounders England aim by developing a prototype Windows application to collect game data during rounders matches.
What we did
Rounders England provided CSER with a series of match/ player metrics that ‘describe the story of a rounders match’. Using these metrics, we developed a graphical user interface that enabled a single user to collect these metrics in real time (see Figure 1), created an underlying data structure to store the live game data, and developed an analysis feature that automatically calculated these metrics and created an EXCEL report. The developed software was tested at Rounders England’s Champion of Champions event. Following this test event, in consultation with Rounders England, we updated the interface to improve the data entry efficiency and updated the definition/calculation of the several metrics to minimise data entry errors/ reduce the potential for bias in the statistics.
The results
The developed prototype Windows application allows a single user to (1) collect live game data from rounders matches, and (2) produce simple team and player reports. The prototype was successfully demonstrated at Rounders England’s end of season Champion of Champions event. Match Statistics were produced for both teams in the final (see Figure 2). Following a final round of updates to the prototype application, Rounders England are now ready to use the application to collect game data during the next season.