@markoxvee not only for pitchers, but for hitters and all positional players as well... and that's only talking baseball... now throw in all the other ball sports as well...
The story of SCOUTEE began almost 18 years ago, when my family visited relatives in Akron, Ohio, and they took us to my first Major League Baseball game. I was so impressed with the sport that upon our return to Europe, I became actively involved for nearly 10 years and also a member of the Slovenian National Baseball Team (full story here: http://scoutee.co/the-scoutee-st...).
After finishing high school, I wanted to go professional. However, although I had the talent, I lacked the stats, videos, and other metrics that would support my case, as baseball in Europe is still developing. I later realized that just like me there must be millions of young players, their parents, and their coaches worldwide who lack a convenient way for easily measuring and keeping track of their progress and exposing their talent. I gathered a team of experts to help me develop an affordable, reliable, convenient, and connected device that players and coaches could use every day - SCOUTEE. We’re starting with baseball, but SCOUTEE can measure the speed of any ball, or even any moving object. Feel free to reach out and ask anything or just tell us what you would use SCOUTEE for.
@markoxvee Thank you! And great questions - I guess the most difficult part of building SCOUTEE was redesigning the doppler radar antenna and the electronics in order to be able to fit all the electronics into such a small soap-sized box. You have to remember that the traditional speed guns can bulky, some even require an additional suitcase. We wanted to create something really small and convenient, so that every single athlete could carry a radar in his pocket and track his progress on a daily basis.
The other thing that also took us quite some time and brainstorming energy is the UX itself. As smartphones don't come equipped with the radar technology, we created a separate device but then had to think of the optimal way to phisically connect it to the smartphone. In the end we decided for the magnet sticker, which allows for being a single solution used in combination with different types of phones and/or tablets, as opposed to creating different types of cases for different types of phones.
And as for your question with regard to the types of objects SCOUTEE can measure - you would be surprised to know about all the different speeds people would like to measure with SCOUTEE - all sorts of balls in different sports (baseball, softball, tennis, golf, soccer, cricket, hockey, lacrosse, handball, volleyball, dodgeball, badminton etc.), cars, cyclists, skiers, drones, and even bullets. Any yes - SCOUTEE is indeed able to read the speed of all of those, except for the bullets, which are simply too fast for this type of technology.
@mihauhan Awesome! Thanks for sharing the insights with us. It is always a pleasure to see behind the scenes! Good luck with the rest of the campaign! 👌🏻😃
@markoxvee Thanks, appreciate it! We are still available for more AMA behind-the-scenes questions ;)
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@mihauhan have you considered skipping the hardware entirely? Couldn't you stand perpendicular to the flight path and measure speed based on ball/object size, distance to object, distance travelled, and camera frame rate? I'm sure it wouldn't be as accurate as your device but I suspect the margin of error to be fine for most cases.
@ryanmac This is a very good and relevant question. What you're suggesting is totally possible, and there are already some existing solutions like that. But if you are familiar with any of those solutions, you're also aware of the fact that with those you actually have to assess the distance to object and in some cases also the distance travelled prior to the measurement. Not only does this further complicate things and can result in inaccurate measurements, but it is often simply impossible.
Also, after talking to many coaches, scouts, athletes and their parents, we've learned that the one thing we can't compromise is accuracy. The speed measurements absolutely have to be accurate within +/- 1 mph and this is what we provide for with our solution.
So, after learning this ourselves, we've developed SCOUTEE to be not only a connected, easy to use, and affordable, but also accurate solution for measuring the speed of moving objects in sports and everyday life.
Apart from the speed measurements, with SCOUTEE you can also record videos of the athletes regardless of the position of camera (perpendicular or linear to the flight path). Bluetooth connection namely allows for physical separation of smartphone and the hardware.
Dear PH community, I would like to personally thank all of you for your support and feedback on SCOUTEE. It was a great pleasure to discuss all the product details of our solution. Should you have any further questions or comments on SCOUTEE, please feel free to reach out at any time. Thanks, Miha
@mihauhan I love the idea! What was the most difficult part of building this? Also I'm wondering what is the most common use case other than measuring the speed of a ball. Can you measure the speed of a car?
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