Research Needed for Graduate School Project

[Autumn Nelson]

Hello! My name is Autumn Nelson, and I am an MBA student at The University of Alabama in Huntsville. I am currently enrolled in a marketing class called New Product Development. We are studying the process of creating new product concepts from innovation to invention. Our final project is to essentially invent our own product, determine the customer need, decide on a primary market, and create a market strategy to "sell" our product. I am currently collecting information from would-be users of the product to determine what features the users would/would not like to see. 

 

My idea for the project is a set of sensors that would be built in to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd base. When the base is touched by a player, the sensors would send a signal to a complementary device that the umpire would have on his person. My ideas for this complementary device range from a pair of augmented reality glasses that would "light up" the base to a simple armband that would vibrate when the sensors are triggered. I believe that this would assist the umpire in making more accurate calls in real-time by allowing him to narrow his focus to fewer elements of the game. 

 

My main focus right now is receiving as many responses to the survey I created (link below) to gauge user preference to possible product features. It would be greatly appreciated if you could take the time to fill it out in the next couple days if possible (I am a bit behind in my data collection). It is a very short survey, so it shouldn't take long at all! 

 

New Product Development Survey

 

If you have any questions at all, please feel free to let me know. Thank you!

[lawump]

Guys,

I have been communicating with Ms. Nelson (outside of umpire-empire.com).  She is legitimate.  Whether you think her idea is good or not...she needs to know! If you can take the brief survey it would greatly help with her research.  Like any good researcher, she needs to hear as many opinions as possible.

Thanks!

[wolfe_man]

Survey taken. 

[Autumn Nelson]

Thank you! Please feel free to give me your comments about the product (good or bad)! If you don't like the idea or feel like it won't work from personal experience, I would still like to know that so I can possibly tweak it as needed. If you don't want to post them here, you can always email them to me.. 

 

[maven]

The survey needs work.

Q.3: "What field position do you typically monitor as an umpire?"

I don't know what that's asking. If it's asking whether we work bases or plate, we all work all positions.

Q.4: "During a baseball game, have you or one of your coworkers ever had to made a call based on inadequate information?"

This question won't yield interesting data. Almost every game has one or more calls based on less info than we'd like.

Q.9: "How often do you feel umpires must make decisions based on limited information?"

Information is always limited. What would be the contrast class, unlimited information? The "inadequate information" question was more apt.

Q.10: "Do you or other umpires currently use any device to assist in make accurate calls during a game?"

I hope all the HS umpires are answering "no" to this, or else they need to look at FED 10-1-5.

 

I am skeptical. As it is, our brains have to integrate a great deal of sensory information, much but not all of it visual, before we rule on tag plays. Having to wait on a device to register won't improve the situation much, if at all. This device offers additional sensory information to integrate, and moreover mostly redundant information. Also, it seems like an expensive solution to an uncommon problem, given that we usually have sufficient information to make a correct call.

Beyond that, I sincerely doubt that you'll get FED to buy into this, if it's a real proposal and not just an MBA exercise.

Also, Autumn, I recommend NOT posting your school email address on the internet! If it's in your profile, folks can contact you, and you won't draw boatloads of spam.

[Autumn Nelson]

Thank you for the advice! I'll look at editing the survey to be clearer. And I did not realize the email possibly showed up on the profile, so I can remove it from these comments. 

[lawump]

4 hours ago, maven said:

The survey needs work.

Q.3: "What field position do you typically monitor as an umpire?"

I don't know what that's asking. If it's asking whether we work bases or plate, we all work all positions.

Q.9: "How often do you feel umpires must make decisions based on limited information?"

Information is always limited. What would be the contrast class, unlimited information? The "inadequate information" question was more apt.

Q.10: "Do you or other umpires currently use any device to assist in make accurate calls during a game?"

I hope all the HS umpires are answering "no" to this, or else they need to look at FED 10-1-5.

 

 

I agree with your response to Q.3.  Autumn, I think you can safely assume that all umpires who work games at the Little League level or higher work some games as a plate umpire and some as a base umpire.  Often, there is more than one base umpire.

As to Q. 9: I agree that "inadequate information" is a better phrase.  We've all had our view of a play blocked at some point in our careers.

As to Q.10:  I use an indicator/clicker/thingamabob.  I think that qualifies as a device.  (And, yes for me it does assist in making more accurate calls in that I can correctly label my call as "Strike 2" as opposed to "Strike 1" or "Strike 3".  )  But, being more serious, since her survey is not limited to HS umpires (I'm not suggesting that you suggested it was), I did indicate in my response that in NCAA we have some limited instant replay.  Hell, doesn't Little League allow for instant replay in some games (world series?).

 

[ALStripes17]

Gave my responses. Checked out my score afterwards - got a 0/0

I guess I'm kicked out of the club

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk

[LMSANS]

I completed the survey. I believe any tool that will help do the job should be considered. Having said that, the tool needs to be perceived as 100% accurate. It wouldn’t do to give participants another way of questioning our calls.

[Aging_Arbiter]

Obviously, it would need to be a wireless device.

Consider the bandwidth that would be required.  I'm sure that ONE person would tell his buddy what the wifi password was, and it spreads like wildfire.  Then the entire stadium gets on their smartphones.........

Folks, we have a double play ball........6 to 4 to .........loading...................loading..................loading..............

[Aging_Arbiter]

20 hours ago, ALStripes17 said:

Gave my responses. Checked out my score afterwards - got a 0/0

I guess I'm kicked out of the club

Sent from my XT1254 using Tapatalk
 

ditto

[Mister B]

I'll take the survey, but how does it know who's foot touched the base first? 

Also, with all technological advances, if we rely on it, we will lose that skill when the technology fails. 

[Richvee]

4 hours ago, Mister B said:

I'll take the survey, but how does it know who's foot touched the base first? 

Also, with all technological advances, if we rely on it, we will lose that skill when the technology fails. 

I said that in the comments on the survey.  

[wolfe_man]

12 hours ago, Richvee said:

I said that in the comments on the survey.  

Me too.  Does the runner have a chip in his shoe that says it was him that touched the base?

As a rule, I don't see how practical this could be.  And this can't be very cost-effective.  If the base has technology, the runner's shoes must have it too, and then the umpire has to wear some sort of receiving device to be notified.  If any one of these fails, you're back to where you started - good ol' human reasoning and vision.

[Richvee]

21 minutes ago, wolfe_man said:

Me too.  Does the runner have a chip in his shoe that says it was him that touched the base?

 

So the players have to take the device out of their shoe when they go on defense? I agree that I don' see this as a practical system. I applaud the forward thinking, but I'm skeptical. 

[BCBrad]

Autumn, 

It was very astute of you to post this on this forum. There is a wealth of knowledge and skill here and more wiser sages than I. I am just lucky if I comment on something and it makes sense. 

I think what would be helpful is to know what our process is when we make safe and out calls. 

For example:

try to be 90 degrees to the throw on force plays and 90 degrees to the tag on tag plays. 

On force plays listen and see. 

Dont jiggle the camera when taking your mental snapshot. 

Knowing an umpire's positioning, mechanics and reasoning on these plays may assist you in designing a tool that would complement umpires on these types of plays. 

[Stan W.]

I took the survey. My issue would be that on close plays whether or not it lit up, buzzed or honked there will be those that disputed which came first...........then we would still need super slow mo cameras to "check the checker"  

[Kevin_K]

11 hours ago, BCBrad said:

 

try to be 90 degrees to the throw on force plays and 90 degrees to the tag on tag plays. 

I don't know that I agree with these. 

I would prefer to be in the wedge on tag plays with the runner coming toward me rather than being 90 degrees to the tag.

On force plays I would prefer to be in a position where I could make a last-minute adjustment to see a play where a pulled foot or swipe tag may take place and 90 degrees would likely not provide that opportunity.