From the shoes we wear on our feet to the high definition televisions in our living room, wearable devices, the sports universe is a breeding ground for technology. Writer and Photographer Rick Limpert will examine this each week on The Tech of Sports – With guests which include athletes, inventors and journalists that cover the intersection of sports and technology.
Rick is joined by 2008 Olympic Volleyball Silver Medalist, Kim Glass, this week.
Kim was an All-American and four-time All-Pac-10 pick, is Arizona’s career leader in kills with 2,151 and ranks third all-time in the Pac-10 in the same category. She averaged 5.27 kills, 2.84 digs, 0.70 blocks and 0.40 aces per game for the Wildcats. For her career, Glass had double-digit kills in 105 of her 115 matches played, along with 20 or more kills 54 times en route to a school-record 5.27 kills per game average. She holds the Arizona school record with 162 aces, and is third in career digs with 1,158. Glass provided 77 block solos, which ranks eighth all-time for the Wildcats
Played professionally for almost 10 years.
Member 2008 Beijing Olympics, Team USA Indoor Volleyball team, helping the US to a silver medal.
Kim is a personal trainer, a model and works with sports tech companies.
One of the companies Kim represents is Halo Sport.
The Neuropriming headset that integrates seamlessly into your workout.
Halo Sport 2 headphones is tech that delivers an electrical current to the motor center of your brain.
The idea is to use this device for 20 minutes before an activity to create a state of ‘hyper-learning’ by neuropriming.
The headphones themselves feel well-built and have a firm hold on the head, making it easy to get the fit you want. This is important, as the companion app from Halo needs to confirm it’s making clear contact with your head before the process can begin.
“That process is unlike anything we’ve felt before. The second you start, and the app tells you that it’s ‘ramping up’, you’ll begin to feel a tingling in the skull where the electrodes… sorry, primers are.”
The audio quality in vocals is pretty good – and you can remove the primer spikes to make wearing the headphones more comfortable day to day.
The idea is an interesting one, unlocking something as simple as firing an electrical current into the brain to improve performance. It’s called transcranial direct current stimulation (TCDS), which is just as described above – the idea of stimulating the brain to achieve a heightened state of learning.
Cadi is an unattended, automated kiosk that allows golfers the ability to demo, compare and purchase golf equipment at unbeatable pricing in the ideal environment, right on the course. At the same time, Cadi is a new direct to consumer channel that allows the golf equipment manufacturers (OEMs) the ability to get their product into more customers hands, collect valuable data all for a fraction of the cost. Cadi is a Demo day, Every day. Cadi is targeting Public courses and public golfers. The vast majority of these courses do not offer golf equipment and the OEMs have given up on selling through this channel for the most part.
There is currently one active full-functional unit located in Orange County, CA and plans to add five more this year.
A great talk with Tyler, exploring whether this is the future of golf retail.
Mueller, a long-time television sports anchor and reporter and online journalist is President of Sports Collectors Daily Incorporated and the editor of SportsCollectorsDaily.com. He has earned numerous honors throughout his career including several prestigious Edward R. Murrow awards for sports reporting.
Whether you collect rare sports memorabilia, vintage sports cards, the latest sports card releases, game-worn jerseys, sports autographs, ticket stubs or something else, you can probably find a story about it on Sports Collectors Daily. The site has become a ‘bookmark’ and ‘must read’ for every sports collector, sports memorabilia shop owner, card show promoter or investor.
“Our traffic continues to grow. But please tell your friends. We hate blank stares or long pauses on the phone after introducing ourselves.”
At least 20 fresh pieces of content are added over the course of one month alone thanks in part to some talented writers, contacts inside and outside the industry and a good old fashioned nose for news. There are other sites in the industry that offer “articles” (many of which are simply re-writes of others’ work) but no other site can match the professional experience and journalistic quality of Sports Collectors Daily. We set the standard.
Rick and Rich talk sports collecting, The National and how hard it is to cover the industry as it constantly goes through changes. Engaging talk if you ever collected baseball cards, autographs or are looking to get back in the hobby.
Rick is going to talk a little soccer this week. Only appropriate with the Women’s World Cup getting underway.
He is joined by Guy Aharon, the CEO and co-founder of sports technology company PlayerMaker, a boot-mounted device that tracks and analyses players’ technical, tactical and physical performance on and off the ball. He previously founded sports optimisation company Motionize and has held various leadership and executive positions. Guy studied Law and Business Administration at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel and has a military background having served in the Israeli Navy.
Easy to operate and highly affordable, PlayerMaker provides coaches, sports scientists and analysts with highly accurate tracking data on all academy players. Our solution enables effective trialist assessment and skills evaluation according to any academy’s gold standards.
Implement plug-’n-play solution quickly (no infrastructure, no installation)
Track all academy players’ participation
Assess new talent rapidly and effectively using academy gold standards
Harness accurate performance monitoring
Enjoy affordable football academy-oriented solution
At the heart of PlayerMaker’s solution is a small yet advanced motion sensor. Designed to strap comfortably on the player’s footwear, the sensor can optimally sense and classify each foot and ball interaction and each footstep. Acting as an extension of the player’s foot, the ergonomically designed strap transfers all foot movement directly to the motion sensor.
Unique silicon housing is designed to keep the sensor board safe under any impact and it is highly resilient and able to withstand rough use. The sensor is small, lightweight, easy to wear, and requires very little maintenance. Located on a ball-free shoe zone, the sensor causes no interference when a player kicks the ball or undertakes any other football activity.
Great to talk with Guy. He has a ton of valuable information to share and is an innovator in the sports tech space.
Rick is joined by PGA Tour’s Justin Thomas this week.
Justin is known for his ball striking and his play along with his attire, on and off the course as he represents Ralph Lauren.
A former World No. 1 and one of the most popular players on the PGA Tour. In 2017, Thomas experienced a breakout year, winning five PGA Tour events, including the PGA Championship, his maiden major championship, and also winning the FedEx Cup championship. In May 2018, Thomas became the 21st player to top the Official World Golf Ranking.
Each week, golf fans wonder what Justin will be wearing as he drives, chips and putts. Rick talks about he love for fashion and more this week on Tech of Sports.
Rick is joined by the fantastic duo from Pocket Radar, Christ Stewart and Steve Goody.
Chris Stewart is Pocket Radar’s President and COO. He has an extensive engineering and inventor background holding five patents. He is a volunteer professor at Sonoma State University where he lectures in electrical engineering and business entrepreneurship.
Steve Goody is Pocket Radar’s CEO. He has an inventor and architectural background and is the inventor/ co-inventor on seventeen patents. He holds a BSEE from the University of California, Davis.
Based in Santa Rosa, California, Pocket Radar was founded on the principle that radar-gun technology should be affordable and user-friendly. Their goal was to create an accurate product line that can be use by anyone from professionals to everyday consumers. Pocket Radar’s product line is trusted by teams like the San Diego Padres, the Colorado Rockies, the Milwaukee Brewers, Georgia Tech Baseball Team, the University of Missouri Baseball Team, and many more.
Prior to being a co-founder and President/COO of Pocket Radar Inc. Chris was the Business Manager of the Agilent Technologies Radio Test business. He had P&L responsibility for the entire operation, with direct responsibility for global product development teams, marketing teams and manufacturing teams. Previously, Chris served in a series of Agilent R&D leadership positions moving from project manager to section manager to lab manager. Before the formation of Agilent, he was an R&D project manager for Hewlett Packard in their Test and Measurement business. During this time, Chris held multiple intrepreneurial positions where he successfully helped start up several new businesses and integrate multiple company acquisitions.
Chris has extensive experience building strong development teams and leading new product introductions. Before moving into management, he spent 10 years as a Microwave, RF, and Analog design engineer at Hewlett Packard gaining experience in R&D, Marketing, and Manufacturing. As an engineer, Chris designed products for the test system that is used to calibrate every Radar system in the US Navy. He has also done substantial consulting in the areas of design, new product development, and strategic business planning. He has published multiple papers and technical articles and holds 5 granted patents with more pending. Chris is also a volunteer professor at Sonoma State University where he lectures in Electrical Engineering and Business Entrepreneurship. He also serves as chairman of the External Advisory Board for the SSU Makerspace and Lead Industry Advisor for the Electrical Engineering Department.
A true inventor at heart, Chris built his first radio transmitter when he was 8 years old and has been inventing ever since. At age 16 he invented a novel radio-controlled switching system that won first place in a state-wide electronics competition. This led directly to his first job as a radio engineer at WATH/WXTQ Radio. He earned his First Class Commercial FCC License and was promoted to Chief Engineer at age 18. He put himself through college working as an engineer at WNCI Radio where he developed new audio processing and synchronous timing systems.
Before being a co-founder and CEO of Pocket Radar Inc. Steve was a co-founder and HW system architect at Caymas Systems where he helped create an award winning line of identity driven NAC Appliances. Prior to that, he was a key member of the early start-up engineering team at Cerent Corp. (acquired by Cisco Systems). He was senior HW designer and architect of Ethernet products for the industry leading Cisco ONS15454.
Before Cerent, Steve worked for Next Level Communications where he was a HW designer and architect on various telecommunications and networking products. Steve has many years of experience in HW design and architecture with extensive experience in Ethernet switching, SONET, timing, ASICs, FPGAs, Embedded FW, and DSP. Steve spent over 12 years of his professional career at Hewlett Packard as a hardware designer and principal engineer/scientist, responsible for a variety of networking product designs and architectures, including hubs, switches and network adapters.
Steve is named an inventor/co-inventor on 17 patents and holds a BSEE from the University of California, Davis. He has been a passionate inventor from a very early age and still loves the challenge of taking abstract ideas and turning them into reality.
New from Pocket Radar is Smart Coach Radar.
The Smart Coach Radar™ is the first affordable, complete speed and video training system that empowers the modern athlete and coach in many sports with the ability to create and share a digital record of their progress. By providing actionable insights into important metrics like hitting exit velocity, serve speed and pitch speed, coaches and athletes can now optimize their techniques and methods to get better results in the new era of athletic training.
A great discussion this week on Pocket Radar, sports technology and more!
