MIT Sports Analytics Hackathon Recap

MLB

I enjoyed the MIT SSAC hackathon. We did a project for the MLB and what we decided to do was create an algo that gamifies pitching. We wanted to develop a way for individuals to look at past pitches to help people with gambling predictions. I had a team of 4 people, and they were all great data scientists. However, it came with unique challenges and opportunities.

Here is the link of our pitch to the MLB. Gamifiying_Pitching

Here are a few takeaways.

  1. What we overcame
    • Enormous amounts of data from the MLB needed parsing. We had to go through it to figure out what we needed for our project.
    • We had individuals on our team that had priorities like school, covid shot, meetings, user testing during the hackathon that made it hard for us to have everyone on the project through the hackathon’s duration.
    • Figuring out new team members skill sets on the fly with one entered in by mistake
  2. Stating the problem and the resolution
    • The problem statement is that individuals often do not have the skills to run data analysis to create a predictive model for gambling
    • We help them by taking the technical side out of it and making it easy for them to digest and understand the data and why they should bet on a specific player or team
  3. Ambitions
    • We can state that we believe gamifying baseball is the future and that betting will be the primary way they can do so in such a traditional sport
    • Our algo can be a real-time gambling solution to help fans to make predictions
    • This will make baseball a sport that is more interactive and fun to watch because of the ability to gamble in real-time, and we believe a system in place for users to make an educated decision on each bet is a lucrative business model

The MIT SSAC hackathon was a great experience, but this is what I learned.

Choose what you are going to do as a team as soon as you can.

  • Once you figure this out, you can get to work.

Tell your teammates what you have going on immediately. Clear communication is best before the hackathon starts.

  • We all had things going on, and it was tough to assign tasks

Identify key team members to partner with during the hackathon.

  • I should have paid attention to skill sets and built the dream team with the contact list looking back in hindsight. They gave us the option to create our team or let them put us on a team. I chose the latter.

Produce a list of tasks for each person.

  • We worked in silos for the most part, and we did not have a solid list of what each person was doing. I wish I would have done that instead of having everyone working on the same things.

Create a code of conduct.

  • Make sure you can hold everyone accountable for fulfilling their job that is assigned. If your teammates do not want their role, you should ask them what they want to do. Roles are critical to all teams but especially a hackathon because you have limited time and resources.

Create a one-pager for your solution.

  • I think this is an excellent idea, so everyone is on the same page.

Plan for external distribution of your solution, product, or service.

  • I think that this makes it real! It makes everyone feel like they are working on something that has a market opportunity.