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CS 414 Team 8 |
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Peter Bryson Bill McKenna Bill Richardson |
Feasibility Report
Football Formation System
For Rose-Hulman Athletics
Feasibility Report
Football Formation System
For Rose-Hulman Athletics
The purpose of this report is to recommend the best system to address the Rose-Hulman Athletic Department’s desire to have a system to track football formations.
The Rose-Hulman Football Team keeps track of defensive formations run against various offensive formations. They currently keep track of football formations using pencil and paper methods. It is inefficient and difficult to keep track of a large number of papers, and is difficult to present the results of this data to the players. They have tried using Excel on a department-owned laptop to track formations, but found it was more difficult than using paper. They require the development of a system that allows them to quickly track football formations and present them to the players easily at a later time.
Given that the software must be easy to use and run on the department’s laptop, only one viable option exists:
· The Football Formation System (FFS): Software will be developed that runs on the team’s MS Windows-based laptop. The interface will allow the user to select from common formations and to create custom formations. The program will store these formations and will allow them to be exported to MS PowerPoint for presentation to the players.
· Cost, reliability, and performance are the major enhancements to the existing system, and will thus be the key testing factors.
2.1.1 Fiscal
Since the Rose-Hulman Athletic Department has already allocated the use of a laptop to the football team there is no cost for hardware. Rose-Hulman also owns the rights to the developments software and the platform it will be used on. Therefore they will incur no software costs. With the project being developed on campus for a campus organization, no travel expenses will be necessary.
2.1.2 Time
The main cost of this project will be the amount of research and testing that goes into finding the most efficient interface. Other factors will include familiarization with the formations employed and recognized by the football team, testing of methods of logical output, and documentation to familiarize the user with the system. See figure 2.1.2a for a breakdown into separate phases and their estimated completion times.
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Phase |
Estimated Time for Completion |
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Proposal/Feasibility Study |
1 week |
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Analysis |
1 week |
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Design |
3-4 weeks |
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Prototype and implementation |
1-2 months |
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Debugging, testing, and completion |
3-4 weeks |
· Figure 2.1.2a Estimated Times for Phase Completions
2.1.3 Maintenance
Once the project is implemented, thoroughly tested, and handed over, the estimated additional cost of maintaining the system will be negligible. The proposed system would be adaptive in nature, learning and maturing from use. This will virtually eliminate the need for maintenance.
Because our system is a stand-alone entity its reliability will depend solely upon its own consistency and quality of development. The entire goal of the project is for efficiency and thus the system will achieve simplicity and ease of use for new users attempting to familiarize themselves with it. The system will rely upon proven and tested technologies and thus will run on a solid platform. This will avoid any potential loss of data, which must be entered quickly and may be critical to the client’s efforts.
With performance being the key issue at heart in this system we will attempt various methods to streamline as well as automate the current methods employed. The proposed system will replace hand-written formations with highly customizable visual grids that represent specific football formations. These images will visually resemble the on-field formation to allow for quick recognition. As the system adapts, the most common formation will be readily selected and modified to meet the current play. Considering that the average time between plays is underestimated at 30 seconds, the system will fall well within our goals. The system should be capable of taking the data entered during a specific part of the game and convert it to an easily presentable format, as the main goal of the entire process is the ability to visually show the players patterns recognized and specific formation of interest. This would not only get the information to the players faster, it will also get it to them in a more detailed and useful manner. The system should be extremely easy to use.
It is cost-effective for the Athletic Department to have software developed as described here. The FFS will be more reliable than paper and easier to use than Excel. The FSS solution will be easy to maintain, fast, and reliable.
Because the FFS will fit the department’s needs well, and is extremely low-cost, the FFS is recommended for tracking the team’s formations.
The following are contacts for the members of CS414 Team 8:
· Peter Bryson Peter.Bryson@rose-hulman.edu 877-8718
· Bill McKenna William.McKenna@rose-hulman.edu 877-8837
· Bill Richardson William.Richardson@rose-hulman.edu 877-8866
They are available for contact concerning the contents of this report and issues surrounding the project. Sean Bendel (email address, phone) is the Rose-Hulman Athletic Department contact for the football team.