Whether it’s in the elementary school playgrounds, or the NBA sports arena, basketball is played across the country. No matter what level of play, one question is always asked by every player “how well did I do?” The answer comes in many forms, but the most common answer is to rattle off statistics, i.e. “I had six points, two assist and a block.” While this is usually a good measure of a player’s performance, very rarely are these quoted statistics accurate. Indeed it is extremely difficult to both keep one’s head completely focused on a game and at the same time keep a running tally of one’s personal statistics. B-Ball stat system eliminates this problem. It accurately and efficiently documents the various players’ statistics allowing them to concentrate on the game and analyze their stats after.

The B-Ball system itself is broken into three different pieces. First is a specialized ball, the second is a group of specialized athletic bands, and third are flat transmitters on the basket. The ball is no different on the outside to a regular basketball, it is what is inside that counts. The inside holds three accelerometers, a microcontroller, and a RFID receiver. Each player wears a specialized band with a small RFID transmitter built in. When the player is handling the ball the reader in the ball receives the signal from the bands, letting the ball keep track of everything from who is dibbling, who they are passing to, assists and how long they are controlling the ball. Two flat RFID transmitters are also placed on the rim of the basket. When the ball travels past both of these transmitters, a basket is counted for the player who shot the ball. Finally, when incorporating the accelerometer data stats such as turnovers, block shots, and two point vs. three point shots are all recorded.

After the game, all the data is downloaded into any smart phone. The system allows anyone the ability to have statistics on how they played. This benefits not only players but also allows coaches to easily gather valuable data in order to make their team better. To obtain the same data before took several people with accuracy always being an issue. Using the B-Ball system, coaches have as much data on their team as they would ever want, with near one hundred percent accuracy.

There is nothing new in the technology of this system, with most of these sensors having been around for many years. Additionally, no radical changes are made to the ball itself. Having to just install three sensors, a microcontroller and a battery mean that manufacturing would be incredibly easy and could be done on existing equipment. The real key is to combine all of these off the shelf parts in way that has never been done before.