Our technical specialists are passionate about R&D, not just at work, but in their private lives too. In part two of our mini-series shining a light on the projects our experts work on in their spare time, technical manager, Robert Lutken, discusses developing an ice hockey app.
Robert Lutken MSc is a technical manager and expert software engineer in our technical team. With a master’s degree in computer games development and industry experience in software development, Rob plays a vital role in communicating our clients’ scientific and technological projects to HMRC.
Much like the rest of our technical team, Rob lives and breathes innovation. When he’s not qualifying R&D for ForrestBrown’s forward-thinking clients, Rob is often found developing new tools and gadgets around his home.
While he’s currently working on several live projects, one from his university days – which saw him deploy his software development skills on a player statistics app for an ice hockey team – stands out.
It focused on creating a tool to gather and analyse real-time player statistics, initially to understand how much ice time each player has attained in any given period. This could then be used to track player ice time to help coaches make data-based decisions in real-time.
Pushing off
I was first introduced to ice hockey at university. My background in software engineering was of particular interest to the video coach at a time when a transition was underway from paper-based, tally statistics, to digital applications that would track player statistics.
Of particular importance to any ice hockey team is Time on Ice (TOI) – a key indication of players’ performance throughout a game. Coaches want to ensure that the right players are getting the correct amount of ice time for the game situation. For example, it would be game changing for a coach to quickly look up who’s tired when you are tied 3-3 in the last minute of the game and want to know who has the most energy! Rudimentary applications existed at the time to track TOI, but they were cost prohibitive to a fan-led statistics group, so they asked me if I could develop something for them.
Power play
I was delighted to accept and relished the challenge. It led to an interest in ice hockey, as well as an understanding of the technical capabilities I could evolve professionally. Being a game developer, I naturally reached for a game engine (Unity) to handle the real time input and built a rudimentary first version using a local Structured Query Language (SQL) file.
It quickly became apparent that lugging a laptop around a stadium, through a crowd of raucous fans in between the period breaks, wasn’t very useful for coaching staff. They preferred something they could look at in real time. So I began to engineer the next iteration, which would attempt to update a centralised database that would allow a web interface for the coaches to use.
It was interesting to engineer an entirely bespoke method for interacting with web backends (SlimAPI) from Unity in an efficient way. I learnt lots about UI/UX through the development of custom charts and graphs, using a wide array of charting systems from D3 to ApexCharts.
Over the next few years, the coaching staff and stats team helped me to design an entirely bespoke statistics program. We sought to give the coaches a statistical advantage in terms of player performance and help them with in-game decision making, such as which players, statistically, should be on the ice in critical moments.
Eventually I developed a real-time protocol using python, which could synchronise the in-game devices to give us contextual information across several devices. This enabled the cloud-based systems to run more advanced statistical models in real game time, which the coaches could view on the bench.
What is a technical specialist?
Drawn from a wide range of industry backgrounds, ForrestBrown’s technical specialists are responsible for assessing whether a business’s project qualifies as R&D for tax relief purposes. They help to articulate scientific and technical R&D projects through case studies and act as the bridge between a company’s competent professional and HMRC.
ForrestBrown’s technical specialists collaborate closely with our tax experts and are drawn from industries including engineering, software, geophysics and pharmaceuticals.
Icing on the cake
This project was done entirely voluntarily, to give my team an edge over the competition. Since then, other platforms have become available and newer technologies such as auto recognition via camera feeds have made the system somewhat redundant.
Nonetheless, the experience was invaluable, both as a fan, engineer and member of the coaching staff. I lean heavily on it in my daily work, primarily because so much of the capabilities I was developing could indeed qualify as R&D!
Would you benefit from a technical review?
Our industry-experienced technical specialists have decades of experience with some of the biggest names in science, engineering, manufacturing and technology.
If you have a project that would benefit from their expertise, please get in touch.