'Roar Tracker' Technology Is Measuring Home Field Advantage For Penn State
Penn State's Beaver Stadium has a new tool to document and calculate the loudest moments during home games, and exactly how many times the crowd disrupts the opposing team.
The technology — known as Roar Tracker — was created by three Penn State researchers at KCF Technologies, including its CEO Jeremy Frank.
Onward State reports Frank graduated from Penn State in 1997 with a degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in business, and he told the student news outlet he came up with the idea in 2019 following the now-infamous timeout against Michigan, which can be seen below.
“ is something that, all the way to James Franklin, is on the team’s radar,” Frank said, per Onward State. “If you can disrupt the game with the crowd … it’s massively advantageous. The idea for us getting involved was basically a follow-up to that. James Franklin making that literally a game priority, getting the students as involved as possible.”
The Roar Tracker works using hidden sensors installed throughout the stadium that monitor vibration and send signals to a base station, which is then transmitted to the tech company's cloud software, KCF Technologies website states.
Onward State reports some of the loudest moments from this past season happened during the White Out game against the Auburn Tigers. But Frank expects that the record will be broken during the game against Michigan.
When over 109,000 people in attendance joined in a sing-along of "Sweet Caroline" during the home game against Auburn, the Roar Tracker shows of the most notable "Seismic events" can be seen on the graph below during the singing of Penn State’s Alma Mater.
Screenshot via KCF Technologies’ Roar Tracker.
“During the Auburn game, when Penn State had a turnover, that was loud. But when that was called back for a penalty, the response was even louder,” Frank said, per Onward State. “If you’re James Franklin, what you want to take back to the students is to realize you can have a massive impact on the game.”
Screenshot via KCF Technologies’ Roar Tracker.
Frank told Onward State that Roar Tracker is still an evolving system and the team is working toward having Roar Tracker give real-time feedback to fans, something like having noise meters on jumbotrons at sports games.
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