Digitalizing Fishing Competitions, the journey of The ReelStreamers team in MonstarHacks 2024

MonstarHacks, the annual competition hosted by Monstarlab, has reached its 4th edition, bringing together talented individuals from diverse backgrounds who are driven by innovation and dedicated to creating a positive social impact. This year, the challenges are brought to the table with collaboration with our partner cloud provider AWS.

Challenge statement

Our challenge was to transform fishing matches with technology in order to streamline organization, creating immersive watching experiences while collecting valuable insights based on real data analysis for spectators, fishermen, sponsors, advertisers and equipment producers. Fishing competitions involve anglers competing to catch the largest, heaviest, or most fish within a set time, often requiring strategic planning and keen understanding of aquatic environments. Competitions can take place in a variety of settings, from tranquil freshwater lakes and rivers to the vast and challenging environments of deep-sea fishing. These events are open to a wide range of participants, including amateur local anglers, seasoned professionals, and anyone in between looking to test their skills. However, these events can face challenges in fan engagement and operational efficiency such as paperwork, complexity of live data recording, overall event organization and others.

The proposed solution

We want to perform a digital transformation of such fishing competitions by building a platform that targets to solve the challenges by bringing interactable viewing experience and data analysis for competitors, equipment manufacturers and fishing enthusiasts. Event management will get digitized, enhancing organization and sponsor interactions, helping in building digital communities to connect fans more deeply with the sport. This approach will not only streamline the logistics of hosting competitions but also will transform how spectators interact with and enjoy these events.

Beneficiaries of the Platform

The main benefits include the following:

• Event Organizers benefit from streamlined event management.
• Spectators enjoy a more immersive and interactive viewing experience.
• Competitors gain valuable insights from post-event analytics, helping them refine their techniques.
• Sponsors and Advertisers engage more effectively with a captive audience through targeted advertising.
• Equipment Manufacturers use detailed usage data as a feedback to improve their products.

Advanced Viewing Experience

For spectators, the experience is elevated with multi-angle live streams and interactive features. Multi-camera setup, including underwater cameras, will allow users to choose from various camera feeds, including those controlled by producers for dynamic shots and others that can be selected by viewers. Configurable overlay will allow users to view current match statistics, records and other information that will help to understand the current situation on a deeper level. All these ensure that every significant moment of the competition is captured and accessible, bringing viewers closer to the action than ever before.

Data Analysis and Utilization

The platform employs algorithms to analyze data collected during competitions. This analysis includes the effectiveness of different equipment, the strategies used by competitors, and environmental impacts on fish behavior. During a match, spectators will be able to view live data. After the match is done, relevant stakeholders will have access to final data analysis, helping them make informed decisions to enhance performance. This data can be provided to the manufacturers, so they can improve their professional products.

Promoting Sustainability and Education

Our platform also emphasizes sustainability and education by providing viewers with information on responsible fishing practices and the environmental aspects of fishing. This helps to promote a more sustainable approach to the sport and educates the public about the importance of conservation in fishing environments.

Our Tech stack

• Machine Learning and AI using AWS Web Services
• React JS (Web) & Flutter for Desktop (MacOS, Windows, Linux) and Mobile (iOS and Android) Apps
• Python (Backend)

High level AWS Infrastructure diagram and description

In the diagram below you can see the high level AWS architecture with the main services leveraged in our solution.

• S3 buckets to store raw and normalized data
• Lambda functions to trigger other AWS services like AWS Rekognition/SageMaker
• AWS Elemental MediaLive for normalising different feeds from various cameras setups
• AWS Elemental MediaPackage for real time packaging and streaming videos to end users
• AWS Interactive Video Service (IVS) for enabling interaction with streamed videos securely to end users
• AWS Rekognition (Custom Labels) with AWS Sagemaker to provide a suitable and efficient ML models for input raw data analysis
• AWS RDS for storing the data analysis results for further usage
• AWS Step Functions for orchestrating the over all flow of the platform

Conclusion

We believe that the overall interest in fishing matches will increase thanks to our solution, which will lead to fulfilling our vision and mission values.

Article Photo by Stephen Momot

Screenshot from a video by Milliken Fishing