Billiards Analytics and Learning System (BALS)

During his time at Booz Allen, Dr. McKenna conceived and built BALS – the Billiards and Analytics Learning System. It was an experimental set up that leveraged the office’s billiards table as a source of an accessible and rich data set. The system recorded overhead video of every game, and the players entered the game results. The goal of the system was to provide a data and analytics sandbox that staff could use to expand their analytical skills, explore and try new ideas, develop visualizations, integrate mobile technology, and whatever else they dreamt up.

In the image to the left are:

• The player standings and TruSkill rankings, which were displayed on a nearby host computer
• The video recording hardware setup mounted to the ceiling
• A notional BALS outcome – a machine-learned set of probabilities for sinking each ball