Category: Shot Light™

The cats at Novation spent the weekend working on (and playing with) Shot Light™. We discovered a few things we’d like to share.

Interestingly, our “professional” version is a lot simpler than the “driveway” version. You’d think it would be the opposite, right? Well, with the pro version (the one we’ll use for formal college and pro league games), there already exists a scorekeeper in charge of starting and resetting the shot clock. When the ball hits the hoop of there is a change in possession, the scorekeeper just presses a button and the shot clock is reset. You usually don’t have that luxury for our one-on-one driveway basketball games.

For the driveway version of Shot Light™, we do have a reset button that the player can press after a basket is scored. This resets the clock–just like the pro game–but what happens when you miss the shot? We added a sensor that can tell when the ball hits the rim and automatically resets the clock for missed shots. So cool.

For change of possession, we first tried a voice recognition system, but it had its drawbacks. It’s expensive and not very reliable in the heat of the game. So we created a small, wrist-worn wireless device. When the ball is stolen and possession changes, one of the players (the most reliable one) will reset the clock with a tap on the wrist.

The pro version has a set length of shot time, but we found that being able to adjust this time makes your driveway game much more fun. Shot Light™ driveway version can be easily set for a time of 35 seconds down to 5 seconds. Think about how crazy it will be to have a 5 second shot clock when you’re playing against your brother!

Like any good techies, the cats at Novation are always looking for new problems to solve. So when we had the chance to speak with the head of technology at the NBA, we asked what issues they might be having. We were told that the league is concerned with players losing track of the shot clock timer. Hmm. It seems that the game is so furious that the players need to focus on the action.

Honestly, we were a bit unconvinced that it was an issue, but since we love building things, we designed a solution we call Shot Light™. We tried it out. We’re far from pros, but we did discover that Shot Light™ makes playing pick up basketball a lot more fun. Rather than hogging the ball and showing off all of our moves, Shot Light™ ticking the clock down in its unique ways forces us to get the shot off in time. Yow, it opens up a whole new dimension.

We’re still experimenting and finding new ways Shot Light™ can make the game more fun and challenging. For example, you’ll have a whole new respect for the game of HORSE once you play against the clock! Check out our product page for more pics and videos of Shot Light™ in action. Available for sale soon!