Author: Luke Welch | Major: Industrial Engineering
My name is Luke Welch, and I am a graduating Industrial Engineering student here at the wonderful University of Arkansas. This semester (along with the previous year and a half), I have had the privilege of working on my undergraduate research project titled Implementing the CMS+ Sports Rankings Algorithm in a JavaFx Environment. Throughout the duration of my research, I have had the privilege of working with Dr. Richard Cassady, the University Professor for the Department of Industrial Engineering and Freshman Engineering Program Director at the University of Arkansas. After graduation, I will continue my education at the University of Arkansas by pursuing a Master of Business Administration in the Walton College of Business. I am very thankful for the opportunity and the experience that the Honors College offered me by allowing me to perform research as an undergraduate student.
Every year, sports teams and athletes get cut from championship opportunities because of their rank. While this reality is easier to swallow if a team or athlete is distant from the cut, it is much harder when they are right on the edge. Many times, it leaves fans and athletes wondering, “Why wasn’t I ranked higher? What factors when into the ranking? Are the rankings based on opinion alone?” These are fair questions that deserve an answer. Many times, sports rankings are derived from opinion polls. Other times, they are derived from a combination of opinion polls and measured performance. This leads to the unfortunate reality that, many times, athletes and the public don’t truly know what goes into the rankings behind the scenes. A sports ranking system that quantifies human bias and reveals it in the process of ranking sports teams is a solution to this problem. My research was aimed at taking a heuristic-based sports rankings system and implementing the system in a more user-friendly environment.
I was fortunate to be a part of a unique experience that aided in my search for a faculty mentor who shared a common research interest. The Spring semester of my Junior year, I enrolled in a class called Honors Research Experience I; this class was for Honors Industrial Engineering students who planned on conducting research and writing a thesis. Each week, our class would have a different Industrial Engineering professor give a presentation to us about their research. We were encouraged to reach out to a few professors that performed research we found interesting. After hearing Dr. Cassady talk about his sports rankings algorithm that he created and the potential for expanding and modifying the system, I was very interested in the topic. I reached out and we discussed how I could contribute to the sports rankings system and conduct my own research.
To begin my research, I first had to learn about the already created CMS+ sports rankings algorithm. I learned about quadratic assignment problems and the usefulness of a heuristic-based approach, as well as gained more exposure to Excel’s VBA programming language, the language the original system was written in. After learning about the CMS+ system, I began working on implementing the system in a JavaFx environment. Through many hours spent coding in Java, I learned a lot about how to create a JavaFx User-Interface, how to create and manipulate two-dimensional arrays, how to debug code, along with many other areas of coding that I worked with almost every day.
Along with the many technical aspects that I learned throughout my research experience, I also learned a lot about myself. When reading about the CMS+ system, I found myself scratching my head several times wondering how a certain equation or function worked. I learned that reaching out to Dr. Cassady and asking for further explanation was beneficial and necessary. I also quickly learned that my knowledge of Java at the beginning of my research experience was not near what it needed to be in order to translate the CMS+ system from VBA to Java. While this was frustrating (and at some points seemed hopeless), I learned to keep trying new methods and keep reaching out to my mentor and other faculty for assistance. I also learned how to have difficult conversations when I hadn’t gotten as much progress as I had initially hoped. However, when looking back at my research experience, I can see how every obstacle pushed me out of my comfort zone and made me better.
I had great support throughout my time spent conducting research. My research mentor, Dr. Cassady, and I would meet weekly to discuss the progress I had made; these meetings also consisted of Dr. Cassady giving guidance for the direction of the research and answering any questions I had. In addition, I met with Dr. Chase Rainwater many times throughout the past two semesters when I hit a wall with my Java coding. Every time, he would help me debug the program and I would learn something new that I was able to use next time I ran into a problem. Finally, Dr. Kelly Sullivan was a key contributor to my research. Though he was not involved in the details of my research, he helped me identify a mentor and a topic, and he helped throughout the entire SURF application and Honors College Research Grant application.
Though it is bittersweet to close this chapter of my undergraduate career, I am so thankful for the relationships I made, the amazing skills I learned, and the experiences I shared with friends. In August, I will be starting the full-time Walton MBA program with a Graduate Assistantship. I am so thankful for my time here at the University of Arkansas Honors College, and I am excited to stick around another couple years!