Advancements in wearable and
ubiquitous computing have exposed
the interaction design community to a
new perspective on sports. As a result,
increasing effort has been directed
toward creating technology-enhanced
systems that can improve sports
experiences. So far these technologies
have focused primarily on gathering
data on a single user’s performance, for
example through individual activity
tracking, or on encouraging general
physical activity, for example through
exertion games. In contrast, only a
few examples focus on improving the
training experience for team sports [ 1, 2].
While most players recognize the
importance of training, they would
Areadily agree that playing the actual sport is significantly more engaging than training for it. Consequently, our vision is to design engaging yet ransferable training experiences, realized through interactive spaces that use sensors, actuators, and game lements. We call these interactive sports-training games. Here, we present an interactive soccer-training system called Football Lab, together with three related games that explore the possibilities of combining technology and training. We discuss the design process and
evaluation of the system, highlighting
opportunities as well as challenges we
encountered.
TRAINING BALL HANDLING,
FIELD SURVEYING,
AND MICRO TACTICS
Football Lab [ 1] is a public interactive
soccer-training system created in
cooperation with a Danish soccer
academy and Munin Sports,
a company that manufactures
soccer-training equipment. It is an
enclosed, 12x12 meter soccer field.
Four rebounding surfaces, called
M-stations, each measuring 2. 7 x
2. 7 meters, are positioned at the
center of each of the four sides of the
playing field. The M-stations consist
of a large frame strung with wire,
similar to a tennis racquet, capable of
returning a ball with 95 percent of its
DESIGNING TRAINING
GAMES FOR SOCCER
Mads Møller Jensen, Aarhus University
Majken K. Rasmussen, Aarhus University
Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller, RMIT University
Kaj Grønbaek, Aarhus University
SPECIAL TOPIC