LiveBall

• 

  Working version

Inspiration

Adidas SmartBall has tons of sensors, but only delivers data after the shot and you can only check it out with their app. What about having real feedback so that the ball can talk back to you.

What it does

How we built it

Using Arduino, we used the accelerometer and also a gyroscope to get live tracking data. Additionally we created an algorithm that takes this live data (shot data) and process it, returning as output 1 (good kick) or 0 (bad kick). This output is used for the lights. We then got an Adidas smartball, teared it open, put the Arduino inside. We connect the Arduino with NeoPixels and used the previous output signal to activate the green light or red light accordingly.

Challenges we ran into

It was difficult to align the axis of the Arduino; initial problems trying to handle sensors and data from smartball (not trivial).

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Solve a limitation of the Adidas Smartball, which is not capable (so far) of providing live data. We track this live data, give direct feedback by changing the color of the ball and also store this live data for later, so that the player can see his performance in a dashboard, like in Runtastic or also similar apps.

What we learned

How to connect Arduino with NeoPixels, calibrate Arduino axis for orientation during the flight of the ball, opening/sewing back footballs

What's next for LiveBall

The next step is to improve the algorithm recognizing if the shot was a great one (green light) or not so good (red one). We would like to collect more data on real kicks to observe rotation and acceleration data, and also connect our microcontroller with the Adidas sensors to make our data even more reliable.

Built With

• arduino
• c++
• lego
• neopixel
• python
• smartball