Tracali

This project focused on the creation of an interactive technology tool to help Calisthenics athletes track their progress over time and improve their form during exercises.

During this project, the goal was to develop an innovative implementation of interactive technology to solve problems within a certain sports domain. In our work, we focused on the sport of Calisthenics, a sport that uses bodyweight exercises to build functional strength and skills.
During this project, the goal was to develop an innovative implementation of interactive technology to solve problems within a certain sports domain. In our work, we focused on the sport of Calisthenics, a sport that uses bodyweight exercises to build functional strength and skills.
During this project, the goal was to develop an innovative implementation of interactive technology to solve problems within a certain sports domain. In our work, we focused on the sport of Calisthenics, a sport that uses bodyweight exercises to build functional strength and skills.

The Concept

The final concept is a system called TraCali. A system that utilizes fixed phone holders placed on calisthenics equipment to record athletes' exercises from a consistent perspective.

An accompanying application allows athletes to overlay footage from different sessions, enabling them to compare and track their progress between sessions and over time. The recorded footage also enables athletes to reflect on their form within a training session, facilitating self-modeling. The application provides conspective (direct/real-time) auditory feedback and form analysis to help athletes assess their form and determine if they are ready to progress to more challenging routines. By addressing the issues of form monitoring and progression tracking, TraCali aims to support athletes in their calisthenics training and enhance their overall performance.Start/stop playback, skip to the next track, or return to the previous track

The Process

Through research, ideation, and prototyping, we transformed insights from calisthenics practice into a structured design outcome.

During this project, we extensively utilized the Design Method toolkit to give structure to the activities in the design process. To determine interesting problems within the field of Calisthenics two different research methods were utilized: auto-ethnography (a research method that uses personal experience to describe and interpret experiences, beliefs, and practices) and one-to-one interviews with a variety of intermediates and experts. The results from these methods indicated a few important aspects that became the focus points of our system: the importance of external feedback; correct form; proper exercise difficulty; and tracking progression in calisthenics training. Thereafter, brainstorming took place utilizing two methods from the Design Method toolkit. Lotus Blossom and Mash-Up, which resulted in a large variety of concepts. Then a convergent stage took place in which the most interesting and fitting solution was determined. Thereafter an interactive prototype was created in Figma, which was the final stage of this project.

My Role

The project was executed by a team of 5 students studying Interaction Technology. I was involved with different aspects of the project, including gathering data on the problems in Calisthenics. One aspect of this process was the gathering of data through the use of auto-ethnography, I trained together with a Calisthenics athlete and experienced and discussed the problems they encountered. Thereafter I was involved in the convergent stages of the problem statement, brainstorming activities around the concepts, and specification of the concept. In the specification of the concept, I used concepts from the field of Sports Technology to create an effective system that would benefit athletes. In this process, concepts such as user feedback systems, monitoring, and the nature of the system were important to consider. In the final stages, I was responsible for providing an appropriate pitch of the system in collaboration with another team member.

User Research &
Design Thinking

User Experience Design

For this project user research was conducted with users in the field. This consisted of literature research, interviews, and auto-ethnography. Furthermore, the design method toolkit was used, which provides tools for defining problems, getting to know users, framing insights, Ideation & concepts, and prototyping & testing.

Sports Domain Development

This project used a design taxonomy of Sports Interaction Technology created by Dees et al. (2022) and can be viewed here. This taxonomy provides structure in the concepts that are important to consider within the field of Sports Interaction Technology and was very useful in the creation of such technology. I got familiar with all these concepts and can apply them in practice.

Rapid Prototyping & Presentation

For the project, we needed to create a prototype in a short time period and had to present our concept in front of an audience. We built a prototype in Figma and could convert this information successfully to an audience of students, we received the public vote for the best project.