Advanced Tabletop Football

The Constraints

Design something that will help American football coaches teach the game of football better to their players.
To make it interesting: create a paper prototype of it for the Diamond Touch Table in 90 minutes.
The group included: Moe Rafi, Yujia Zhao, and Cheng Fan
How I helped to contribute: sketching, primary experience, concept generation

So How Did We Do It?

We first began to discuss what a coach might need to know in order to help the team win. We relied upon our experience of watching football in person and on television to start generating ideas: an eagle’s eye would be important, along with looking at the breakdown of the play. We also noticed from the player’s standpoint that they make their decisions for certain reasons, and giving the coach the view from the players can help the coach and the team reflect on what happened during the play and how to improve.

With this in mind, we then looked at what the table could offer us. Since the Diamond Touch Table allowed for multiple inputs and the recognition of different people, we then created a design that allows the coach to view the footage of football in the standard way, but the coach can manipulate the camera for different angles, and also select different players to view the field from that angle. We felt that with this additional means of interacting with footage, the team can be better prepared for the next game through careful reflection of all the elements of play. This knowledge then translated itself to how the coach can interact with the film footage of football, using the Diamond Touch Table.

The First Sketch

Using Post-It notes, transparent paper, poster paper, and pens, we created the above sketch of how it would feel on a large tabletop surface. The coach can see the view from above the field, the view from a player (when pressed), and the view of how the play was designed.

Creating a Solid Prototype

We then iterated on the above concept to make a better prototype. We still used the same method of showing the field to the coach, but this time we included video playback controls (e.g. fast-forward, rewind, pause). Whenever the coach would press a player, even after and while the play is being played back, the coach can see the view of the football field from that player’s perspective. In addition, multiple users can be able to interact with the table to allow for discussion and preparations from both the point of view of offense and defense. With this design, we feel that this a start of a valuable prototype for coaches to use in preparing their strategy for victory.