Inspiration
Concern regarding sports injuries has increased greatly with recent of NFL players diagnosed with CTE. We read some articles suggesting that many football players suffer head injuries due to the fact that they do not know how to tackle properly. Some use their heads as weapons but ultimately end up hurting themselves the most. we thought a good way to help players break the habit, would be to do the training in VR. This reduces the amount of injuries sustained in practice and can also lead to better reaction times.
What it does
Virtual Reality Simulation Athletes will be able to select different VR environments to 'tackle' different skill sets. We put together a simple environment with blocks flying towards the users face. The user attempts to dodge the blocks over the course of one minute. Each hit adding a point to the hit counter. scores are sent to the data server and it is updated on the coaches dashboard and players dashboard. Lower scores are better and eventually the data could be used to track player trends. If a player with usually low scores starts getting higher scores this could be a symptom of a brain injury. signaling the coach to dedicate more resources to that player.
Dashboard for Long Term Monitoring The scores are sent to the dashboard application, on which the team's coach can view the players' statistics from game. This allows coaches to monitor trends in players, and assess whether or not a certain player may in danger of acquiring a long term condition.
How we built it
We built the VR simulation, and the dashboard that coaches and players use to monitor the performance of the players in the simulation. We built the VR simulation in Unity, and we built the dashboard in React and Firebase.
Challenges we ran into
We were able to build a virtual reality simulation in Unity that demonstrated proof of concept without having any prior experience with the platform.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
We were able to quickly learn how to utilize the Occulus Rift with Unity and send information to the dashboard. We also really love the idea and want to develop it further after this hackathon.
What we learned
We learned how to use Unity to build the VR simulation, along with a bit of C#. We learned a lot about the importance of monitoring the health of athletes.
What's next for Helmo
Consult with Professionals in Sports Medicine - We aren't the experts on diagnosing sports injuries, but consulting experienced professionals would help us improve the VR simulation by suggesting more reliable metrics. Expand the metrics we use to assess players - We hope to grow this project and incorporate other training and testing methods for reaction time. We also want to put an emphasis on proper technique to prevent injury during the training.
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