Introduction

New sports are being introduced in the olympic games! This is especially exciting considering Brisbane will be hosting the 2032. These newly introduced sports have a severe lack of participation from younger athletes and are primarily dominated by an older audience.

Business Problem

Australian youth are suffering from lack of exposure to diverse sports.

The newly introduced olympic sport squash is suffering from lack of potential players.

Solution

Create a gamified user experience to engage with our target demographic of primary school aged Australian athletes. This will make the experience fun, engaging, and exposure to sports that may not be traditionally available to students.

Project Timeline

During the 12 week project, we were given a budget of $5000 AUD and allocated the majority of funds to specialist, studio time, and our Z-Cap motion camera that used infrared light to capture player movements and translate them into in-game avatar movements.

Week 1-4 Problem Framing and MVP V.1

In the first weeks our team went through the storming and norming phases and set out to solve the business problem with each of our selected disciplines. We initially selected a Volleyball Olympian from Australia, Taliqua Clancy, to model as a metahuman avatar that could be imported into Unreal Engine. At the end of week 2, we had a near identical metahuman rendering of Taliqua.

Week 5-8 Problem Shift and Environment Building

After having some initial feedback from the QUT Protocomp staff, we decided to seek feedback on our product with some user groups in different primary schools. We interviewed youth athletes who reenforced our solution of gamifying the experience.

On the technical front, we build three different environments to showcase the beauty of Australia. In Unreal Engine using different asset packs I build an Australian Outback, a tropical rainforest, and a beach scene that resembles Mooloolaba.

Week 9-11 Motion Capture, Environment Finalization & MVP V.2

Nearing our investor pitch, we were able to schedule some time with two professional Squash athletes to perform motion capture in the different Motion Capture studios at QUT. We wanted to ensure the motions translated into the video game were high fidelity. We used the motion capture data and used the .fbx file extension to translate this into avatar movement within Unreal Engine.

Week 12 Investor Pitch

In our final week, we polished our avatar renders and prepared our final presentation for our pitch given to QUT Sport sponsors at the QUT Innovation Protocomp Showcase.

My Contributions

During the lifecycle of the project my role was elastic. I served as a web developer, video game designer, UX/UI designer, and Motion Capture specialist. I am providing ongoing support to this project as we gain funding and exposure from venture capital. The website is currently still under development but you can view the site by clicking on our logo below!

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