Sc8r
Paired network devices designed to help skaters explore new areas in their city and find new places to practice tricks and moves based on fellow skaters’ recommendations. It uses radio communication and GPS positioning to identify hot spots and haptic vibration to alert the skater when they are nearby.
Sustainable development goals
Tags
LoRaWAN
GPS
CIID
challenge
To create a low-fidelity prototype that explores purpose within the larger scale of the city using LoRa with a focus on range.
Tasked to explore people-to-self connection within the larger scale of the city using LoRa with a focus on range. The team saw skateboarding as an interesting opportunity – while it is an independent sport, skateboarders form a close-knitted community. Street skateboarding has also become popular during the corona virus pandemic with closed skate parks and less traffic on roads. This rise in interest has led people to look for good in which areas to practice.
Tasked to explore people-to-self connection within the larger scale of the city using LoRa with a focus on range. The team saw skateboarding as an interesting opportunity – while it is an independent sport, skateboarders form a close-knitted community. Street skateboarding has also become popular during the corona virus pandemic with closed skate parks and less traffic on roads. This rise in interest has led people to look for good in which areas to practice.
outcome
Exploring how we might foster the skateboarding community in San Jose by guiding skaters to areas generated by crowd sourced engagement, we focused on the people-to-self purpose through:
- Self exploration: exploring new skills and tricks
- Self development: adapting, practicing, and improving tricks in new areas
- Self expression: interacting with space through different tricks and moves
- Self reflection & taking action: evaluating on one’s skills and decide what’s the best location for practice
Context & Insights
Skateboarding started in San José, Costa Rica as an urban subculture in the late 80s. With strong influences from the surfing culture, skateboarding is becoming more popular which led to a rise of skate parks. There are currently over 100 skate parks in the country.
Historically seen as an activity associated with drugs and vandalism, skateboarding is starting to gain official recognition in Costa Rica in which IOCDER (Costa Rican Institute of Sports and Recreation) granted the sport representation in March 2018.
Historically seen as an activity associated with drugs and vandalism, skateboarding is starting to gain official recognition in Costa Rica in which IOCDER (Costa Rican Institute of Sports and Recreation) granted the sport representation in March 2018.
Street skateboarding has become popular during the corona virus pandemic with closed skate parks and less traffic on roads. This rise in interest has led people to look for good in which areas to practice.
While skateboarding is an independent sport, skateboarders form a close-knitted community. Skateboarding often becomes something that is bigger than the sport itself.
While skateboarding is an independent sport, skateboarders form a close-knitted community. Skateboarding often becomes something that is bigger than the sport itself.
Identity
Skills derived from skateboarding have positive externalities
Growth
Cityscape with roughly paved streets provide interesting terrain for skateboarders to crave for challenges
Community
Learning through connections with the community
Prototype
Thinking about what skateboarders has with them and how could be augment those wearables through bodystorming and rapid prototyping.
How would a nudge on the knee feel vs the one on the elbow
LoRa connected with GPS sharing position over LoRaWAN which provides seamless interoperability among smart things without the need of complex local installations
LIVE GPS reading. LoRa is bi-directional, but also supports operation such as multicast, enabling mass distribution messages to reduce the on-air communication time
After testing for vibration on elbow and knees, a user we tested with suggested that the vibration on the head would be felt more.
Which led to using the skateboarding helmet as a housing for LoRa
Working and Technology
A skateboarder starts from their home, their location being marked as painting on concrete. If they spend more than 2 minutes in a 10m radius, then the location is shared over LoRaWAN
This is an indicator that the particular location is a good place for them to practice. This GPS location is stored over the network to be accesed by other devices.
Another skateboarder when passing through the marked location will get notified through the vibrations on their helmet.
More people skateboard in a place, makes it easier for the community to move forward
Skateboarder transmitting skate locations when spending more than 2 minutes in an area
Other skateboarders accessing skate locations as they pass by
Future considerations
- Conduct user testing with skateboarders
- Over time how can we start to distinguish advanced skater from beginner
- Maybe try to have device limit number of people in area - but that might come off as authoritarian
- How can different vibration patterns for different spots enable an extra 6th sense
- Usage of EEG sensors in helmet to monitor brain activity for more accurate assessment of skating locations