ProjectProposal-PattiBao
From CS160 User Interfaces Fa06
Contents |
Primary Project Proposal: Coach's Playbook
Problem Description and Target Users
Coaches of many team sports prepare and direct their teams using carefully planned tactics and hand-documented plays. These plays often involve multiple players moving in various different directions at the same time. A typical play might look something like this. Such illustrations may be difficult for others to follow (especially compared to computer-drawn plays), but coaches might prefer to hand draw these playbooks in the following situations:
- When analyzing game footage, unless the coach has the technology to write directly on the screen, it's easiest to jot down plays by hand.
- When training the team outdoors, it's convenient for the coach to use a pen and paper to modify plays or create new ones.
- When deciding what play to go with during a game, coaches tend to carry around notebooks (the old school ones) in order to refer to their plays.
However, these situations are not quite ideal, and I think they can be improved such that the coach can easily organize, analyze, and compare plays, and plays in turn can be easily read by the players as well as by the coach. More specifically, a solution would mean that:
- The coach can not only document plays, but also distribute them for the team to study.
- The coach can also animate plays for the team, instead of just having existing static versions.
- The coach can track the success rates of past plays without having to go to a computer and calculate based on lots of data.
- The coach can easily change variables in the plays (for example, adding or removing a player) and be able to analyze the results.
- The coach can easily categorize plays based on when they are most appropriate for use in a game or on other criteria.
In this case, the coach's needs are convenience (this is an operation that has to be performed both on and off the field), reliability (the plays cannot be lost), and organization (ideally, plays would be easy to find and compare to one another).
Problem Context and Forces
Because of the nature of their work, coaches keep playbooks up-to-date by hand, which means that their plays may be difficult to browse and are certainly difficult to distribute to the team. After some research, I've identified a few related solutions to this problem, but they are entirely computer-based. One is the Animated PlayMaker, which currently exists only for hockey and lets coaches place markers and then draw motion paths for them. The other, even more relevant solution is Coach's Office, a software suite that includes the Chalkboard Module, which allows coaches to draw plays and print them out.
However, digitizing the playbooks entirely and bringing a laptop onto the field is not a feasible solution for the target user group. This is where the Anoto pen plays a part: coaches can continue to note down plays by hand, but all of their scribbles are transcribed into a digital system that can then categorize and rank plays based on type and/or past success. This is particularly useful during games - a coach can identify a possible play, quickly scribble it down, have the system can access it and similar plays, and then compare the success rates of his team in completing each play. For coaches, there is no cost of switching technologies, and for the players, there is now a constantly updated source of plays that they can access.
Solution Sketch
Secondary Proposal: Efficient Waiters
Problem Definition
Waiters have to take several trips between a customer, the kitchen, the billing computer, and the cash register. This is inefficient for them, and because they have to deal with so many customers at a time, it is easy for orders to get mixed up or delayed. Not only that, but chefs have to deal with several orders during peak meal times, and they too may be operating at less than optimal speed because of the bottleneck from waiting for waiters to bring them customer orders. Customers may get impatient too, so it's a no-win situation.
Ideally, waiters want to take fewer trips, chefs want to get orders on time, and customers want their meals quickly. While some restaurants require that waiters memorize orders, most waiters are allowed to write them down. Iif they could instantly transmit their orders to the kitchen, chefs could get a headstart on cooking, and customers would hopefully be guaranteed quicker and more accurate orders.
Possible Solution
- Waiter jots down table number and dishes ordered, specifying any special modifications requested
- Order is instantly transmitted to the kitchen, where a big screen displays all the orders received, ranked by time
- Order is simultaneously transmitted to the billing computer, where the total is calculated and a bill prepared to give to the customer
Alternate Proposals
- Composers can write their scores by hand, and these are automatically transcribed to a computer where the sounds can be played back instantly.
- Students can take notes by hand, and then manipulate, share, and most importantly, search them on a computer after OCR has occurred.
- Choreographers can plan their performances by writing out steps, times, and positions of all dancers involved. These can be uploaded to a computer and shared with all the dancers as edits are made, or animated by some 3D simulation that understands the steps.
- Supply chain managers can keep track of their inventory and delivery paths with Anoto-powered forms.
