SIGGRAPH Asia 2023 Emerging Technologies Best in Show Award: Ando, Barbareschi, Kawaguchi and Minamizawa
Awardee(s):
Award:
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Emerging Technologies Best in Show Award
Experience Title:
- Synced Drift: A Novel Sport Using a System that Harmonises Human Movement to Transcend Distance and Ability
Experience Description:
“Synced Drift” provides a new inclusive sport experience that allows two individuals to play a drifting race together while sharing a single body. Synced drift leverages a system consisting of a large-diameter omni-wheel mechanism enabling omnidirectional movement, two sensing seats that detects the user’s center of gravity shift, a mobile vehicle, and a viewpoint sharing system. The movement of the mobile vehicle is achieved by proportional control of the body movements acquired by the two sensing seats, one placed on the vehicle and one remote, from two or more individuals. The speed and direction are adjusted based on the harmonization of the inputs from the two users. This system allows people who were previously unable to participate in sports due to physical limitations, for example people with spinal cord injuries, or those with who had a stroke, to participate equally, regardless of individual impairments. Using the above system, the rules of the sport were designed and implemented. In this demonstration, the system explores the possibility of people coming together, racing and competing as one, transcending physical characteristics and physical locations.
