Interacting with Athletes in Real — Time Through Augmented Reality

Jared McCann the newest Seattle Kraken left winger is vigorously skating across the ice. Stride after stride chasing down the defender past the blue line who wants to clear the puck.

As I see him race down the ice, I’m thinking, how fast is he skating? what’s his total time on ice? is he going to reach the defender before the puck is cleared?

I reach into my pocket and pull out my phone, log in to the Seattle Kraken app and point my phone at Jared. My phone uses computer vision, a blend of ai + computer science, to identify Jared and feeds me the real time statistics of his game. I can see he’s skating at 15 MPH, has been on the ice for 1:23 and is due for a line change. I put my phone back + enjoy the next phase of the game.

While this fan interaction isn’t currently enabled, wouldn’t it be incredible to see real-time data at will? Or have access to other interesting numbers like the fatigue level of players? Augmented Reality enables a dynamic future that disrupts how fans currently experience the game.

But first, we need to understand how the technology works and why the fan experience is limited.

In this article, you’ll learn about:

• Intro to Augmented Reality and Artificial Intelligence
• Enhancing the digital fan experience of the Seattle Kraken
• Personal Project and Intention Log

Intro to AR + AI

tl;dr — Augmented Reality is the placing of digital assets in the real world (snapchat filter on face). Artificial Intelligence is computers doing things that humans would traditionally do (siri = personal assistant).

Augmented Reality uses two parts of the camera in order to control the interaction (i.e. — map the environment to place the digital assets in the right places). The accelerometer helps enable motion tracking of the virtual content. When you move your phone to see more or less of the experience, the accelerometer is the focal piece that guides the interaction.

The gyroscope job is to maintain the orientation and angular velocity of the object. This ensures that if you move your phone from portrait to landscape or change the device angle, the objects will alter as well. The accelerometer is the tour guide and the gyroscope is the adjuster.