Quad Challenge

Final Design

Overview

Quad Challenge is an interactive public display that fosters competition between two campuses. Quad Challenge plays on inter-collegiate rivalries to motivate students to perform simple exercises to increase their team's score. A scoreboard is visible from afar. As a student comes closer, they can view more of the display, and learn how to interact with it and participate to raise their team's score.

01 Score Board

The most visible portion of the display is the scoreboard which is meant to be visible from afar and draw people in. The score is calculated based on the amount of exercise performed by the respective schools. When someone does one of the specified exercises in the active area, the score is updated in real time so that they can see how their actions have helped their team. The score is also visible on banners lining Forbes Street in Oakland.

02 Audio Engagement

Another way we draw people to the display is by transmitting the cheers from one campus to the other. When someone cheers on a participant at Pitt, that audio is transmitted to the West Virginia display to further foster competition. We use an alogrithm that can censor and sanitize the audio in real time to prevent vulgar or otherwise unpleasant transmissions.

03 Activity Display

The largest section of the display is dedicated to an activity map overlay. As the sensors recognize a an exercise's activity signiture, a representative graphic appears on the display. The specific graphic corresponds to the excercise being performed, and the different colors represent execisers from the different campuses. The graphics appear on the display on both campuses in real time, so students can always see what their competition is up to.

04 Exercise Chart

A chart detailing all of the acceptable exercises can be found on the right pillar of the display. This chart includes iconography and text descriptions to describe how to perform the exercises. Additionally, 1 of the exercises is called out each day as the "Daily Double." A gold highlight indicates that the excercise currently counts for double points.

05 Technology

Quad Challenge supports many different kind of exercises, which are distinguished by many different inputs to the system. A matrix of stakes stand in the ground as vibration sensors in a pre-defined area surrounding the display. Each exercise forms an activity print in these sensor readings. Research has been done to map accelerometer data to different activities at a rehabilitation center (download). Likewise, these sensors will map the period of activities to certain exercises. The matrix of sensors will triangulate where this activity print is happening, thus mapping the exercise to the location. The stakes will be least disruptive to the grass surrounding the Cathedral of Learning, which we learned was a coveted green space on the University of Pittsburgh campus.