Puma's BeatBot can race with humans to better motivate and improve performance
Puma/Twitter
Fitness and sports are entrenched in technology these days,
especially given the wide range of wearable tech products and services
available in the market. Most sports apparel manufacturers are
capitalising on wearable tech introducing new products designed to
attract users' attention.
Not to be left behind, Puma has weighed in, stepping up its
tech game from wearables to robots. The company has launched a robot
which may just be fast enough and smart enough to train and outperform Usain Bolt.
BeatBot, which looks like a box on wheels, is a
self-driving robot that comes equipped with infrared sensors that help
it identify and race-track lines and stay within the limits. BeatBot can
make over 100 adjustments per second to stay on course and uses its
front and rear GoPro cameras to analyse the counts of its wheel
revolutions and figure out its speed and distance when on the go.
Moreover, BeatBot can be operated to run faster than world record
speeds, essentially running even faster than Bolt, according to Puma.
"We found a lot of anecdotal evidence that head to head
competition raised performance levels, even a few studies that showed an
uptick performance," JWT New York's creative director Florent Imbert told Fast Company.
"But, to us, it felt like a human truth. Running against an invisible
clock will never be as motivating as running against someone — or
something."
BeatBot is currently just a prototype. Unfortunately, it may
be a while before little BeatBots hit the shelves so to speak,
especially given how expensive they are to manufacture on a large scale.
Puma is now
only making BeatBot available to its sponsored athletes like Usain Bolt
and is not planning to mass produce the robot for sale anytime in the
near future.
Post a Comment