The 2016 Summer Olympics marks the reintroduction of men and women’s seven-a-side rugby into the games. To celebrate women’s inclusion Wearable Experiments teamed up with the Dutch ladies seven’s team to develop a unique experience for their fans in the Netherlands.
Wearable Experiments developed custom software that communicates the emotions and actions of the game in real time to a shirt. Fans wearing the shirt feel the impact, heartbeat, exhaustion, adrenaline and the excitement of the players in the game. The shirts are equipped with haptic feedback to relay the sensation via blue tooth. In layman’s terms, tiny motors in the shirt vibrate via a remote connection to the simulation software.
“Sports are emotional, we created The Alert Shirt for the ladies Rugby seven-a-side team to affect your emotions through designing the experience for your senses. Sensory experiences are the future of sports entertainment,” explained Billie Whitehouse Director & Designer, Wearable Experiments.
The shirt draws a link between the empowerment of women’s sports and a technology that deepens the communication between players and the audience. Wearable technology such as Fitbits has become a mainstream and accepted part of a fitness regime. Women’s sports are also gaining more exposure in the mainstream arena. The power of technology creates connections between people to create understanding and empathy by exploring the feelings of sports players. The emotions that someone experiences while wearing a shirt connected to women’s sports or men’s are the same. The power of wearables to connect us to our own fitness, between players and spectators or men’s and women’s sports is a move toward a positive future.
To see the shirts in action on the Dutch Ladies seven’s team click here or watch the shirt test trials here.
