Teaching golf swings using the Nintendo Wii Remote by Joseph A. Curro Clarkson University Teaching golf swings using the Nintendo Wii Remote A Thesis Proposal by Joseph A. Curro Electrical and Computer Engineering Department Mentor: Prof. Janice Searleman March 13, 2009 Golf is one of the more popular sports around the world. PGA events are often covered on ESPN and many people regularly attend golfing events. Golf is also a very popular sport to play in the business world as many business men use golf as a way to meet cli ents and discuss deals. U nlike many other sports , there are many learn ing tools available commercially for people to improve their game of golf, and there are many infomercials that attempt to peddle yet another gadget to improve your golf swing. These products can range from a trick club, to golf balls that don’t go far whe n hit, to instructional videos, to swing - analyzing cameras, to the newest mat erial f or a club, and many others in - between. The reason that so there is such a market for these products is due to the nature of golf. Unlike other sports where a wide variety of skills are needed , golf primarily consists of one skil l, swinging a club. Golfers use nearly the exact same swing with any club they use. The reason they use the same swing is they want consistency of how far the ball goes and how straight it goes. The club’s loft or angle , not how hard the golfer swings, will determine the distance , s o the golfer only has to think about performing a consistent golf swing . It’s true that professionals can pull fancy tricks such as giving spin on the ball , but for most people hi t t ing the ball straight and consistently is enough of a challenge . This is wh y so many products can exist to help people with their golf swing. Putting is another important skill in golf, however putting requires mo re intuition of how the field is laid out rather than the swing , and is accordingly more difficult to teach . For thi s reason, training products are designed to improve the most important part of golfing — the swing . This thesis demonstrates how a golf swing training program can be created using the Nintendo Wii Re mote to teach a beginner a good golf swing at low cost and in a fun environment . A Nintendo Wii R emote (Wiimote) can be used to help people improve their golf swing or other sport motion. A Wiimote add on gyroscopes via the Wii Motion Plus that can be used to track changes in ac celeration and angles. Using these inputs , a program can then through simple integration determine the position in s pace and orientation of the Wii mote [5] ,[6] . A user will swing the Wiimote alone or attach ed to a golf club simulation tool as they would swing a normal golf club. A program taking in this data will then determine points of improvement for the golfer based on professional golf swing data . The program aims to help people who are just starting go lf learn the game in an enjoyable and easy to use form at . The target users are children or elderly people who want to start golfing but don’t have a lot of money to spend and want the process to be rewarding and enjoyable. The trans ition for kids to use th e Wii mote will be especially easy because they are so familiar with it in the first place from playing video games . There is also a push in the golfing community to teach kids to golf because golf often consists of only older people. The golfing community looks for ways to involve younger players to keep the sport alive. . Th e program can also help experienced golfers who know what they should be doing but aren’t sure if they are actually doing it. The program to help people improve their golf swings would consist of a GUI that shows a picture of a golf club that is t ied to t he sensors in the Wii mote so that the club on the screen will m ove the same way that the Wii mote does [5]. As the user twists and turns the Wiimote that motion will be directly shown on the screen. When the person wants to actually try a swing they would p ress a button on the Wiimote that would tell the program to start looking for a swing. As the person performs their swing , the program would then collect data on the swing. The program would filter the incoming data and determine where the swing began and ended based on how person actually made a swing [11]. Then the user could look at a li ve playback of their swing. The user could play , pause , or rewind their swi ng to see what they were actually doing in those split seconds of swinging. The program would also give feedback on how the person can swing better. The user ’ s swing would be traced on the screen as one color line while a more ideal swing could be a different color line. The user could then see how and where their swing needs to change in order to have a better swing. The program will know where the swing needs to be improved based on previo usly recorded data from other golfers who are considered to have accurate swings. The program would look for mistakes commonly made by beginners and give hints to correct those mistakes. The GUI would also have other menu options such as to save the swing, and all window options like maximize and minimize. The GUI would be very easy to understand for the younger user or the older user. This simple to use GUI would a llow the program to be available to a much wider audience that would possibly have trouble with the complexities of other golf teaching products. Currently many different products are available to help with improving a golf swing. Such devices include s oftware with a high speed camera, a room with cameras that record reflective tape, or a Wiimote s [1] - [3]. These products are looking to establish themselves as alternatives to instructional DVDs or training aids and persona l instructors currently available on the market. They offer the feedback of a personal market of people who are willing to spend over $100 on learning aids. They all offer a virtual view of your golf swing in slow motion after the swing has occurred allowing a player to analyze their mistakes. The programs also give feedback on their swing depending on the program. The main inconveniences of these programs are that (such as configuring cameras) , available only at certain locations ( like the reflective tape monitoring ) or too expensive for casual people ( such as the Motus IClub [1]) . The program this thesis proposes would requir e much less experience to start and cost much less than these current systems. The other aids on the market also target more experienced people who want to seriously improve their game while the program in this thesis is geared toward people looking to sta rt golfing without major effort or inconvenience . The Wii mote program will be aimed at casual players who don’t want to spend the effort, time or money to seriously become an exceptional golfer . The Wii mote is a readily available at any electronics or game store and is a well established product [10] . Most peop le already know about the Wii mote and many people even have one in their house. The Bluetooth used to interact with the Wii mote is also a well accepted technology and is be coming standard on most new laptops [15] . The software will be a program that can be downloaded or installed with a CD and provide feedback to the user. This setup has the advantage in price, availability and ease of use when compared to the other choices. This makes it very appeali ng to younger players just starting off that don’t want to spend either the money to purchase more expensive products or the I have years of experience in programming in many different languages. The program to accept input from the Wiimote will be written in C#. I am very familiar with the C# languages and have written many different programs using it. I have already found source code to connect Wiimote spec ific project. The graphical interface will be done using OpenGL or similar graphics library. I have limited experience in graphics programming but I am currently taking a class in OpenGL and have made small programs using DirectX. I do not have extensive k nowledge about golfing or specifically golf swings. I will learn how to golf from my father and possibly have him give me pointers on what beginners need to know. I will need to recruit an experienced golfer to provide data points to compare the users swin g to. Currently St. Lawrence University has a golf swing analyzing facility which I will visit in the spring when weather improves . I have also a contact with the golf coach at St. Lawrence and will meet with him. From experts such as these I will determin e the key points that a program such as mine can offer to a beginner golfer. Timeline: March 2009 Prepare a GUI and an XML diagram outline for the project April 2009 Construct GUI in code and create outline of the XML classes Visit St. Lawrence facilities to explore what they have to offer Summer 2009 Obtain a Wii Motion Plus and get working code so it can be implemented into the program Learn how to golf , especially knowledge that beginners should have Septe mber 2009 Begin to flesh out code so it can draw a person actually swinging a golf club October 2009 Create algorithms to analyze a golf swing based on what input from the Wiimote November 2009 Develop informed consent forms and submit a protocol form to the Clarkson IRB for approval Winter 2009 Debug program and test against live data from actual good and bad swings Feb r uary 2010 Finalize thesis Bibliography [1] ―IClub, Smar ter technology for better golf ,‖ Motus Corporation, 2001 - 2008 . [Online]. Available: http://www.iclub.net/main.html . [Accessed: Feb. 16, 2009 ]. [2] ―Golf Swing Analysis Software – Pro Golf Swing Library - ,‖ cSwing LLC, 2008 [Online]. Available: http://cswing.com/ . [Accessed: Feb. 16, 2009 ]. [3] Jim Gorant, ―Swing Doctors - Improve Your Golf Swing.‖ Popular Mechanics. October 1998. [Online]. A vailable: http://www.popularmechanics.com/outdoors/sports/1283176.html [Accessed: Feb. 16, 2009 ]. [4] ―Wiimote,‖ WiiLi, 3 February 2009. [Online]. Available: http://www.wiili.org/Wiimote . [Accessed: Feb. 16, 2009 ]. [5] ―AiLive - LiveMove 2 – ,‖ AiLive. [Online]. A vailable: http://www.ailive.net/lm2.html . [Accessed: Feb. 16, 2009 ]. [6] Bradshaw, David Ng, Kia , "Tracking Conductors Hand Movements Using Multiple Wiimotes," presented at International Conference on Automated solutions for Cross Media Content and Multi - cha nnel Distribution, 2008. AXMEDIS '08., Florence, Italy , 17 - 19 Nov. 2008. [7] Hay, S. Newman, J. Harle, R. , " Optical tracking using commodity hardware ," presented at 7th IEEE/ACM International Symposium on Mixed and Augmented Reality, 2008. ISMAR 2008 , 15 - 18 Sept. 2008 . [8] Attygalle, S. Duff , M. Rikakis, T. Jiping He , " Low - cost, at - home assessment system with Wii Remote based motion capture," presented at Virtual Rehabilitation, 2008, Vancouver, BC, 25 - 27 Aug. 2008. [9] Liguang Xie, Kumar, Mithilesh Yo ng Cao, Gracanin, Denis Quek, Francis, "Data - driven motion estimation with low - cost sensors," presented at 5th International Conference on Visual Information Engineering, 2008. VIE 2008, July 29 2008 - Aug. 1 2008 . [10] Lee, J.C. , " 10) Hacking the Nintendo W ii Remote," Pervasive Computing, IEEE , vol. 7, issue 3 , pp. 39 - 45 , July - Sept. 2008 . [11] Schlomer, Thomas ; Poppinga, Benjamin ; Henze, Niels ; Boll, Susanne , ― Gesture recognition with a Wii controller ,‖ presented at Second International Conference on Tangible and Embedded Interaction, 2008. [12] Leder, R.S.; Azcarate, G.; Savage, R.; Savage, S.; Sucar, L.E.; Reinkensmeyer, D.; Toxtli, C.; Roth, E.; Molina, A. , ― Nintendo Wii remote for computer simulated arm and wrist therapy in stroke survivors with upper extremity hemipariesis ,‖ Virtual Rehabilitation , pp. 25 - 27 , Aug. 2008 . [13] Chow, Yan g - Wai , ― The wii remote as an input device for 3D interaction in immersive head - mounted display virtual reality ,‖ presented at : Computer Graphics and Visualization 2008 and Gaming 2008: Design for Engaging Experience and Social Interaction 2008, MCCSIS'08 - IADIS Multi Conference on Computer Science and Information Systems, Jul 22 - 27 2008, Amsterdam, Netherlands . [14] Sreedharan, Sreeram; Zurita, Edmund S.; Plimmer, Beryl , “ 3D input for 3D worlds ‖ Australasian Computer - Human Interaction Conference, OZCHI'07 , Australasian Computer - Human Interaction Conference, OZCHI'07 , 2007, p 227 - 230. [15] ― Experience More ,‖ , [Online]. Available: . [Accessed: Feb. 22, 2008 ].