Robo swim buddy snaps your stroke from below

摘要

Not feeling your front crawl? Breaststroke a little off-kilter? Not to worry, a robotic swimming buddy can help you out. Swimoid is a robot that glides along the pool floor underneath you as you swim, monitoring your form and providing real-time feedback on a 50-centimetre LCD screen. Two cameras, one built into the front and one at the back of the robot, capture images of your stroke from below. A poolside coach can view these images on the screen and draw instructional diagrams over them for the swimmer to see as they swim - much like a football pundit does on television. Yu Ukai from the University of Tokyo, Japan, says he built the system after experiencing the difficulties of teaching swimming from the side of the pool when he worked as an elementary school swimming instructor.