Exhibit: "Virtual Field Goal Kick"
Venue: Canadian Football Hall of Fame
Location: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada
Date: June, 1999
Client: Canadian Football Hall of Fame
Contributors: Mystus Interactus (project coordination, custom software, microprocessor control, housing
design), Museum Productions (electronics, housing fabrication)

Description: The visitor approaches the football kick area and sees an attract loop of football kicking images projected on a large 8' x 6' screen surface with an occaisional live game commentary soundtrack. The visitor notices the large type graphics on the console that indicate to place the football in the tee, press the start button and kick the ball. On pressing the button an image randomly selected from many preset scenarios is projected onto the screen in front of them. The image shows the view of the field goal to be kicked in the perspective of the kicker. There are several start buttons allowing for different levels of difficulty. A commentary, set as a sports broadcaster describing the play in a pro game, is heard that describes the situation including how far they are expected to kick. The visitor kicks the ball at the image of the uprights and immediately gets a call from the referee on wether their kick was good, wide or short followed by a diagram showing where they kicked on the field. Some secondary information, interruptible by another start button press, is displayed at this point including statistics about the game, rules involving field goal attempts etc. At the end a message is displayed encouraging the visitor to give someone else a turn. The exhibit presentation reverts to the attract loop until another start button press is sensed.

An optical grid has been constructed just in front of the projection screen. There is a sensor at the tee to mark the time of the kick. The time of flight between the kick sense and the grid sense allows us to calculate speed while the position of impact on the grid gives us the direction information. The sensors are monitored, and calculations made, by a dedicated microprocessor. The time resolution of measurement for the microprocessor is very fast and tajectory calculations are made in a fraction of a second.