Physical learning support using a smartphone with image processing technologies

This paper describes a designing concepts of a system supporting for human skill development in the physical domain using rope skipping as the concrete target. When a novice tries to acquire some skills, they sometimes tend to concentrate on the object (e.g. rope) instead of putting emphasis on body control. This problem motivates us to propose an approach where a supporting system provides objective viewpoints and additional information to such a novice using video. Consequently, this research project started to design a new system along with this viewpoint. Regarding the concrete target, rope skipping is easier to perform and requires little space, i.e. 2m square enough. Therefore, this project offers a system working on a smartphone, which is portable to allow for greater ease and mobility of users. On the device, image processing technology has been installed to monitor and analyze motor actions by capturing a movie and processing its data. Learning support functionality, which is implemented as a standalone application on a smartphone, works together with the image processing technology. A prototype system based on the proposed method has actually been developed. This paper also touches upon the trial use of this prototype system by several subjects. It summarizes some findings from the experiments conducted. We think the approach can extend to other targets of physical domain.