Footbonaut

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The Footbonaut is a football training machine which fires balls at different speeds and trajectories at players, who must control and pass the ball into a highlighted square. In addition to honing ball skills, the machine is designed to improve a player's reaction time. [1]

Development

Footbonaut was invented by Christian Güttler in Berlin, Germany. [2] The Berlin-based consultancy Cavorit designed, prototyped, and built the AI driving Footbonaut, co-developed the engine control system, set up the data collection pipeline for machine learning, and prototyped the visual analytics module that provides actionable feedback to both players and coaches. [3] The machine is also described as a robotic cage. [4] The Footbanaut, which costs $3.5 million is as large as an apartment with a cube shape and is capable of firing balls from a range of 360 degrees at different speeds and trajectories toward the training players. [5] The players, who are standing inside a circle, must control the ball and pass it through one of 72 gates. [6]

Mario Götze's winning goal of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Final has been credited to his years of practice using Footbonaut. [7] It was reported that German team TSG 1899 Hoffenheim achieved its highest finish in the Bundesliga for five years - ninth place - after using the contraption. [6] There are three clubs currently using Footbonaut in their training. [8]

References

  1. ↑ Wilson, Jonathan; Hesse, Uli; Lyttleton, Ben; Rabiner, Igor; Fanning, Dion; Montague, James; Horncastle, James; Udoh, Colin; Yokhin, Michael (2013-12-09). The Blizzard - The Football Quarterly: Issue Eleven. Blizzard Media Ltd.
  2. ↑ The making of a Fussballwunder, economist.com.
  3. ↑ "Research & Development · Cavorit". cavorit.de. Retrieved 2025-11-24.
  4. ↑ Football enters space age with 'Footbonaut', edition.cnn.com.
  5. ↑ Wahl, Grant (2018-05-01). Masters of Modern Soccer: How the World's Best Play the Twenty-First-Century Game. Crown/Archetype. ISBN   9780804137065.
  6. 1 2 Grez, Matias; Thomas, Alex (November 9, 2017). "'Footbonaut': German clubs lead football into the future". CNN. Retrieved 2019-02-22.
  7. ↑ The making of a Fussballwunder, economist.com.
  8. ↑ "Meet the Footbonaut, the futuristic pass-master currently firing Borussia Dortmund and Hoffenheim".
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