UrbanCubby: smart lockers full of sports and games equipment in the city
During Comon's Microlab, a team of inventors is working on an innovative sharing platform that wants to make sports and games equipment accessible to everyone. They want to place smart lockers in our parks in Ghent that you can unlock via an app. This initiative, called “UrbanCubby,” wants to make it easier and more fun for Ghent residents to exercise together. Get to know UrbanCubby.
Sports and games equipment accessible to everyone
Through a web application, visitors of parks and sports venues can instantly unlock and use game and sports equipment such as kubb, badminton sets, petanque, spikeball, frisbees and soccer balls. This innovative sharing platform for sports and game equipment aims to make it easier for Ghentians to exercise in the city.
Smart lockers in parks can encourage people to exercise more by providing sports and game materials, such as kubb, badminton sets, petanque, spikeball, frisbees and football/soccer balls. Visitors can easily access these lockers via an app, allowing them to use the equipment right on site without having to bring anything themselves. This lowers the barrier to being active in the city and creates a healthy, social atmosphere in the outdoor space.
Smart lockers
Smart lockers are already a well-known concept, but not yet specifically for sports and gaming equipment in parks. ClubCubby already offers smart lockers where people can store their personal belongings during a night out at the club. During Comon's Microlab, this technology is now being further developed with the goal of encouraging people to move together.
Microlab: from witty idea to experiment
In the Microlab, the team will further develop and test this idea into a working prototype. During a 5-day Design Sprint they will dive into the wonderful world of design thinking, prototyping and testing. The team is well surrounded by methodologists to further shape their idea and receive feedback from experts to steer the development of the prototype in the right direction. Find out more about Comon's Mini Test Labs
Prototyping: tinkering to test out an idea
A prototype is the very first design of an innovative idea. It is a craft version of an idea, so it doesn't really work yet. A prototype is made to test out an idea, with users. Does it work? Would you use it? You can describe a solution to your user and then ask if they would use it. But people are going to give more truthful answers when they actually have a product in their hands, rather than trying to imagine the idea themselves.
You can build a prototype at different levels. You can put weeks of work into that, so it works perfectly. But in a Microlab things happen much faster. During the design sprint, the team goes in one day to build something that pretends to work. For example, say you want to test whether a bank ATM works, you build a cardboard facade and put a person behind it who puts the money bills through it. That's the prototype.
To experiment is to try, fail and adjust
One of Comon's goals is experimentation: try, sometimes fail and sometimes adjust. And that is allowed. More so, it is important during an innovation process. You don't innovate overnight. It is a process. Almost every innovation process is composed of the same building blocks: the chemistry between different profiles in a group, an occasional bump in the road with a rollercoaster of feelings associated with it, pulling yourself up with a new idea, going for it, involving your target group and above all: daring.
Take a look: Miniproeftuin UrbanCubby
What's that, a Microlab?
Comon is all about experimenting and bringing people together. That’s precisely what happens during Microlabs. In these labs, diverse teams of inventors work on shaping and testing innovative ideas into functioning prototypes.
