Eventos Anais de eventos
COBEM 2021
26th International Congress of Mechanical Engineering
Customization of a System for Reactive Agility Tests with Cognitive Demand
Submission Author:
Eloi Antonio Triaca , SP
Co-Authors:
Eloi Antonio Triaca, Dávila Moreira Lopes Silva, Lucas Batista, Jonas Barbosa, Jefferson Silva, Arnaldo Mortatti, Adilson Oliveira
Presenter: Eloi Antonio Triaca
doi://10.26678/ABCM.COBEM2021.COB2021-1416
Abstract
The performance of athletes is directly related to how quickly their decision-making process is done. This capacity consists, mainly, in the ability to regulate, coordinate, and sequence thoughts and actions according to pre-established goals. One way to assess this cognitive capacity involves the application of the Reactive Agility with the Cognitive Demand (RACD) test, in which participants have to make decisions based on visual stimulus while executing a physical task. Thus, the cognitive demand is evaluated through the analysis of the rate of correct decisions and the amount of time the participants required for making their actions. The accuracy of the RADC test can be improved with the aid of a customized automation system, which needs to be capable to connect transducers and actuators. This paper describes the RACD test automation developed to assess the decision-making capacity of athletes. The designed system can identify the movement of an athlete in a predetermined position with the support of a photoelectric presence transducer and, then, presents to her/him a visual signal that indicates the action that he/she needs to go. A computer code based on the visual interface was developed to acquire data from the transducer and produce the visual stimulus, which can be: monochromatic arrows indicating three possible directions; colored arrows (blue, red, or green) also indicating three possible directions; or a combination of both types above-mentioned. These different configurations are levels of the cognitive demand: in the first one, the direction of the arrows coincides with the direction the athletes should move to; in the second configuration, the signal colors indicate the correct direction and the direction of the arrows do not necessarily coincide with it; and in the final configuration, both situations are presented to the assessed athlete. Moreover, the manufacturing of a functional prototype including transducer and electronic components was performed. After the completion of the automation, RACD tests were applied to athletes aimed at verifying the functional behavior of the developed device. In addition to this application, the product development can be directly applied to the automation, the monitoring, and the control of other sports-related systems and in other engineering applications.
Keywords
reactive agility, cognitive demand, automation, software design, product design
