Bc. Dominik Stasiowski, Bc. Martin Kop and Bc. Marek Šulc are students of FIT CTU, IT enthusiasts who have been playing volleyball competitively for a long time. Therefore, they connected their hobbies and founded a startup company DSparx, which produces Training Lights. The training aid consists of three to four different coloured light strips controlled by a mobile app. The strips can be hung from a net or placed on the ground and the speed of lighting can be controlled using the app. They light up in any order and it is up to the player to play the ball in their direction. The innovative sports aid pushes the player's level of peripheral vision and speed of reaction. All this with the help of a visual stimulus - light.
"Training lights serve top athletes as well as beginners, children and adults. What makes Training Lights unique is that they simulate visual stimuli that the player must react to, just like in a game," says Bc. Dominik Stasiowski, one of the authors. "We would like to spread the idea of Training lights globally, not only in the volleyball sphere, but also on other sports fronts. For example, it will be used in football, tennis or basketball," Dominik reveals his plans for the future. The app will be available in February 2022.
In addition to the Training Lights app, the student team has previously developed another mobile app called Czech Volleyball for the Czech Volleyball Federation. It is an information service designed for players, coaches and fans. It contains current rankings, competition results, online broadcasts of matches, invitations to events or articles.
"Originally, the Czech Volleyball app was the subject of Mark and Martin's bachelor thesis. However, the management of the federation liked it so much that they decided to redesign it and the result of the bachelor thesis became an application used by the general public. At that moment the guys decided to invite me and I didn't hesitate. The project is still running and we are continuously maintaining and expanding it," concludes Dominik. The Czech Volleyball app is available on the App Store and Google Play platforms.
Photo, courtesy of: CTU Faculty of Information Technology
