International Design Awards for New Zealand Innovation

May 31, 2016

International Design Awards for New Zealand Innovation

Springfree Trampoline has added to its haul of international awards by receiving two of the highest accolades in international design excellence.

Springfree has just been awarded Australian Good Design Awards for its new innovation – tgoma, an acronym for Take Gaming Outside and Make it Active.
Springfree featuring tgoma is a world-first interactive digital gaming and fitness system for trampoline, encouraging kids and families to get outside and be active.

The awards follow a number of international accolades awarded to the Christchurch-based company, including Product of the Year awards in both USA and Canada, and Best of the Best at Germany’s premier Red Dot design awards.

The Australian Good Design Awards recognise excellence in design, innovation and creativity. Springfree kept company at the Awards with global brands Microsoft, Renault, AEG, Miele and TomTom, taking home awards in the Product Design and Digital Design categories.

Tgoma uses sensors around the trampoline mat edge which send digital data to an iPad, utilizing the whole body to control games and apps. The sensors detect the jumper’s location on the mat, how high they are jumping, and by knowing the jumper’s weight tgoma even presents back their calorie burn rate in real-time as they are jumping.

“With this data we have been able to write apps and games from educational apps for kids, to fitness apps for adults”, says Jonathan Collins, spokesman for Springfree Trampoline. The fitness app was developed with Angie McDougal, the coach of the New Zealand Olympic Trampoline Team.

Collins says the goal is to shift kids’ behaviour from indoor sedentary play to outdoor active play.

“It’s about leveraging technology to transform screen time from being an isolating, sedentary activity to an engaging, active experience. We want to get kids off the couch and into the backyard”.

Good Design Australia is highly respected for conducting one of the most rigorous and independent evaluation processes in the world. All submissions receive a thorough hands-on evaluation by an expert panel of international judges and have to meet a range of criteria to even qualify as a finalist. To be shortlisted in the Digital Design category, tgoma had to show design, usability, creativity, innovation, content, quality and commerciality. In the Product Design category, tgoma proved form, function, safety, sustainability, quality, commerciality and innovation.

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