AirBadminton - A New Way to Play Badminton Outdoor

Discussion in 'General Forum' started by LenaicM, May 13, 2019.

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What do you think?

  1. Awesome!

    26 vote(s)
    47.3%
  2. Not for me...

    29 vote(s)
    52.7%
  1. LenaicM

    LenaicM Regular Member

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    The BWF has been developing a new way to play badminton, mainly for fun as the key concept is to be able to play outdoor on all surfaces. The main element allowing the game to function outdoor is the introduction of the AirShuttle developed in collaboration with the Institute for Sports Research at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore over the last 5 years. This new kind of shuttle is supposed to be durable and more resistant to the wind.

    As for now the shuttle is not available but according to the BWF page regarding AirBadminton it is coming soon.

    This new way of playing badminton is a great idea to reach a new audience and spread the good word about badminton and we can imagine some players introducing new ways of playing including some urban play or freestyle like the official video from the BWF - posted below - suggests it.



    The official BWF page with all available information: https://education.bwfbadminton.com/airbadminton/the-game

    A visual of the AirShuttle taken from the video above:

    Screenshot (5).png
     
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  2. ainchekar

    ainchekar Regular Member

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    Lousy promo video .. literally plastic

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  3. LenaicM

    LenaicM Regular Member

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    It could not be anything else than plastic as the idea is to reach out to a larger and non specialised crowd (mainly) by allowing the game to be played outside with the wind factor to take in consideration. Also, the price of plastic over feathers is non negligible for beginners.

    As for the "true" badminton player, it can be a fun way to play off court with friends and family that aren't regular players.
     
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  4. LenaicM

    LenaicM Regular Member

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    A better look at the AirShuttle:

     
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  5. ainchekar

    ainchekar Regular Member

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    Love the idea and the airshuttle...imho the video sucks and could have been a but creative/imaginative

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  6. ainchekar

    ainchekar Regular Member

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    Bit... typo

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  7. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    I wonder how heavy that.... thing... is in order to make even the slightest of wind not affect the flight.
     
  8. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    Applaud BWF for trying to promote a version of the game to be more accessible to the general public. however, the technical difficulty due to the nature / physics of the game is probably too difficult to overcome.
     
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  9. LenaicM

    LenaicM Regular Member

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    Badminton Europe just posted an article with some words from the BWF president Poul-Erik Høyer. The idea is clearly to reach a wider audience:

    “-This is a momentous occasion for badminton. Strategically, AirBadminton will allow us to fulfill our overall objective of putting a badminton racket in the hands of as many people as possible, he said.

    - Given that most people’s first experience with badminton comes in an outdoor environment, we are now making it easier for everyone to access the sport through a new outdoor game and new shuttlecock, the AirShuttle, he added.

    - In the future, we see AirBadminton as an exciting, new, energetic version of the sport. Overall, the aim is to inspire more people to play more badminton in more places.” - BWF president.

    Source: http://www.badmintoneurope.com/cms/default.aspx?clubid=4685&cmsid=239&pageid=5381&m=8066521
     
  10. Unforgiven

    Unforgiven New Member

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    I think it's gonna depend on the weight of the shuttle and how it flies.

    I don't have high hopes, but I'll try it out for sure.
     
  11. kurty

    kurty Regular Member

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    interesting, may help in land scarce country like singapore?

    looking forward to see this :D
     
  12. gjoo888

    gjoo888 Regular Member

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    Great idea, I'd like to give it a try since I have plenty of room where I live to play outdoors. I see that there is not any net play since there are dead zones on either side of the net and they say that the AirBadminton shuttle is not conducive to net play. Interesting that you can play triples too, but for whatever reason, the rules state at least one of players on a team must be female.

    Here are some FAQ's about AirBadminton: https://education.bwfbadminton.com/airbadminton/how-to-play/faqs#1557312065281-4e265427-a62f
     
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  13. Borkya

    Borkya Regular Member

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    Of course I had to make a YouTube video about this and share my thoughts, haha.

     
  14. visor

    visor Regular Member

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    Nah, I prefer water badminton...



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  15. kwun

    kwun Administrator

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    totally on point. i agree with you.

    and the worst part is how this dumb down the image of badminton.
     
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  16. LiteBulb

    LiteBulb Regular Member

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    When i was little, i used to play badminton at my home driveway. We would use the gate as the net. We also have outdoor badminton courts at the parks. The only drawback is we would need to predict the shuttles route due to wind.

    So if this new concept could resist wind, it would be great. At least now kids could go out there and pick up a game rather than sticking their face playing devices all day.
     
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  17. fanyy

    fanyy Regular Member

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    BWF must've been too busy with Airbadminton to improve their live coverage and scoring/ranking systems :cool:
    I thought cheap rackets/birds and crazy drifts was what made playing badminton outside fun and easy! No court or nets needed! Isn't that the whole point of easy accessibility and exposure? :D
     
  18. LenaicM

    LenaicM Regular Member

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    A lot of interesting points, definitely this new way of playing badminton is getting some attention and I feel like your thoughts are the ones of most indoor players.

    Regarding the United States and outdoor badminton I’m not sure the BWF thought of that part of the world that much. First the AirShuttle was developed in Singapore. Then the launching ceremony was in Guangzhou which was held in partnership with the Chinese Badminton Association and the Guangzhou Sports Bureau. Finally all the players invited were former Chinese pro players such as Chen Jin, Yang Wei. They also called it a “global launch”... :rolleyes::D

    I think it would have been interesting to hold several launching ceremonies around the globe, in all the continents and invite former or current pro players from different nationalities.

    I agree... why that shuttle isn’t available yet?! I know I would have already placed the order if it was.

    For me that’s all for the cons. I find this new way of playing amazing and a good move from the BWF. Most major sports already have their little siblings. Football has freestyle, futsal and beach football. Some of those disciplines even hold world tournaments now and are a discipiline apart that still help to make the sport more popular and played across the world. (and help partners of the sport increase their profit by selling new products such as specific beach or indoor balls and indoor football boots for futsal, etc)

    Basketball, volleyball and even golf has a long drive version and a kind of freestyle one which is mostly on social media where players can be seen juggling or doing tricks with their clubs which still help the sport gain attention.

    I think it was time badminton get a little sister. On youtube you can see the trick shots videos getting quite a lot of views, kids love it and I’m sure it can be taken to the streets with some funny challenges with all sort of trick shots in an urban environment.

    Well we’ll see how it develops but I don’t think it’s ever going to replace indoor competitive badminton or dumb down its image, it’s just going to reach a new and different audience that will whether play this new form of badminton or trigger an interest for the indoor game later on.
     
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  19. speCulatius

    speCulatius Regular Member

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    You do raise a few valid cons. Just this Sunday I say a little boy trying to play badminton with his dad in the city which is very very uncommon in Düsseldorf, but the boy didn't hit the shuttle once, because it was caught by the wind. While I liked seeing them try, it was really sad, so maybe that's why I'm not so negative about that.

    Let's talk some more detail....
    No boxes as you call it. The reason for having no line in the center is kinda obvious for safety. Nobody wants to trip over that line in the middle. Shouldn't take five years to develop that.
    No net play allowed/dead zones at the net area to encourage longer rallies. I think that might be an excuse and the reason might actually be similar to the first point: You cannot have lines crossing the court, it's just too dangerous. From Badminton we know why there's a line that the service has to land behind, otherwise a service would often result in a direct point. The 2 m (almost exactly?) match the specs of a badminton court, I didn't look up the other dimensions though.
    The serving player has to stand 3 m back, not just 2, thus another mark needed. I really thought this was stupid at first, but keeping in mind that you can serve to the entire width, there might be a reason for that. Small colored marks on the court lines should be enough for that, no extra cones needed. It's probably the first rule I wouldn't be too serious about anyway. Maybe someone has an idea how to deal with this in a better way without disadvantaging the serving player? I need to try it before really making up my mind about this.
    I hope it's not this that took five years of research.

    You say you'll need to buy different sets for different surfaces and that's simply not true. It should be easy to make a set with holes at the edges and include things to more or less fix it on different surfaces. You could probably do this easily as a DIY project. Webbing (that will be used for those sets) will cost you around 0,30 USD or EUR per meter (resulting in roughly 15 USD or EUR) overall - and that was a price including our 20% German VAT. You could only used 8 cones if you're just playing with friends for fun. For the net height, I actually think it's more difficult to set up the net at the same height in sand as on other surfaces, because the net poles will sink in naturally, but even if not, it's fairly easy to sell adjustable net poles.

    What I don't like is that a net is needed at all, because that will be the most difficult to build in a way that you can take anywhere, that's easy to set up and that's durable at the same time. I don't see how that will work out. On the other hand, a company tried to introduce outside badminton without a net (they wanted to make us think of it that way) as Speedminton and while that can be fun, it's not close to badminton at all.

    The biggest con is the availability for now, because they might have raised some interest and some people
    Now, they think about it again, and maybe will never try it. I really hope that these five years of research were spent well on perfecting the shuttle, but I highly doubt that. If BWF reads this, send me a prototype shuttle and prove me wrong, there's an outside badminton court where I can try it (yes, in Düsseldorf; nobody uses it; ever).

    About the video and the parcours badminton.... well, I pictured ten year old children attempting that and getting injured while trying. Either due to failing or because of getting beaten up by people who were annoyed by it, but how else would you have done it?
     
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  20. decoy

    decoy Regular Member

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    I did see BWF had posted on Facebook some highlights of the new shuttle.

    It's effective with wind up to 12km/h. So playing it on the beach like they had in the video seems unlikely to me.

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