This year, NFL team Minnesota Vikings will be playing at their new home, the U.S. Bank Stadium, located in downtown Minneapolis, and the franchise has been using that opportunity to find new ways in which to excite fans with high-tech entertainment designed to make them feel like they’re part of the team. The result of that mission is Vikings Voyage, a 10,000-square-foot interactive exhibition space where fans can catch passes while wearing a virtual reality Vikings helmet, run shuttle drills against a current Vikings player’s pace, and hit a tackling sled that measures impact. The space allows fans to track scores and compete against other visitors by means of bracelets containing passive Near Field Communication (NFC) RFID tags.
“The spirit of the new stadium is getting fans as close to the action as we can,” says Tanya Dreesen, the Minnesota Vikings’ partnership activation and special projects VP. “It’s a way to feel like you’re in the huddle, even if you’re not in the huddle.”
The Vikings Voyage is part of that effort to bring fans into the huddle. Along with interactive games, the Voyage will include a full-size ship hull that features a 27-foot projection screen displaying historic and modern-day videos of the team. Fans will learn about the history of the Vikings’ uniforms and equipment through a transparent OLED screen. Closing out the space will be a museum experience featuring memorabilia, infographics and photographs.
Vikings Voyage was designed by Dimensional Innovations, based in Overland Park, Kan. The 23-year-old company began as a signage firm for movie theaters, and expanded to a variety of technology solutions over time, DI reports, including interactive electronics and touchscreens.
In 2015, DI and the Vikings began discussing ways in which technology could be used within a 10,000-square-foot space located above the stadium’s gift shop, says Brent Haag, Dimension Innovations’ account director. The team had considered erecting a hall of fame in that space, since all ticket holders walk through the area on their way into the stadium, but the team wanted a Vikings Voyage that was technology-oriented, according to Curtis Walker, DI’s technology director.
The resulting system is expected to be up and running for the first preseason game in late August. Upon arriving at the stadium, the ticket holder can first proceed to a touchscreen, to receive a purple wristband containing an NXP Semiconductors NTAG 213 chip compliant with the ISO 14443 standard. The ID number encoded on the wristband’s chip is then linked to that individual’s name in the DI software, which resides locally on a stadium server.
The system was designed to collect only a name and no other details, Walker explains, so that fans can quickly obtain their wristband and free up the touchscreen for the next user. They can then don the wristband and begin walking through the Vikings Voyage. There are a variety of tests and activities inside for them to complete, including four activities for which they can use their RFID bracelets to track their scores automatically and then share those scores with friends and family members via social media.
One of those activities is a virtual NFL Combine. The actual NFL Combine is a scouting process for NFL teams to identify potential players’ skills. The drills that players endure include speed, strength and agility tests, through such activities as vertical jumps and ball catches. In the virtual version, Vikings Voyage visitors can test their own skills against those of the pros, by attempting a tackle or block, as well as running, jumping and making a catch. Much of the testing is accomplished with a virtual element—for instance, the catch involves a screen and an image of a ball that the participant must approximate catching through his or her position in front of that screen.
Fans can participate in the Forging Strength activity, which tests the force that an individual applies against a blocking sled; Sky to Valhalla, which tests vertical jump height; and Speed Prevails, a shuttle-run test. The fourth, Prove Your Honor, is a virtual-reality pass-catching game that uses Microsoft Kinect technology to identify a participant’s location as the ball seems to be coming toward him or her from the screen. In that way, the system can score that individual’s effectiveness at catching the ball.
Upon completing an activity, the participant taps his or her wristband against the RF IDeas PC Prox X RFID reader, which captures the tag’s ID and forwards that information, along with the person’s scores, to the DI software, which links that data with the user’s name.
Once finished, the participant enters the Halls of Valhalla, a reader-board social-media zone. There, the screen lists the participant’s first name and total scores on the screen. The visitor can also compare his or her results with those of other participants, as well as the scores of some Vikings players. Fans will be expected to take their wristbands home, and to use them when participating in Vikings Voyage activities during subsequent visits to the stadium.
Initially, the Vikings have acquired 50,000 wristbands. DI has been testing the technology in-house, Walker says. “So far,” Haag reports, “it’s going pretty smooth. There haven’t been any major challenges” with the hardware or software.
Dreesen thinks the interactive space will be popular with attendees of the first game. “We hope to see [the Vikings Voyage] crowded from wall to wall,” she says.
Sometime during the upcoming football season, Dreesen says, the team intends to integrate the DI score-capturing software with the Vikings app, which is available on iTunes and Google Play. In this way, those who have the app can view their scores on their phones, and share them with friends on social media.