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SportsDesign complete (stages 1–6) + rev A2 HeadCount (26 Oct 2026), not built

SmartGoal Academy

Strap-on cameras that log every shot at a training goal, and count every header against the FA youth limits

Logs every shot at a training goal and, in heading practice, counts each player's headers against the FA age limits (HeadCount pod), using strap-on cameras and one pitch-side Edge Hub.

Who buys it
Football academy directors and club youth coordinators running finishing, goalkeeper and heading sessions; indoor and small-sided venues.
Why it pays
About 2 h a week of coach video tagging saved (~$3,100 a year, est.); the parent Highlights subscription shares 40% back to the academy (~$1,530 a year with 40 parents, est.).
Target price
$1,790 kit + $99/month per goal; HeadCount pod + 20 wristbands $149, no extra fee; Parent Highlights $7.99/month (target)
First-minute wow
A player walks off the pitch and her parent's phone already shows 6/10 on target, 3 top corners and the clip of the best goal.
See the CAD designConcept page
SmartGoal Academy concept: the idea and where each part goes
The concept. The CAD design is below, under Printable CAD.

What the research found

And how this design answers it

  • Phones and auto-cams already film matches → SmartGoal is a close, goal-mounted multi-camera view with per-shot stats that a halfway camera can't give
  • Officiating-grade accuracy needs big camera arrays → no goal-line or offside claims; coaching accuracy (3 × 3 zones, speed ±10%) only
  • Clubs have little budget → sold to academies that charge parents, with a parent subscription shared back
  • Cameras built into goal posts can't be retrofitted or serviced → V-block saddles and straps fit 80–120 mm posts in under a minute
  • Heavy video upload → one shared Edge Hub sends events and only approved clips
  • FA youth heading limits in training (U6–U11 none, U12 5 a month, U13 5 a week, U14–U18 10 a week) that nobody counts → HeadCount: tap-in pod with a headers-left ring, the GoalCams count headers per player, coach +1 key, session card; counts only, no medical claim

Use case

U12 finishing session

Coach16 playersGoalkeeperParents

  1. 01Trigger: the coach starts a finishing drill with a player queue on the tablet
  2. 02Detection: three synced cameras track the ball to the goal plane; the hub logs zone, outcome and speed
  3. 03Alert: each shot appears on the tablet within 1.5 s and is credited to the player at the front of the queue
  4. 04Action: at the end, every player gets a session card and clips; parents receive them after academy approval

Outcome: Stats for 200 shots with no manual tagging, saving about 2 coach hours a week (est.)

How it works

Architecture

  1. 01

    Sense: two post-mounted GoalCams and one field GoalCam (Pi Zero 2 W + Camera Module 3 Wide, 1080p30 into a RAM ring)

  2. 02

    Decide: the Edge Hub (Pi 5 + Hailo-8) runs motion-gated YOLOv8n on 640×360 substreams and fuses tracks by timestamp (libcamera software sync, chrony)

  3. 03

    Send: local MQTT to the coach tablet; events and approved clips only to the cloud

  4. 04

    Tell: coach tablet, parent/player app, weekly academy report

Hardware

Real parts, buyable today

Bill of materials: about $1,060 per goal in parts at qty 1 (est.).

BlockPartWhy this part
Central processingIEMI Edge Hub: Raspberry Pi 5 8GB + AI HAT+ 26 TOPS (Hailo-8)Shared platform; one box per pitch
Camera nodeRaspberry Pi Zero 2 W + Camera Module 3 Wide (SC0874)H.264 hardware encode and libcamera sync for about $50
MountASA V-block saddle + TPU pad + 25 mm cam strap + 1/4-20 ball headNo drilling; fits 80–120 mm posts
RadioTP-Link CPE210 outdoor APDirectional 2.4 GHz from pitch-side to the goal
Power20 Ah USB bank per camera, 24 Ah PD bank for the hubAbout 20 h per camera, two sessions for the hub
HeadCount podXIAO ESP32-S3 + PN532 NFC + NeoPixel Ring 16 + 2000 mAh LiPo in a pole-top puckPlayers tap in before each go; the ring shows headers left for the FA age band

Mechanical

Printable CAD

11 parts, generated from code and checked as closed solids. Pick a part to inspect it, or download the STL files to print.

See the CAD parts render
SmartGoal Academy printable parts, rendered from the CAD
Render of the printable parts from the actual CAD. Not yet printed or photographed.

Loading the CAD…

Real CAD · drag to rotate · scroll to zoomReal CAD · swipe sideways

Open risks we are working on

  • Academies may not pay $99/month or get parents to subscribe (3 letters of intent needed first)
  • Ball strikes on post-mounted cameras and goals being moved between sessions
  • Wi-Fi range from the Pi Zero 2 W at 40–60 m
  • Rolling-shutter skew on fast shots may bias zones (global-shutter fallback)
  • Header detection from the GoalCams (ball turning near a head) is untested; the coach +1 key is the fallback and the count is advice only

Design stage only: nothing on this page is for sale. Specifications and prices are targets.