Handheld device for counting technical actions of individual players in sport games involving balls

Abstract

According to the present invention, there is provided a handheld device for counting technical actions of an individual player in a sports game involving a ball, the handheld device including a housing sized to be handheld, a plurality of buttons in the housing including count-advancing buttons to respectively additively count the technical actions and a count-zeroing button to reset each count, a memory in the housing operatively connected to the buttons to store respective counts of the technical actions, a display in the housing operatively connected to the memory to display respective counts of the technical actions, and a power source in the housing operatively connected to the memory and the display.

1 . A handheld device for counting technical actions of an individual player in a sports game involving a ball, the handheld device including a housing sized to be handheld, a plurality of buttons in the housing including count-advancing buttons to respectively additively count the technical actions and a count-zeroing button to reset each count, a memory in the housing operatively connected to the buttons to store respective counts of the technical actions, a display in the housing operatively connected to the memory to display respective counts of the technical actions, and a power source in the housing operatively connected to the memory and the display. 
     
     
         2 . A device according to  claim 1  in which the count-advancing buttons respectively correspond to predetermined skills/technical actions. 
     
     
         3 . A device according to  claim 2  in which one or more of the count-advancing buttons is reserved for a user-defined technical action, 
     
     
         4 . A device according to  claim 3  in which the buttons include a count-decreasing button to subtract a count from the count of the last-pressed count-advancing button. 
     
     
         5 . A device according to  claim 4  including a clock operatively connected to the display in the housing to thereby enable the display to indicate elapsed playing time of the game. 
     
     
         6 . A device according to  claim 5  including a controller or a processor to selectively and individually control one or more of the buttons, the memory, the counts, the clock, the display and the power source. 
     
     
         7 . A device according to  claim 6  including a data interface adapted to transmit and/or receive data. 
     
     
         8 . A device according to  claim 7  in which the housing is shaped in at least two dimensions to generally correspond to the ball used in the game. 
     
     
         9 . A device according to  claim 8  in which the housing has a generally ovate or circular two-dimensional shape which corresponds to the two-dimensional shape of the ball used in the game. 
     
     
         10 . A system for counting and analysing technical actions of an individual player in a sports game involving a ball, the system including a handheld device according to  claim 7 , and a website adapted to interact with the device, 
     
     
         11 . A system according to  claim 10  in which the handheld device uses the data interface to interact with a database on the website. 
     
     
         12 . A system according to  claim 11  adapted to allow the transferring of recent skill counts to the database, and the transferring of significant data points of interest such as personal bests, averages against the user and against other users in the database between the web-based database and the handheld unit.