Equipment Hubs

UX Research, Systems Design, App Prototype

The Problem

College students want to play pickup sports to unwind, but three things stop them: there's no equipment at the court, there's no one there to play with, and if you're a beginner, showing up alone feels intimidating. These remove the aspects of spontaneity and fun from pickup sport.

Key Insights

My team and I interviewed students, the Rec Center equipment manager, and the Farm Games coordinator and found a consistent pattern: students are far more likely to show up if they can trust that equipment will be there and that they won't be playing alone.

Persona card: Maya — a student who hopes to build relationships and take breaks through inclusive pickup culture. Needs a system that makes joining spontaneous games feel welcoming even for beginners. Quote: There's a skill barrier that makes sport feel less inclusive.
Persona card: Christy — a teacher and trip leader at the Rec Center who hopes to ensure students have the resources to enjoy the outdoors because shared experiences form deep connections.

Ideation and Prototyping

We mapped dozens of ideas on a matrix of uniqueness versus feasibility, and looked for the one that removed the most barriers at once. Equipment Hubs came out on top because they solved gear access and built community in the same solution.

Uniqueness versus feasibility matrix with purple sticky-note ideas plotted across four quadrants. The top-right quadrant (unique and feasible) contains: Equipment sheds scan in with IDs, app to find players with similar skill levels, different coloured balls for different skill levels, RAT resident athlete manages dorm-owned equipment, and organized tournaments for students staying home during holidays.
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Three directions we explored:

  1. Equipment Sheds: On-site boxes at courts where students borrow gear by scanning their student ID, so anyone can play spontaneously without paying for equipment.
  2. Resident Athlete (RAT): A new dorm government position that runs a dorm's equipment checkout and maintenance, and acts as a liaison between residents and RAs and staff.
  3. Skill-Based Ball Sorting: Balls color-coded by skill level, so players can join groups at their level just by seeing which ball is in use.

Design Principles

We also decided on our guiding design principles, which ultimately led us to our final solution.

  1. Accessibility: We hope to make access to equipment and play effortless for every student, within minutes.
  2. Community: We hope to strengthen campus community via a stronger casual sporting culture.
  3. Empathy: We want to remain inclusive to students with varying skill levels and varying social groups.
  4. Joy: We want to infuse joy into the experience by removing various stressors.

Prototype Development

Our first idea was implementing "equipment sheds" across campus at the major outdoor sports facilities, which would mainly focus on making it easy to acquire equipment to play pickup. These would allow Stanford students to borrow equipment for brief periods by scanning in their student IDs at the courts.

However, we further realized the need for a solution to the problem of not having anyone to play the sport with. Thus, we decided to expand our shed idea to an 'Equipment Hub' which serves as a centralized location on each sports field which allows a student to borrow equipment as before, but also prompts them to notify other students that they are currently playing at that court. There would be QR codes at the equipment boxes that enable students to sign up for notifications for that court.

Two-panel illustration showing the prototype development: top panel is a hand-drawn sketch of a Stanford Sports Rentals box on a basketball court with two students asking Did anyone bring a Ball?; a red arrow points down to a photo of the actual prototype — a person at a picnic table with equipment, next to a hand-drawn Equipment Hub box illustration.

Concept

Equipment Hubs are physical stations at every major outdoor court on campus, stocked with sports equipment that any student can access by tapping their Stanford ID. Hubs automatically notify nearby students that someone's playing at that court. You scan a QR code once to subscribe to a court, and from then on, you get a ping every time someone shows up.

I also designed a companion iOS app that gives you the full picture before you even leave your dorm: which courts have players right now, what equipment is available, and a live activity feed of who's checking out what.

Illustrated Equipment Hub station — a green box labeled Equipment Hub, open to show basketballs, a football, and a soccer ball inside. Callout labels explain the four key features: (left) Easily grab equipment for all the different facilities available in the area; (bottom-left) A number to call to report missing or damaged equipment to the Rec Center; (right) Tap in with your Stanford ID in order to access equipment — missing equipment gets charged to the last tapped in user — Automatically notify potential players that you're playing!; (bottom-right) QR code to sign up to get notified whenever someone checks out equipment.

Design Decisions

Outcome

We ran a live "Sports Day" at the outdoor courts outside Arrillaga Dining. We set up QR codes for court notifications and a sticker-based feedback board. 40 students participated.

Beginners played alongside more experienced students without the usual intimidation. The notification sign-up had the strongest response as students were genuinely excited about getting pinged when someone was at their nearest court.

A student placing a sticker dot on a hand-drawn feedback board that asks: Would equipment sheds across campus motivate you to play pick-up more often? and Would equipment notifications motivate you to play? Dots cluster toward the positive end of both scales.
Six students playing basketball on an outdoor court at Stanford during the Sports Day event. A volleyball net and lush trees are visible in the background at dusk.