Sport Infinity is a research project funded by the European Commission (DG Research, Industrial Technologies, Materials Unit) that ran from 2015 to 2018. The core objective of the Sport Infinity consortium was to identify and develop innovative, partly waste-based, long-fibre reinforced composites, enabling the automatic production of easily customisable plastic sports goods.
The project focused on the production of balls and shoes from recycled material. A design-driven approach was applied, exploiting the automation potential of rotation-moulding forming processes, enabling product shaping without using glue and/or other adhesives. To create more relevance for the technical development of innovative materials and manufacturing technologies, the project took into account consumer needs, speed, flexibility and sustainability.
The main Scientific and Technological objectives of the project were:
• The identification, selection and processing of appropriate materials (virgin or recycled), enabling the achievement of semi-automated and sustainable production.
• The design and development of innovative production processes, enabling local and adhesive-free production of customisable sporting goods.
• Definition and development of an integrated design approach, based on effective knowledge management and including user-involvement in the configuration of custom products.
Sport Infinity gathered expertise across the value chain from design to material development, production, marketing and distribution and across multiple disciplines of industrial design, material science, recycling and industrial processes. The partners involved were industrial companies, (adidas, BASF, Oechsler and Fill), representing the complete value chain for sports goods made from plastic materials, two highly acclaimed research institutes (LKT of Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg and CTT of University of Leeds), the center for applied research and innovation dedicated to textile materials and products (CETI Centre Européen des Textiles Innovants), the largest design company in Austria (Kiska), an IT company specialising in knowledge management (Hypercliq) and the world´s leading soccer skills coaching program provider Coerver Coaching.
