How can We Play Harry Potter's Sport?

Now that Pokémons are widely hunted, next big sport may come from the Wizarding World. I promise to keep it easy for those unfamiliar to the Wizarding World.

Whether you know Harry Potter or not, (and by rare chance, even if you don’t like him), this essay may introduce to a feasible outdoor sport. I am just sharing my thoughts on how such a sport could be made feasible within reasonable budget.

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This article is about a sport described in Harry Potter series, called Quidditch and how the near future, we muggles (non-magical humans) may be able to play Quidditch, the most famous sport of Wizarding World.

As described by J.K.Rowling, this is a very intensive, 3D sport. It is played on by two teams of seven players flying on magical brooms. These players have bats to do various things with three types of balls. There are two balls of a specific type, making totally four balls.

The idea behind this game is to increase the score as much as possible by throwing a ball called Quaffle through the goal posts up in the air. Each goal fetches 10 points. To make it difficult, two heavy balls called Bludgers are charmed and directed to chase and hit players indiscriminately. Injuries by Bludgers are common in the Wizarding World. The game terminates with 150 additional points award to the team which manages to catch the third ball called the Snitch. The team with higher score (not necessarily the one who catches the snitch) wins.

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Now let us come back to this world. I have a challenge. Can we make a real enough Quidditch?

First, let us remove the hurdles in imagination.

• • We don’t have to fly. UAV (Drone) technology is advanced enough to fly, carry small load and stream back HD video for 20 minutes, all within reasonable price
  “We don’t have flying broomsticks!”
• • But UAVs (Drones) don’t. Control Theory allows controlling the trajectory of “falling”
  “Balls fall”
• • No artefact in muggle world flies without jets, fans or rotary wings. The balls will appear like drones – with ball shaped body attached
  “How will a ball keep flying?”

Now, let us imagine the Quidditch implementation through muggle means. The idea is to leverage what we already have – Cell phones, GPS, streaming drones and IoT to culminate into a sport.

Here is how it would develop:

1. 1. A real player would be represented by an avatar drone. The avatar would carry a bat, a GPS, an RFID, a pair of cameras with WLAN radios. This is a proven technology. It is completely into the realm of visual artist to design light weight and attractive broomstick riding wizards and witches
   2. Either through motion sensing or gaming controls, a player would control her/his avatar – rushing, slowing, rising, dipping, turning, tumbling, hitting, ducking and so on. Today’s technology can achieve this very easily. Unless someone really wants to make a self-playing avatar, no special roles of a player need to be programmed
   3. The avatar would have rotating, swiveling pair of cameras, streaming video back to the ground where a player would be controlling its action. Again, today’s technology can achieve this. Of course, having so many cameras streaming 3D HD video is a bit challenging but is surmountable
   4. GPS would make sure the avatar remains within the pitch. There are tough rules for the players going beyond the pitch. Technologically this is
   5. Bats would be more like loops. While in “real” Quidditch a Quaffle is thrown or pushed and a Bludger is hit and a Snitch is caught – for our purpose, it just needs to pass through the loop. The bats may have no special technology. They just have to be sensed by balls
   Players:
2. 1. The Quaffle is the “ball that scores goals”. It is 12” of diameter
   2. The Quaffle would sense the “grab” as it passes through a bat loop. It would sense the speed and direction of the swing. It would calculate the vector sum and would change its direction. This could be achieved through electromagnetic means. The challenge here is to introduce right spin
   3. While doing this, the Quaffle also would have a servo mechanism to let it fall slowly onto the ground. While not many controlled objects are designed to fall, the Quaffle must. This can be done by altering standard hovering control a bit
   4. GPS would make sure the ball doesn’t go beyond the pitch
   The Quaffle
3. 1. A Bludger is a “ball that tries to hit players”. It is 10” of diameter
   2. A “real” bludger is supposed to try to hit the nearest player, irrespective of the team. They can also be directed by hitting. These two goals are totally conflicting with each other – probably because Ms. Rowling didn’t look it from muggle point of view. How is it supposed to “zoom past” when ducked, when it is always chasing the nearest player? If the balls are bewitched to chase the nearest player, how do Beaters (a role of players) go near it and then hit them to the opponent players? Inertia and free will seldom mix well so we may need to alter its behaviour a bit
   3. Our version of a bludger would chase the nearest avatar through RFID detection in the beginning and also when it reaches to the pitch boundary
   4. Our version of bludger would assume a momentum and then do a vector sum of the “hit” by a bat – that is, it would calculate the “impact” when it passes through the loop of a bat
   5. Challenges of calculating and inducing spins etc. would remain the same as Quaffle
   6. Hitting an avatar would be allowed. It makes this sport semi-contact in nature. Whether it remains economical if drones collide with each other remains to be seen
   7. GPS would assure the ball doesn’t go beyond the pitch
   Bludgers
4. 1. The Snitch is a golden colored ball of walnut size. Even in the movie they showed it with wings
   2. A “real” snitch is supposed to try to not to get caught. It should be very swift
   3. Our version of snitch would also try to be away from both seekers (whose IDs would be made known to the snitch by the game control software) through GPS and RFID. Trying to avoid being caught would be a non-trivial algorithm to design
   4. Our version of snitch would sense being “touched by” (too close to) an avatar. Through RFID it would sense the avatar’s identity and broadcast to all the players. Depending on whether the avatar was a designated seeker, penalty would be decided
   5. Finally, the snitch may be caught by passing it through the seeker’s bat (its loop). Such a catch would signal end of the game. All the balls and avatars would be back to the base
   6. GPS would assure the ball doesn’t go beyond the pitch
   The Snitch

Yes, it takes a magician to charm. To convert it to muggle ways, you need engineers :-)

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PS: While you write comments, please explain to me how Dumbledore could manage to put something into a snitch without opening it in (actually, before) Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows?