Men's Basketball | 2/21/2018 10:15:00 AM

Download on iTunes | Download on Google Play

The lights go out at Koch Arena during introductions at basketball games. Some fans activate the light and wave their smart phone to add to the show.
 
Dr. James Steck, professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering, sees the potential for much more.
 
The People Pixel app, developed at Wichita State, can turn those phones into a modern version of a card stunt or rollout banner. People Pixel makes each phone part of a bigger light show, graphic or picture.
 
"If we had 50 percent of the arena, it would look good," Steck said. "We need to get more people using the app. If we do, it will look really good."
 
It is a numbers game. Steck said around 500 people use the app. Around 5,000 is around the minimum needed to get a good effect from the app.
 
 
"I've always hoped that we could get enough people doing this where we could show a basketball bouncing around the arena," Steck said. "Some kind of graphic animation instead of just flashing in waves."
 
Steck and Kenton Hansen, software development director for Ennovar, developed the app in collaboration with the National Institute for Aviation Research.
 
Fans can download the free app from Google Play and Apple Store. Enter the seat, row and section into the app and it is ready to "start animation" when introductions begin. Both the phone's screen and flashlight are synced by the app.
 
The app is programmed to synchronize the phones flash randomly for 10 seconds and then together. That is followed by a wave of light from the bottom of the arena to the top, then a wave around the arena.
 
That is the rudimentary stage of the app's capability.
 
With more participation, the phones can form graphics, script and pictures, Steck said. Other colleges, including Purdue, are using a similar program. The opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics featured a similar light, synced to screens at each seat.

"We have the capability to do an animation on the crowd – if we got enough people to hold up the colored lights, we could do a colored lights how," Steck said. "We could write 'Pepsi' or 'Intrust Bank' around on the crowd, because we could control the color and brightness of each individual phone."