started the technology company Truescore Inc. in 2000. Their
technology was used in its first Olympic games at the London
Olympics in 2012 (Jean, S. 2012). Before electronic scoring,
four judges would sit at each corner of the mat with controls
and whenever a judge would see a kick they felt was a point
they would press a button on their controls. If three out of four
judges pressed the button, a point would go to that opponent.
It was a very inaccurate system, with points lost if the judges
didn’t hit the button quick enough, couldn’t see the kick due to
bad positioning, or even had a bias for or against one of the
competitors. While the judging system is still in place for other
types of kicks - to score extra points for a turning kick to the
torso, and for both regular and turning kicks to the head - the
electronic system takes out the subjective element for the most
common type of kick, which are regular kicks to the torso.
The electronic scoring functions through two pieces of
equipment, the hogu (or chest guard) and the foot gear.
Embedded in the foot gear are magnets, whose magnetic field
is picked up by sensors within the hogu’s that anticipate
contact (Jean, S. 2012). When the magnets and sensors make
contact as a kick is executed, information about the kick that
includes the impact and force are sent to a wireless