Team 11

For this project my role was quantitative. I found the role fairly unproblematic, researching and collecting definite knowledge is a relatively simple task. I focused my study more on the statistics and numbers behind the safety and history of boxing gloves. For example I read an extensive Australian study that examined the possibility of a serious injury occurring during a professional boxing match (1 in 4). The difficult part of this role is correlating the facts into a coherent statement that can be used by people in other roles. To do this I attempted to simplify facts and cushion them with supporting anecdotes and statements for clarity.

One of the main challenges I faced was staying in my role. At the starting phases of the project I had a lot of concern due to some members not participating. This made it difficult to share and collaborate. Therefore I decided to focus more on presenting the facts for use the best I could and focus less on the other roles. This worked fairly well, my only deviation being the creation of a boxing glove design.

Possible technological advancements could be made to boxing gloves in the following ways:

 Integration of electronics

Fine Tuning of shape

Weight reduction 

The electronics currently being considered in boxing gloves is mainly pressure sensors. However, if the regulations were loosened to incorporate innovation, boxing gloves could be so much better. For example, vibration motors could be used in the gloves, vibrating at the end of the match. This would greatly reduce the amount of accidental punches after the bell. A wind intake of some sort could sense how fast the hits are going. Heart rate and pulse sensing devices could monitor the condition of the fighter, reducing the chance of serious injury. The possibilities are almost endless, due to the fact that nothing has changed for so long. 

The shape of boxing gloves is also in need of change. For 100 years, boxing gloves have retained the same shape, the only difference being the amount of padding added. This shape has become almost comical in it’s size and shape. The design could be re-thought to something more sleek. This would not only increase the entertainment factor but decrease the weight. 

What different types of gloves are used for?

The UFC gloves are used to still be able to use your fingers so that grapples and holds can be used.

Boxing gloves have a bigger surface area on them and have a different use than UFC gloves. Boxing gloves are intended for punching only no kicks or grapples involved.

Differences between the gloves:

UFC Gloves: Small and lightweight but are very hard so can hurt the opposition and cut and split them very easily but UFC gloves have a smaller surface area which lets the opponent throw more hits through you block as it is less effective as Boxing gloves. UFC gloves allow fingers to be exposed so that the user can grapple and hold the opponent in ground and choke holds.

Boxing Gloves: Bigger and slightly heavier but are used for other instances for fighting than the UFC gloves, as they have a larger size which helps to protect the user by creating a bigger area to block the opponent.

How will people react:

Disclaimer: As we were all researching this project from different aspects, I thought it may be helpful to offer each team member the opportunity to write their own manifesto in support of our team’s one.

As a team we are setting out to find a truly multi-disciplinary way of researching the concept of “Boxing Gloves”. We don’t know what we want to achieve our how we are going to achieve it but we are beginning with an open mind and through a multi-disciplinary approach hope to gain knowledge of this concept. What we do know is each member of our team is going to take a different approach, from, qualitative, quantitative, practical to theoretical and analytical. With these five different approaches we aim to arrive at a common greater understanding of “Boxing Gloves”, but more importantly a greater understanding of a multi-disciplinary approach to research, design and thinking.  – By Zac Goodsir

 Jenny’s Manifesto:

Intra-disciplinary knowledge

 -          Inter-disciplinary knowledge allows us to view knowledge from a single perspective/viewpoint.

-          Ideas and concepts grow from the singular perspective as it allows for a more focused outcome with a stronger concentration of knowledge.

 Multi-disciplinary knowledge

 -          Viewpoints and opinions from various disciplines to form a specific opinion or outcome

-          The expertise from each discipline allows contributing ideas and concepts to formulate a diverse range of methods of enquiry

-          A deeper understanding about ideas due to a wider range of resources, significant relevance and understanding.

 Cross-disciplinary knowledge

-          Involves interpreting knowledge from a new perspective, away from pre-concieved notions or judgements.

-          Invites a more open and diverse range of ideas, thoughts and experience.

-          Explanation of knowledge through utilising different frameworks of thinking and approaches, derived from another discipline.

 Interdisciplinary knowledge

 -          Creates brand new ideas by channelling the expertise of two or more disciplines.

-          Gives new insight by crossing boundaries and thinking outside the box -with integral focus on ‘connecting’ different elements through an analytical lens.  

-          Contains several ‘branches’ of expertise, knowledge and skillsets that allow for innovative concepts to emerge in a new light.

Trans disciplinary knowledge

-          Goes beyond the typical definitions of knowledge that are given by pre-existing disciplines

-          The integration of collective forms of research, converging techniques and addressing issues with a holistic approach to form a whole.

 James Manifesto

We believe in the power of facts and statistics being an integral part of interdiciplinarity. We believe that facts are the product of singular disciplines and to bring different disciplines together we need to collect and correlate the quantitative truths of each discipline.

We want to live in a world where certainty does not require a lifetime of devotion. Where facts, principals and truths are shared. We want a world where knowledge barriers cease to exist, where disciplines may merge and intertwine. This worlds disciplines would no longer be governed by knowledge, but by interest. The people who seek the knowledge would be able to access it in its simplest form, quantifiable truth.

Quantitative - James

Using the factual knowledge I gained I was able to mock up a glove design. The glove shows multiple disciplines and is tailored to reduce the weight of the glove whilst retaining the impact spread. 

As primitive and brutal as fighting can be, there’s a whole level of analysis that needs to be taken into account which many people tend to overview or discard.

In today’s world of boxing, for example, where there are set rules and conditions that both fighters need to be aware of, there’s a lot of strategy and skill involved.

Each fight is like a war, and a fighter, much like an army, can’t go to war without a game plan.

In fact during a fight there’s quite a lot going through a fighters mind, and the reasoning behind each jab, sidestep and pivot is what analysts try to understand. Through lots of research, analysts have shown us there are many different strategies which can be employed by boxers, however there are two which appear to be the most common. There’s a more methodical way to approach a fight in which the fighter tries to slowly ware down his opponent, and a more aggressive approach in which the fighter tries to intimidate his opponent into making mistakes. In the end there’s no better strategy and it all comes down to the fighter and his, or her, fighting style.

However there are factors which heavily influence a fight and lots of them have to do with physical endurance. As a fight progresses into later rounds, fighters get tired and tend to slow down, hit less hard and lose concentration. Getting tired earlier than your opponent results in a lack of reasoning, willpower and motivation. Therefore the fighter who can remain the most clear-minded throughout a fight is more prone to win.

In class we set up a small boxing area with some tape on the floor and threw in some gloves. My intention was to see what kind of approach, style and strategy people would try and use, however this experiment failed due to a lack of participation. It might have been because people were concentrating on their own assignments, or maybe the idea of putting on a pair of boxing gloves didn’t really intrigue them. Perhaps placing a soccer ball and two goal posts would have attracted more people.

For our artefact we wanted to create a website that openly shared our best research and findings from our investigation into “Boxing Gloves”. This curated content includes, research, drawings, images and links to further information. The reason we settled on a website is because a website is open to anyone and develops our interdisciplinary approach to this project. I built this website and each team member submitted a 150 word summary of their finding, plus any other media that they find relevant.

You can view the site live at: marked.co.nz

Introduction

From my previous assumptions and thoughts I had devised that I thought boxing gloves turned fighting into a sport and took away the seriousness involved. However I had no evidence to back this up. Therefore I wanted to create a situation where we I could test this theory without the participants knowing. To achieve this on Friday when at the gym with Josh and Finley I got them doing a boxing circuit with me, this involved a series of boxing exercises. However part of the circuit involved them sparing with each other with gloves on whilst I did another exercise. I took this opportunity to observe the interaction they had. To give some perspective to this experiment, neither of the two participants had any boxing or fighting skills or knowledge. Furthermore I would consider both of these participants to be un-confrontational and fairly unlikely to get into a fight. Because of this it was interesting to see what happened when the gloves were on. Without any direction from myself, Finley took on the role of the aggressor and Josh more of a passive approach. Within 30 seconds of the sparing I had seen several punches landed by Finley and a few from Josh. This was interesting to see, if either of these two didn’t have gloves on I doubt they would feel comfortable pouching the other person. Moreover, I noticed that both Josh and Finley seemed to be enjoying the sparing.

Reflecting on the experiment, I think that it solidified my original thoughts that boxing gloves made fighting more playful and desensitised people to fighting. It is hard to say from this experiment if Josh or Finley felt more confident in their own fighting abilities but, it would be interesting to see if they continued boxing to see what their opinions were in six weeks.

To support my opinion of a gloved fight vs and street fight:

Gloved Fight in a controlled environment: 

Street Fight in uncontrolled environment:

Specs of an average boxing glove

 Weight – Dependant on size and weight of fighter. Generally between 12oz -16oz or 0.35kg – 0.45kg.

Stitching – High tensile strength nylon threading

Padding – High density polyurethane, latex, or PVC foam, sometimes horse hair.

Outer Material – Usually tanned goat or cow hide leather, for lower quality it can be vinyl

Lining – Sometimes softened leather, most often nylon taffeta (woven nylon)