With high-tech mat, students are electrifying sports data

Their work on turning a traditional piece of sports training equipment into a high-tech data-collecting device began as a class project. Less than a year later, many folks – including a former NBA superstar - want one. 

“And tomorrow, I'll be hopping on a call with the Princeton rugby coach,” said Matthew Riley ‘27 of Vault Kinetics, a company comprising six undergraduate students. 

The project started in ENAS 118, Introduction to Engineering, Innovation, and Design, a course that pairs student groups with a specialist seeking a solution to a particular technical challenge. Abby Quinn, director of sports performance and student-athlete innovation at Yale Athletics, requested a version of the classic dot drill mat that would fit in with the modern era of data-driven sports training. Featuring a pattern of five large circles, the dot drill mat is used to test users’ agility, speed and the accuracy of their footwork. 

With advanced pressure sensors, biomechanical analysis, and AI-powered algorithms, the Vault Dot Drill automatically collects the data on how quickly and accurately users perform set footwork patterns. It can capture 21,000 data samples in just under two minutes of movement. By measuring users’ time in the air, sensors can determine the height of their jump. 

“So we're tracking a lot more information, not only just how fast you're doing it and how accurately you're doing things, but literally the floor can sense how much pressure you're putting in,” said Joshua Gao ‘26, who majors in Mechanical Engineering and Economics. “If you land with a little bit of instability, we can also see that in the pressure profile changes.”

The Vault Kinetics team encompasses a wide range of skills and disciplines. In addition to Gao and Riley, it includes Eunice Han (’26 English), Justin Pan (‘27 Statistics & Data Science), Zaneta Otoo (‘25 Chemical Engineering), and Eric Wang (‘25 Computer Science). They knew each other through the Christian community on campus. 

“I would be telling people, ‘Hey, I've been working on this project,’ and then the team slowly formed,” Gao said.

The students worked on it last summer as part of the Projects-to-Products initiative at the Center for Engineering Innovation & Design (CEID). This year, they decided to go all in and try to build a business around it. To do so, all the members are stayed on campus this summer. 

They filed the initial patent with Yale Ventures, and continued to perfect their product, including expanding what sorts of data the device could collect. 

“I think the moonshot vision that we're going for in building this business is to make electrified flooring a thing, so that in these athletic training spaces, every single step that you take unlocks data,” Gao said. “Before, you would go into the gym for two hours, and have no idea what you did. But now you get a lot of precision data.”

Now, working on their first sale, they’ve taken the device on tour. A lot of cold calling is involved in the process, but it’s paying off. Interest in the Vault Dot Drill is building, including from a few high-profile folks (including one as-yet-unnamed former NBA star). So far, they’ve brought it to gyms, sports teams, and physical therapists to show off what it can do. With the help of a connection they made at a recent conference, the team is now working with the University of Kansas to research how this new class of sports science data can provide athletes with valuable insights into their performance and help optimize their training regimens. One of their first stops was at the Hartford-based gym Dynamic Fitness. The Vault Dot Drill went over big.  

“They were testing out the vertical jump,” Riley said. “It was just a very high-competitive type atmosphere - they were jumping and trash talking a little.” 

They also envision the device being used to monitor how far along an injured player is on their road to recovery. 

They participated in the MassChallenge accelerator this summer in Boston and, with help from friends and family, raised enough funds to work through the summer. Now, they’re looking toward the longer-term logistics. 

“Ideally, it would be really nice to find a group of people for a pre-seed round sometime while we're in school,” Gao said “Then we build it, build out all the tech, and have this product fully finished, with sales going. And then, have our second fully electrified floor finished by the time we graduate. From there, we could just run the business full-time.”

For more information on Vault Kinetics and to purchase a Vault Dot Droll, visit their website.