Back in 2014 a new fencing center was realized in my home city. Being a father of two active fencers I volunteered in overhauling the existing manufacturing plant. Working at the ceiling and overseeing the space, it was not difficult to imagine how great it was going to be: Reals at the wall, all cabling hidden in the ceiling, over 15 pistes, wow! Way better than our practice room, located in a small gym of a nearby school. It takes more than 10 minutes to set up an electrical piste and afterwards you also have to break it down! The consequence was that my children hardly ever practiced electrical fencing, just for the sake of time. Realizing all this, I wondered if this kind of fencing facilities could be available for everybody. There is only one way: make fencing wireless, but then extremely cheap!
At that time, I worked in the most innovative department of one of the largest Dutch companies, active in consumer products. In spare time I did some experiments. Being a mechanical engineer, I thought it could not be that hard to make a wireless contact sensor. Though quite successful in the beginning, all results were based on quicksand, due to a lack of knowledge on antennas. Fortunately, my blundering drew the attention of a skilled electro technical engineer who was willing to help. To make the story short: 3 years later we had a working prototype!
I started the company Free Fencing to bring this product to the market. Our first product is the FiorettoUno. I think it is a very affordable wireless hit registration unit for foil practice, exactly as planned. I hope many of you will enjoy the benefits of the FiorettoUno. If the FiorettoUno will be embraced by the fencing community, this will be the beginning of a game changing new era in fencing!