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"If I had to get a new Ph.D. now, I'd get it in polymer engineering - the manipulation of matter."
- Bart Kosko

Battleroom  
  A large, null-gravity space used for battle tactics training.  

They filed clumsily into the battleroom, like children in a swimming pool for the first time, clinging to the handholds along the side. Null gravity was frightening, disorienting; they soon found that things went better if they didn't use their feet at all.
Technovelgy from Ender's Game, by Orson Scott Card.
Published by Tor in 1985
Additional resources -

A much earlier description of interpersonal fighting in zero-gravity is given by Arthur C. Clarke in Islands in the Sky (1952):

...he was always getting into good-humored fights with the other boys, and a fight under free-fall conditions is fascinating to watch,

The first problem, of course, is to catch your opponent, which isn't easy, because if he refuses to cooperate, he can shoot off in so many directions. But even if he decides to play, there are further difficulties. Any kind of boxing is almost impossible, since the first blow would send you flying apart. So the only practicable form of combat is wrestling. It usually starts with the two fighters floating in mid-air, as far as possible from any solid object. They grasp wrists, with their arms fully extended; after that it's difficult to see exactly what happens. The air is full of flying limbs and slowly rotating bodies. By the rules of the game, you've won if you can keep your opponent pinned against any wall for a count of five. This is much more difficult than it sounds, for he only has to give a good heave to send both of you flying out into the room again. Remember that, since there's no gravity, you can't just sit on your victim until your weight tires him out.

Compare to the observation room recreation space from The Power Planet (1930) by Murray Leinster and rocket polo from Ra for the Rajah (1938) by John Victor Peterson.

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Additional resources:
  More Ideas and Technology from Ender's Game
  More Ideas and Technology by Orson Scott Card
  Tech news articles related to Ender's Game
  Tech news articles related to works by Orson Scott Card

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