I-ball: A programmable sporting aid for children with a visual impairment to play soccer

Abstract

The Interactive Ball ("I-Ball") is a programmable tonal soccer ball that varies its output based on measurements from an inertial sensor. As a sporting aid for children with blindness and low-vision it makes participation in team sports more accessible without a conspicuous constant tone and in a manner the provides information when stationary. The paper presents the design rationale of the system. Exploitative evaluation with visually impaired users indicates that the encoded information provides utility, but also that noise and wind are complicating external factors that can limit perceptual range. © 2013 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.