Smart sporting aids have long been an area of research interest in the sports sciences and biomechanical domains, especially for the analysis and support of elite sports. Commercially, while a plethora of sporting goods and toys is available, they tend to be a rather motley collection of designs and, in general, focused on being entertaining. Instead, the focus of this research is to introduce a programmable sporting aid to make the field sports, chiefly football, more accessible to children with visual impairment by assisting with ball localization and motion estimation tasks.

Some recent press coverage on the I-Ball:

• Scope TV (Network Ten's children’s science show): Interesting Sports 2    (19:10-22:30, National -- Aired 25/April)
• ABC News:   TV   |  ABC News Article    (National -- Posted 4/Jan)
• 2RPH Radio:   Ablequest    (National -- Aired 6/Feb)
• Talking Vision:   Vision Australia's National Radio News   (Edition 253)
• UQ News Article

The I-Ball is part of an active research program. I-Ball 2.0 has some exciting ideas in the works!
In the mean time, please feel free to read some of our papers/presentations:

• “I-Ball: A Programmable Sporting Aid for Children with a Visual Impairment to Play Soccer”
  In: Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Design Methods, Tools and Interaction Techniques for Inclusion, Series: Springer Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 4556: 584-591, 2013.
• “Developing a programmable ‘Interactive Ball’ for junior blind sports”
  Presented at: 11^th International Conference on Low Vision, 2014 (Melbourne).
• “On the use of 'Smart Tones' to Aid the Perception and Location of a Moving Ball by the Visually Impaired”
  Presented at: 32nd World Congress of  Audiology, 2014 (Brisbane).
• “Soundly Located: Programmable Sounds to Assist Localization in Visual Impaired Sport”
  Presented at: IROS 2014 Workshop on Assistive Robotics for Individuals with Disabilities: HRI Issues and Beyond, 2014 (Chicago).

Interested in more information? helping us?? That would be fantastic!

It's easy to become a Friend of the I-Ball -- Just complete the following quick survey and we'll keep you fully informed.

Here are some ways you could help us:

• Additional Field Trials (Beta-testing) -- Please let us know if you would like to join our testing (beta) efforts
• Manufacturing & Distribution -- While the BEE-Board inside is produced via automated production, the I-Ball is built manually. We are looking for partners to help make the I-Ball more widely available and accessible.
• I-Ball 2.0 -- The I-Ball is very much still a research prototype. Ideas we have include a wireless version (that plays the tones via a smart phone), more adaptive (and smarter) tones to help Interaction in a diversity of sports, and more!
  Plus help us advance this research and make this a better!
• myBall -- We also seek to make a version for everyone to play and interact. Would you like to help us with the myBall?

Contact Information