Introduction

This is documentation for a project conducted for a class called 62-423 Inclusive Design Studio. The objective of the class is to design and fabricate a piece of assistive technology for a local person living with a disability. We are Eileen and Bianca, two ECE undergraduates from CMU, who is working with Carol, a blind woman living in Pittsburgh. 

This page documents the prototypes and feedback we created for our first prototyping round to help Carol pick up tennis balls more comfortably.  We interviewed Carol and asked her to review what worked with our protoypes. We also asked what she wanted to see in our designs. 

Prototypes

Prototype 1: Modifying the Ball

One of our solutions to make it easier for Carol to pick up tennis balls easier was to embed a small circuit inside a blind tennis ball. This circuit would make a sound when the player was done playing, so that they could locate the ball using sound. We are imagining that the user would have a remote control that would be able to turn the ball on and off, so that the sound isn't continously playing. Our prototype consists of a small breakout board with wires, a beeper, and a coin battery (not shown in the photos). 

Findings/Feedback:

Carol thought this was a good idea, because her blind tennis coach had already explored this idea. She liked that she could use her hearing to detect the ball, since she is blind. She did not like that the weight of the circuit inside the ball may affect the game play, since the ball without any modifications still doesn't bounce as high as she likes. Since we did not have the circuit inside the ball, we could not test how it bounced or how Carol would interact with the ball in the context of playing tennis. However, she was interested to hear about modifying a ball that has not changed ever since the game of blind tennis existed. 

Prototype 2: Ball "Vacuum" Grabber

Our other idea, which we refer to as the ball vacuum, would allow Carol to pick up balls without ever crouching down. The balls itself are very light, and sometimes Carol found it diffcult to accurately extend her racket or arm to pick up the balls without accidentally pushing the ball further away. We decided to come up with a vacuum idea, that would not only easily pick up the balls for Carol, but also detect the balls for her, so that Carol can navigate the ball grabber more accurately. The ball detector would come in the form of an app that is currently under devolpment by a local programmer. This app would be accessible for anyone to download. For our first prototype, we taped two metal bars, a button on the top of the stick, and a box that would grab the balls. We also wanted to explore the idea of protability, since Carol has to commute to practice, and so we made the vacuum foldable. 

Findings/Feedback: 

Carol was also very interested in this idea, where she said that this would be very helpful when she is practicing by herself. She liked that she could just push this around, just like her vacuum at home. She also liked the idea that ths was portable, since she expressed that she would like to carry this around. 

Reflections

Based on Carol's feedback, we will build upon the ball grabber idea. Furthermore, we are planning to step back from the vacuum stick design and modify an existing ball hopper, that will increase the amount of balls that can be taken in at a time. It also helps that this ball hopper is one that Carol already uses for practice, so she will be familiar with how it feels and manuvers. We wish that we could have gotten more feedback on how we can design a control panel for Carol, like her preferences for certain accessible buttons.