Basketball for the blind

engineering undergraduates - Alissa Burkholder, Ashanna Randall and Steve Garber - have designed and built a system that uses sound emitters in the ball and on the backboard to enable blind people to play basketball.

"There are blind athletes who want an audible ball,” said Mike Bullis, business services development manager for Blind Industries and Services of Maryland, a group that aids the visually impaired and sponsored the research project. “And there are school-age children who can benefit from the hand co-ordination that comes from playing ball. Right now, blind kids can play with a ball, but only if someone is there to find it if it rolls away."

During a recent demonstration, Bullis, who is blind, was able to catch passes with the adapted ball and sink baskets on two of his three shots.

In the students’ completed system, a large piezoelectric sound emitter powered by a nine volt battery and mounted behind the backboard sends out low pulse tones to help players locate their shooting target. A remote control is used to turn it on and off. A smaller sound emitter, embedded in the basketball and powered by five three volt button batteries, sends out a higher continuous tone to tell players where the ball is.