Radio waves may help blind score a goal

New Delhi: Can the blind play football? Yes, if Sridip Das is to be believed. The final year student at the School of Planning and Architecture has designed equipment to help blind players. Using radio frequency identification and other technologies, the gear emits sounds that enable the blind to play.
Das spent time with the students of a blind school in Delhi to understand the problems they faced while playing the sport."The coach told me that kids put bells inside the football so that it made a noise when kicked. But when the ball was stationary they couldn't sense its location," said Das.
Explaining how he circumvented the problem, Das said, "The ball I designed has a small device fixed to it that continuously emits sound. Also, since not all the players are completely blind, everyone wears an eye mask while playing. I installed an RFID reader in the eye mask that detects signals emitted by the way finders and poles installed at the corners of the ground."
Whenever a play steps outside the playing area, the RFID reader raises an alarm to indicate that play is off limit. The way finders installed on the goalposts help players sense their way towards the goal line using sound.
A similar project to help the disabled is called Gait Setter. It is meant to assist accident victims who have suffered serious injuries on the lower half of the body get back to normal life. Samriddhi Jain, a final year student, said, "Such patients often find it difficult to walk and even if they do, there is a problem with their gait. This device helps them walk properly. It mainly assists people who use prosthetics."
Another student, Shruti Jain, has designed the 'ankle foot orthosis' for patients of spastic cerebral palsy. The final year student said that the device would obviate the need to procure new gear at regular intervals. "Since it has small detachable modules, the device can be used to provide good support to the user. Only the base has to be change as per the size of the foot," said Jain.