Kickboard for Visually Impaired Swimmers (WIP)

"What were the needs or pain points that you attended to and identified when you were solving problems faced by the Contest Masters?"

Visual impairments can make swimming safely a challenge. Swimmers with limited vision want the ability to swim independently in both pool lanes and open-water settings. In swimming pools, the main issue is swimming in a straight line to avoid other swimmers. For open-water swimming, navigation is the primary concern.

Design Concept

A kickboard which tracks the user's position and provides non-visual feedback to guide their orientation.

Mobile phones can track the user's location and provide feedback but can be difficult to use whilst swimming. Instrumented swimming caps are another option but a compromise must be made between features, battery life and bulk; a heavy device would be uncomfortable to wear as a cap. A kickboard circumvents these issues, being inherently buoyant and offering extra volume to contain hardware, enabling extra functionality.

The device will also include emergency features to help the swimmer receive assistance if they run into difficulties in the water.

Planned Features

V1:

• For lane swimming, visual flow sensors track if the swimmer is staying in a straight line.
• Haptic motor and speaker fitted to each handle to give feedback on which direction to turn.

V2:

• Visual features for the benefit of other swimmers - i.e. bright colours, arrows, and a notice on the front of the board informing others that the user is visually impaired and directing them to swim past on the user's right.
• A front-mounted proximity sensor to warn the user of oncoming obstacles.

V3:

• For open-water swimming, a sequence of preset GPS target locations are downloaded to the board, guiding the user around a course.
• Solar panel for charging LiPo battery.

V4:

• A button or pull cord at the base of the board can be used to trigger "Emergency" mode, which activates the emergency light and speaker, as well as texting location updates to a designated recipient/emergency services.

Current status

The project is currently in the V1 phase, with an optical flow sensor, buzzers and haptic feedback implemented on breadboard.

The kickboard provides feedback every 5 seconds.

If the user deviates to the left from a straight line, the left handle will buzz with a high note. If they deviate to the right, the right handle will buzz with a low note. The greater the deviation, the more times the handle will buzz in a row.

If they swam in a straight line, both sides will buzz together once with a medium note.