Giovanni Dipilato

Tennis for visually impaired athletes is one the fastest growing sports in the contemporary scenario for popularity and fun. RESET is the direct answer to the thousands of specific needs that such entertaining and new activity requests. The entire project has involved exceptional experts in their own fields, from charities foundations to members from the International Blind Tennis Association (IBTA) as well as Inclusive sport development advisors and World Champion athletes. RESET has been designed throughout a series of tests with such incredible and talented people in a range of more than 15 hours with the players collecting their feedback and considering the positive impacts that such creations would have on sport and the individual’s life.

Multiple sources gave me a deep understanding of what the problem of VI Tennis is, the ball. The existing balls are manufactured in Asia and as a consequence the prices are not so accessible. The spongy material starts deteriorating after just a few hours from the beginning of the usage and it does impact the way balls bounce and the ability of the athletes to catch them, this creates a difficult environment where people always need to find good status ones to start/continue the activity. The ball has in its core a series of rattles that make a peculiar sound when it bounces on the surfaces, that means that players will never be able to react fast if the ball doesn’t bounce at least once on the court. This not only makes the activity slow and difficult but such equipment impacts the series of regulations that the sport has, the number of bounces allowed and the dimensions of the tennis court. At the moment it is considerably shortened compared to mainstream tennis. Last but not least, if the ball just makes a sound when it's moving what would happen if it stops rolling and I can’t find it? Will players always need to rely on external volunteers and sighted entities?

RESET does not only enhance the full athlete's potential by providing an easy-to-track ball that increases the reactivity of the players from all the categories. It also aims to give a better understanding of the court’s spaces and the individual position thanks to passive vibrations which avoid the constant need for the players to rely on tactile lines.

After a couple of games I’ve played with some athletes, we noticed that they might get lost several times struggling to understand their own position on the court. This is something that gets better overtime, but for beginners it could result in falling on the net or the side benches. Together we worked on a series of iterations with the intention to provide passive and not disturbing feedback to the athletes while playing. In a first instance we thought to use proximity sensors from the net which in a way were able to let the players understand the level of depth from it and a general indication whether they were on the left or right hand side of the court.

We’ve then opted for bracelets and vibrations with really good patterns of intensity. Those devices are constantly communicating with a spinning laser single sensor placed next to one of the two poles of the tennis net. Through a series of conversations with the athletes I’ve understood that such ideas would have a good potential for the players to play in larger courts with more consciousness of the proper abilities and orientation. This will also increase the chances of a more dynamic rhythm on the court.

Another part of RESET has been dedicated to a system to eventually let the players autonomously keep score without the presence of a sighted person. By installing a series of foldable mats on the external perimeter of the B1 VI Tennis court the players will be able to hear a different and recognisable sound whenever the ball bounces on them. We have opted for a sort of “drum effect” sound obtained by a particular structure of a plastic sheet with air passing underneath the mats when laid on the surface. The selection of the right material which in a way was able to transmit a recognisable sound has been made with the athletes themselves collecting feedback directly from them. The set-up process of this solution on a tennis court is also saving time for the charity's foundations, at the moment they are forced to use masking tape and tactile lines which need more than 20 minutes of effort, a time that could be saved for the activity itself instead.