A-28 Support System for the Blind Bowling using General Equipment

Abstract

Blind bowling is known as one of the popular sports for the visually impaired people in Japan. They can enjoy the bowling with sighted assistant who tells information of number of remaining pins, a ball trajectory, and a game score, etc. Bowling is such a well-adapted sports for the visually impaired people though, naturally the players want to know all of these information by themselves without any help. To fill this need, a system which detects remaining pins using image processing was developed as a first step. It is composed of general equipment like a video camera, a computer, a wireless switch and a wireless bone conducted headphone. Composing by general equipment allows target user to use the system easily in the future. The system speaks the number of remaining pins with speech synthesizer automatically and immediately after throwing. Several tests of using the system by severe visually impaired players gave useful feed backs and the system was improved. These test showed that the system works well and is useful and helpful for players. Addition to the results, unexpected advantage was discovered. Using this system, bowling game become more enjoyable for the blind player since they can acquire information of remaining pins not only of themselves but also of other players. They can share each delight result like Strike or Spear, and even blind player make an advice to other player. It can be said that the system successfully support blind players with enlargement of joyfulness of bowling.