Assistive Device Design, Development and Application-Smart Football for Movement Evaluation and Training in the Special Education Population

Children with disabilities are frequently ignored by the general population, hence the development of movement evaluation and training devices for use in special education settings are relatively overlooked. Usually the performance of these children is not stable and contains variations. Hence in order to get a complete picture of their sport performance, simply measuring movement time and distance is definitely not representative. With the rising attention from government regarding fitness and social participation of the disabled in recent years, developing a special‐designed individual evaluation & training plan is of great importance. To achieve this goal, a device which is able to record the complete process of movement, and contains algorithm that can pick up the movement characteristics of children with disabilities is needed. The purpose of this study is to design and develop a smart soccer ball system for use in children with intellectual disabilities(ID). Step 1, the research team will collect and analyze movement data of these children, and design an ID‐specific algorithm, sensor module, and application for use in movement evaluation and training for children with ID. Step 2, the team will work on data stability and reliability verification, module minimization, and cloud database planning. Step 3, in cooperation with the disabled community and special schools, the team is going to promote the use of this smart assistive device, and to continue collecting and expanding the movement database in the cloud platform. These data can be retrieved for movement evaluation, exercise program design and modification, and also serve as references for future device design and policy modification.

Project ID:PB10501-3730
External Project ID:MOST104-2628-E182-003-MY3