This was a match between former pro soccer players and the visually impaired. But this wasn’t the kind of match as you would imagine it to be. It was an experiment wherein both the teams were brought to the same level playing field by lacing their eyes. This was all the part of a project called “Sound of Football” a latest initiative of the Pepsi Refresh Project.
Both the teams had to make use of their listening abilities to and play the game with the help of a tracking system put in place by Tracab. The system comprises of 16 cameras, including two stereo vision cameras that are used to track the players and using colored jersey to distinguish between the teams and the referees. This system also used during the last football world cup allows to track the players in real time.
All the information collected via the cameras was then passed on to the iPhone connected to the players on the top of their heads. The iPhone uses an app created by a company called Society 46, which converts all this feed into a surround-sound landscape. A unique sound was assigned to the ball and the goal as well as the teams. So that when a player faces the ball he hears a sound which is different from when he is facing the goal, the same applies while interacting with other players on the field the unique sound allows the player to identify that if the other player is from his or the opposite team.
As you can guess, the match was not really as smooth for both the teams and the pros found out how difficult when you do not have the luxury of using the visual sense.
Tracab and Society 46 are working together to implement this idea in other walks of life and are hoping to come up with a technology that allows the visually impaired to see the world in a new way. For more on the project visit here, The Sound of Football.
By the way any guesses as to what was the score of the match? Watch the video below for the result:
