One wearable a system to help swimmers with total or partial blindness to orientate themselves in the pool, developed by students in the framework of the 7th Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition of Junior Achievement Greece (JA Greece).
The system consists of a cap combined with goggles and is intended for use in a swimming pool (training). The device, located in the cap, has the appropriate sensors to inform the swimmer of his/her orientation in the pool, his arrival at the end of the course for the turn and the finish, as well as his statistics, via a bluetooth headset connected to an IoT application on the mobile phone of each user/athlete.
«The goal is to give the swimmer with visual impairment full autonomy», explains Panagiota Dedousi, a student at the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NTUA and member of the Swim.me team, who developed the idea for this innovative system, to the Athenian/Macedonian News Agency.
With this device, according to the young student, «the athlete has the ability not only to align himself during the course but also to know when to make the turn and where to finish. At the same time, through gyroscope for orientation and accelerometer for his time, he has the ability to know other information and through the connection of the device, with a mobile IoT application, he can know at the end of each training session exactly his statistics and the time he has done for further improvement».
The second and very important goal of the Swim.me team is «with this project to address various ages of swimmers with visual disabilities - both amateurs and children as swimming is a compulsory course for children from 10 years old and above’, notes Panagiota Dedousi, noting that ’through this device they will have the opportunity not only to start from an early age but also to get involved further with swimming».
She, after all, knows first-hand the demands of a training session in swimming, since she has been a champion in the past. This experience, as well as that of the swimmer, a student of Management Science and Technology at ASOE and a member of Swim.me, Rania Vlachou, was the one who «gave birth» to the idea for the device, which took «flesh and blood» thanks to the methodical work and efficiency of a very strong team, which also includes Iphigenia Vassilaki (student of Administrative Science and Technology at ASOEE), Dimitris Lambros and Vangelis Georgakilas (both students of Electrical and Computer Engineering at NTUA) and Anastasios Karamoutsos (Business Administration and Management student at ASOEE).
«As soon as she heard the idea for the competition, Rania, who had the initiative for the whole project, motivated me. As swimmers that we were, we already expressed this concern and said that since we were going to participate in the competition, we should do something that we like and that has a social impact’, says Panagiota Dedousi.
At the moment, the system is in the process of being made waterproof to be fully integrated and ready for use, with Swim.me members already making plans to promote it beyond the competition as they strongly believe it can help not only professional swimmers but also amateurs. «It may have other uses as well. It can, through the sensors, help the swimmer to perceive, for example, if there is an obstacle in his path, a swimmer next to him, etc. It can also be developed and used for other athletes with visual impairment or total blindness», explains Panagiota Dedousi.
Validation with ...Olympic bull
The students of Swim.me, restless spirits, did not rest in the development of a system that seems to have all the guarantees to help swimmers with visual disabilities but they turned to the Paralympian and World Champion Charalambos Taiganidis, in order to get his opinion.
«It was very important for us to get validation from such an established athlete, who through his experience from people who are directly concerned with them, not only approved it but also gave us feedback on how to continue and advice for further use of the project and the device», explains Panagiota Dedousi.
In fact, the members of Swim.me did not stop there but also addressed the founder of the non-profit company «With other eyes», Evangelos Avgoulas, who was also enthusiastic about their idea.
The Swim.me team (https://www.facebook.com/swim.me.project) has already won first place in the JA Start Up 2021 Online Voting Challenge. The team won the public by gathering the highest number of likes, comments and shares on Facebook, thus securing one of the 10 places in the national final competition, which will take place on 28 May.
A few words about «JA Start Up»
JA Start Up is a pioneering JA Europe education programme that is being implemented simultaneously in 300 universities across Europe with the participation of 15,000 students. The programme gives students aged 18-30 years old the opportunity to develop their own business idea and helps them to use their skills in different areas and activities of a business. Essentially, students form teams and over a period of three months work on the developing a business idea, with the support of teachers and mentors.
The 10 best teams that qualify for the National Final present their idea (Pitching) and are interviewed by the jury. Again this year, due to the coronavirus pandemic, the National Final Competition will be held online on May 28, with connections from the homes of students, judges and guests.
The winning team will represent Greece in JA Europe's JA Enterprise Challenge, which will be held online, based at Junior Achievement Lithuania.
