SIMON:We're in Blackheath in South East London and we're on our way to meet Josh, who is eight years old and has uh Norrie disease and was born completely, totally blind.
NARRATOR:Josh attends his local mainstream school as there aren't specialist blind centres nearby. He needs design engineers, Ruby and Jude to help him find a way to join his friends in the playground.
SIMON:Thank you.
NARRATOR:Today, he's at home with his mum, Wendy.
RUBY:Hello.
WENDY: Hello.
RUBY: Nice to meet you, I'm Ruby.
SIMON: Thank you.
RUBY:Hi, Josh.
JOSH: Hi.
RUBY: Hello.
JOSH: Hi.
SIMON: Hello, Josh. So you've got Simon in front of you, and Ruby. We'll make ourselves comfortable and maybe you could show us some of the things that you love.
JOSH:I like pop, hip-hop, rap, Pokémon Go, shopping and Jaktu(?).
RUBY: I like indie music and, kind of like, rock kind of music.
JOSH: Yeah, mum likes that.
WENDY: Would you like a cup of tea?
RUBY: Absolutely love one thanks.
JOSH: We can go outside first.
WENDY: We can go outside.
JOSH: Come on.
WENDY: Coming.
JOSH:It's a nice garden.
SIMON: Do you like being outside, Josh?
JOSH: Yeah.
NARRATOR:Norrie disease is a rare genetic eye disorder, it causes the retina to develop abnormally and can lead to blindness.
RUBY:What's this rope thing?
JOSH: God knows.
WENDY: God knows.
JOSH: I need…
SIMON: And he's done. Are you looking for a wall?
JOSH: No, it's hard.
WENDY: It's hard, all right.
RUBY:Are we gonna go have a look at the trampoline?
JOSH: I think so.
RUBY: Okay. There we go.
JOSH: Oh it-, it's soaking.
SIMON: See if you can-.[?unclear]
SIMON: See if you can ping Ruby off. You wanna stay out here and have a chat with Josh?
RUBY: Yeah, I'd love to.
SIMON:You've got quite a lad there, haven't you.
WENDY: Yes, there is never a dull moment.
SIMON: Tell us about Norrie disease.
WENDY: Well, when Josh was born, we were told that he was probably one in twelve million um-.
SIMON: One in twelve million?
WENDY: Yeah, it's really rare.
SIMON:So what's then the issue about playtime?
WENDY: Noisy, busy, it's trying to identify where people are and what games that they play. It's really hard to know what games you're playing and to join in if you can't see where they are or what they're doing.
RUBY:How many friends do you have?
JOSH: A gazillion.
RUBY: A gazillion friends? What's your favourite class?
JOSH: My favourite class is playtime. My class always goes outside, but the playground is too big.
RUBY: It's too big?
JOSH: And I can't find my friends.
SIMON:What are you hoping for?
WENDY: Well, I think for Josh, if there was something that could help him be able to navigate his environment with more confidence, more ease, you know, it would mean that Josh could be included more in social settings, um be able to join in more, something that would help him and his friends bond, um games for him and his friends to play.
SIMON:He's physically not very confident and-, and that's completely understandable and hardly surprising given this incredible situation and condition that he's-, that he's got.
NARRATOR:To understand the challenges that Josh faces, Ruby and I are paying a visit to his school.
JOSH:Morning.
NARRATOR:In the classroom, Josh is helped by learning support assistant, Shane.
SHANE:All right?
JOSH: So far so good with the Enter key.
SOUNDS OF CHILDREN PLAYING
NARRATOR:At break time, Josh needs Shane's help getting to the playground.
SIMON:Hello. Can I come and join you? When you hear the noise of all the children running around, does it feel appealing or threatening?
JOSH: Threatening. Why?
SIMON:Would you like to be playing and taking part with them, or do you think it's-, or do you think you could get hurt?
JOSH: I could get hurt.
SIMON: And have you tried? Have you ever tried and got hurt?
JOSH: Yeah. Yeah.
SIMON: What happened to you?
JOSH: I got a graze all the way up my leg, which was the first day in year three, so since, I've never played with my friends out here since.
SIMON:What if I say to you that getting hurt is part of play?
JOSH: Is it?
SIMON: Yeah. I-, I get-, I got hurt all the time when I was playing when I was your age.
JOSH:Did you ever cry in play?
SIMON: Oh yeah. Sometimes I nearly cry now. You don't ever stop wanting to cry. You just sometimes maybe w-, as you get older you can handle it better. And there is a lot of activity and running around. And I know that you would love to be doing that with them.
JOSH: Yeah.
RUBY:I'm feeling kind of nervous now because this is a lot more complicated than I thought it was going to be. I was imagining, one open space with children in it. But it's at an angle, the floor's an angle, it's uneven.
SHANE: Yeah, yeah, and you're an adult and you were given space by the other kids. Josh isn't afforded that space because he's just one of them, so they'll just pile past him.
[bell rings]
RUBY:To imagine him missing out on things that children should be doing, like being outside and running around, it's sad to think that Josh isn't able to do that.
NARRATOR:Back at the inventors’ hub, we discuss just how difficult Josh's fix could be.
RUBY:We're dealing with-, with a lot, and you, kind of, um-.
SIMON: Of moving objects.
RUBY: Moo-, a lot of moving objects, a lot of kind of hazards.
JUDE:Are we trying to bring an experience where he can interact with everyone else, or is it about them interacting with him, or is it about creating a bridge between the two?
YUSUF:Ultimately this seems to me that's really much about inclusion.
ROSS: We are designing a play experience for all of them, that puts them all on an equal footing.
YUSUF: And socialising with his friends.
ROSS: [over Yusuf] Yeah, we-, we're not-, we're not trying to fix Josh, we trying to fix play.
RUBY: Yeah.
NARRATOR:While Ruby's crossing the street one morning, inspiration strikes.
RUBY:So I've been thinking a lot about this guidance paving. Wouldn’t it be cool if it did more than just indicate underfoot, what if it had a sound attached to it with more information?
NARRATOR:This is called tactile paving, it helps the visually impaired move around independently in public spaces, like at road crossings and the edge of train platforms.Ruby begins to plan a design of tactile paving that makes sounds. She's enlisted the help of technology expert Ross Atkins.
ROSS:So this um touch board, turns uh touch into sound, so if I connect it up with a wire to something conductive, [plays a note] when I touch it, it makes a sound.
NARRATOR:This is similar technology to the touchscreen on mobile phones. But instead of using fingers, they're going to use feet.
ROSS:This board can detect when part of your body is uh touching, or very close to something that's connected to it, and so when you put your foot near the tin foil, the board knows that you've done that and um it plays a sound.
NARRATOR:Ruby and Ross enlist the help of the Winchester Goalball Club to test their prototype.
GOALBALL COACH:So Goalball started just after the Second World War as a rehab sport for um soldiers who lost their sight during the war, so it was their sport to help them get back to-, to fitness, I guess.
NARRATOR:Visually impaired members of the Goalball Club will help Ruby and Ross discover if they're on the right road to finding a fix for Josh.
ROSS:What we've got here are, kind of, really, really quick early ideas and who wants to go first?
PADDY: I'll go first.
ROSS: I would like you-, actually, oh yeah, I forgot, an important thing, shoes off if you guys don't mind. Shades on, shoes off.
ROSS:So if you take uh a couple of steps forward can you feel you're standing on something different? Do you wanna-, if you wanna push your foot along one of the lines. Now we're gonna get onto the exciting bit.
BOY: Oh my God, that's-.
RUBY: Step forward.
COACH: Go for it. Paddy. So.
RUBY: Have to work as a team.
NARRATOR:Ruby and Ross also want to test another idea. They've programmed the tiles to give directions when someone stands on them.
DIGITAL VOICE: Towards Pudsey bear.
RUBY: Yeah.
COACH: Grab it. Nice job.
RUBY: Very good.
ROSS: Wicked, and do you wanna go back and chose a different one?
DIGITAL VOICE: Towards the door.
ROSS: And then, do you wanna go back again?
DIGITAL VOICE: Towards the door.
RUBY:Now, see, that's interesting coz that was not towards the door.
ROSS: No.
PADDY:Well the only problem is when you come back the opposite way it's gonna, kind of, trigger. He would think he's over there, but actually he's here. It would kind of mess him up.
COACH: If he's standing on this one and someone else stands on that one, which way is he going?
ROSS:It's true that he'll still be able to hear when someone stands on the other one.
RUBY: Yeah, but I mean, we-.
COACH: If someone else stands on it before he does, and he's like "Oh I'm going towards the crash-, oh no, maybe I'm not."
PADDY:I know-, I don't know how reliable it's gonna be. Is it-?
ROSS: Yeah, I think that's something I’m worried about as well.
RUBY: The last thing we want to do is make him more disorientated.
ROSS:Like the elephant in the room that hasn't come up because I haven't even, like, admitted it is at the moment this doesn't work if you're wearing shoes and that's, like, a major [sniggers] fail uh for the playground, so, like, we have to find a way of making it work when you're wearing shoes.
RUBY:It's-, it feels very vulnerable, it feels like there's a big challenge to get it to work in the playground.
NARRATOR:The team believe tactile paving that plays sound is the solution. But so far it only works without shoes. They think they've come up with a plan - pressure pads.
JUDE:When you step on it, it squishes the black stuff and allows the electricity to flow and connect a circuit.
NARRATOR:They hope that when Josh stands on the paving it will trigger sounds to help him navigate the playground. [chiming sound] To avoid confusing him, they've ditched the idea of verbal directions in favour of simple sounds.Jude has transformed his home into an electronics factory. He begins building 30 pressure pads and designing a surround sound system.
JUDE:I’m gonna chop out a chunk in the wood so that they can reach through and adjust all the controls. This is the last pressure sensitive pad coming off the production line.
NARRATOR:In southeast London, construction work is underway, the team have committed to a tactile musical pathway in Josh's school playground. Diggers have begun taking up more than a thousand square meters of tarmac.
SIMON:Tiles are coming out and going down. Look at this.
NARRATOR:300 tiles and 30 waterproof speakers will be connected to two miles of cabling running underneath the ground.
SIMON: Ruby, what is this?
RUBY: This is uh one of the hubs. Whenever you see blister tiles like this, they are going to be magic sound tiles so that when you stand on them a sound will come out of one of these speakers. It's also encouraging games that are using these yellow roads. If you close your eyes-.
SIMON: I can feel with my feet.
RUBY:It's amazing you can feel that these straight lines basically mean go in this direction which is why it would be pointless to have them-
SIMON: The other way.
How do you make a child's playground accessible for the blind?
Josh, 8, from London, was born blind with a rare condition called Norrie Disease.
It's difficult for him to play with children in the playground at primary school.
A team of inventors design a way to make the playground more accessible for Josh.
Design Strategist, Ruby Steel, and engineer, Jude Pullen, spend months investigating a host of different ways that Josh could navigate the playground and interact with his friends, from GPS satellite navigation to musical tiles.
They settle on the idea of building a ‘yellow brick road’; a clever pattern of pathways across the playground using yellow, tactile guidance tiles.
Under the tiles, are specially built ‘soundboards’ that will emit fun noises of animals and musical instruments.
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