EXPERIMENTAL POWERED BOCCIA RAMP - REMAP - Custom made equipment for disabled people
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EXPERIMENTAL POWERED BOCCIA RAMP

An experimental wheelchair/motor powered Boccia ramp to assess whether it is possible to reduce the reliance on a ramp-positioning helper for those with significant disabilities playing the sport.

The Challenge

Boccia is a boules sport related to bowls and Pétanque, and is played up to Paralympic level. For players with significant disabilities, ramps are permitted under the Boccia rules – where a helper positions a ramp according to the instructions of the player, and some sort of release mechanism (typically a head or mouth pointer) is then used by the player to release the ball as shown in the library photo below from the Tokyo Paralympics.

Our client has MS, and has very little independent movement left, but can move her left hand/arm a little, sufficient to control her powered wheelchair. Our client had tried working with a helper and ramp but found it wasn’t very engaging and wanted to find out if Remap could help her to be more involved and make ramp adjustments directly herself. We couldn’t find any commercially produced Boccia ramp that could have met the requirement.

It is important to note at this stage that our client plays Boccia socially with her friends and not competively against other groups, so Remap could experiment outside of the published rules for competition, whilst still being mindful not to give our client an unfair advantage against her friends.

The solution

Ian Midgley from Harrogate and Ripon group created a platform on castors which attaches via two rigid arms to the lashing points on the front of our client’s wheelchair, and moves with it.

The platform has two vertical tubes and a cross bar – the height of the latter being controlled by a small 3V battery operated motor with a built in 1:250 reduction gearbox, driving toothed pulleys and belts.

The ramp attached to the cross bar is a section of guttering with a shaped EVA foam “hopper” at the top end with shaped supports beneath, and a shaped lip at the bottom to slide across the floor without marking it.

 

 

Our client has a board that sits on her knee and holds the ball, a plunger device to release it, and a joystick for the up/down motor. Our client’s leg position can vary a little, so the board has some fine adjustment to sit level on her knee.

 

 

 

Our client can then play the game by using her wheelchair to aim the ramp herself, the joystick controlled motor to set the height herself, and can then push a Boccia ball off her knee board so it drops into the hopper and down the ramp.

She can also change the direction and height between shots as the rules require (i.e. you cannot simply leave a ramp in the same position as the previous shot if you find you have the right length and direction as that would be unfair when playing against people who throw normally).

Finally, if a very long shot is needed, our client can bring the ramp height up, and also use the elevation control on her wheelchair to raise her entire seat vertically so her knees are still above the hopper.

 

An assistant is still required to do the following:

1. Attach and detach the equipment

2. Put a ball on the client’s knee board

3. If the jack is a very short or a very long distance away, an adjustment is required via two handwheels on the platform to fine tune the gap between the clients legs and the hopper.

4. There is a moveable cross bar at the top of the tubes to keep them parallel, and this sometimes needs to be moved/up down a little if it is our client’s eye line.

i.e. the helper effort has reduced to such an extent that the referee can double up as helper for our client if there is no other helper available.

It is unlikely this solution would comply with current Boccia rules because in our case, the boccia ball is dropped onto a ramp rather than being in contact with a ramp and simply released. Also, the footprint of the solution would likely be outside of the permitted length for competition.

However, it should be noted that the ball dropping onto the ramp from our client’s lap makes it MORE difficult to judge and use than a conventional ramp. Also, our client has limited visibility of the ramp angle and has to guess a great deal more to get the height correct, and Remap have resisted putting any sort of height indicator on the ramp to provide too much assistance and potential advantage.

The benefit

The equipment has been in use for many weeks now. It is notable that our client appears from the results to have no advantage or disadvantage when compared to her friends throwing normally from a seated position. She really enjoys her weekly trip out to play the game.

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One response to “EXPERIMENTAL POWERED BOCCIA RAMP”

  1. Ian Brocket says:

    Ingenious. The client has been given greater control and as a result has more enjoyment.

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