Camp Abilities Ireland 2024 – Orienteering
July 14, 2024Testing any app is a meticulous process that requires attention to detail and a rigorous, well planned structure to ensure all aspects of the functionality are explored. That’s why we chose 39 children with vision impairment to use Soundscape Community while orienteering, in the wet Irish countryside! Yes, we set ourselves a challenge but we had a unique opportunity and a great bunch of people to work with and the rainy weather and wet grass couldn’t dampen our ambition!
Set up in Ireland in 2010, adopted from the model established by Lauren Lieberman in New York, Camp Abilities is a Vision Sports Ireland annual residential sports and leisure activities camp for young people who are blind or vision impaired.
As an Orientation and Mobility Instructor, I have always been interested in motion and movement. As soon as I started working with children, I became involved in Camp Abilities as it presented a wonderful opportunity to develop fundamental movement skills and confidence in a fun and exciting way. For these young people, this is one of the few opportunities to meet with others who also have a vision impairment because many of these children do not have someone in their class or even in their school with a similar condition.
Camp Abilities Ireland 2024 brought together 39 vision impaired ‘campers’ alongside a team of 30 dedicated volunteers and staff at the Kilfinane Outdoor Education and Training Centre in Limerick. Throughout the week, campers are immersed in an array of activities from kayaking to rock climbing, cycling to camp craft and soccer to a park run. Each day offers opportunities for campers to push their boundaries and discover their potential, all the while promoting the camp values of Being Active, Being Social and Being Independent. Orienteering was added to the schedule for this year. Always interested in harnessing technology for independence, I saw this as an ideal opportunity to put Soundscape Community to the test with this discerning group! Plenty of prep work was put in by all, including Kilfinane staff who planned out the route, placed the audio beacons at the flags, labelled with descriptions that provided the right amount of information – not too much, not too little! The trail went through various environments, knowing that these young people would like to be challenged and it proved to be a very popular activity. We were very interested in how everyone would get on with the app and we gave all the chance to let us know through our feedback forms.
It was easy to observe how quickly the children grasped the use of the app and understood the purpose. Large print maps were produced for those who could use them but as Lucy said "if you couldn't read a map then you could listen to a map". Those using the app often got a head start on the trail as they started to move in the right direction while those using the printed version were getting their bearings.
There was a lot of positive feedback given about the ease of using the app and the accessibility of it. However, for me, it was truly amazing to see the difference it caused in body language, posture and confidence for those using the app. Heads were held high and smiles on faces as a more even playing field was perceived – contradicted by the actual terrain, but everyone in the team now had their role to play, and each role was of value.
Please follow the links below for more information about the organisations mentioned above.
- https://visionsports.ie/camp-abilities/
- https://kilfinaneoec.com/
- https://www.campabilities.org/
- https://soundscape.services/
Camper account of Soundscape Community at Camp Abilities Ireland 2024
It’s my 2nd time at Camp and already I can’t wait until next year. We had new activities this year and we got to test an app on the phone to see if it was good when we were orienteering. It was fun to be a tester even in the lashing rain! The app beeped and binged when you pointed in the right direction for the flag. You could have different noises which was good. My team was faster than the other team who used a map. I told them that I think there should more sounds when you get to the flag and I can't wait to see how the app gets even better with our help!
Parent Experience of Soundscape Community, Camp Abilities 24
My son has not stopped talking about Camp since we picked him up. One of the things we heard about was the Soundscape app. He had never done orienteering before because he can’t see a map and now he wants us to find a local group so he can join. It’s great to see that this can happen.
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