Unsilence the Crowd

What is it like to experience live football if you can’t feel or hear the atmosphere? Most people’s enduring impression of a match is feeling the emotions and hearing the crowd. Live football is an inherently sensory experience, especially at St. James’ Park, home of Newcastle United (NUFC). NUFC sponsors Sela, recognised an opportunity to help a fan demographic often overlooked – the deaf community. Using haptic technology, we developed a world-first: a replica NUFC shirt woven with intelligent sensors that translate the crowd noise into a complex "physical language".