Showcase 2025 Student Spotlight: Ben Rickard-Stevenson
Student Spotlight featuring BA (Hons) Product Design student Benjamin Rickard and his project 'RaceAble'.
By Jon Duckworth | Published on 23 May 2025
Categories: Student Showcase; School of Architecture, Design and the Built Environment;
The Project
RaceAble is a virtual trackside experience designed to make motorsports more accessible and inclusive, particularly for disabled fans who are physically unable to attend live racing events. RaceAble combines virtual reality, mobile gaming, augmented reality and community features to recreate the race day experience in a digital format.
Community & Education: Includes tailored news updates & live chat rooms – giving fans the ability to connect with others and interact with current disabled drivers. This could prove to be a pathway into the sports for disabled youngsters that needed a confidence boost to get involved.
Augmented Reality Collectables: Fans can explore tracks (virtually or physically) to collect driver helmets, further encouraging fans to explore and discover accessible areas of the track they may not have known about before.
Virtual Reality & Mobile Experience: Offers an immersive trackside experience at home via VR headsets, mobile, or PC. Users can explore paddocks, team garages, and even watch races from different angles alongside fellow fans.
The focus of RaceAble is to improve accessibility across all levels of the sport. It has been created in response to the lack of awareness and inclusivity in motorsports. RaceAble specifically aims to address the needs of disabled fans by removing mobility barriers and encouraging wider participation.
RaceAble combines virtual reality, mobile gaming, augmented reality and community features to recreate the race day experience
The inspiration behind the project
Benjamin says: "Being a disabled motorsport fan myself but also still lucky enough to attend racing events, I wanted to make RaceAble accessible to everyone. When speaking to Aaron Morgan, a disabled racing driver, he said 'the sport needs to be more aware of disabled talent'.
"An online article from Team BRIT, a racing team made up of disabled drivers: 'We still have young disabled children attending races and saying to their parents 'I could never do that'. It still often takes them to see us in our garage and to hear 'yes you can' from our team to change that mindset.'"
Concerned that some disabled motorsports fans are missing out, Benjamin set out to develop an app that could recreate track day events virtually.
RaceAble specifically aims to address the needs of disabled fans by removing mobility barriers and encouraging wider participation.
The project experience
Benjamin feels that the project has been a massive learning experience for him. "Although very challenging, it has also been very rewarding to see an outcome I can see making the future of motorsport more accessible for all," he says.
"Throughout this project I have learnt two completely new programs (Figma & Meta) which enabled me to create an app based virtual experience. This not only required endless amounts of persistence and changes in my project direction, but also a lot of user testing – allowing me to end with a successful user-centric design.
"From a more personal perspective, I have thoroughly enjoyed creating RaceAble. Being able to surround myself with racing, a passion of mine, whilst also diving into the deep end with digital technology, I have been able to play to my strengths throughout the entire design process."
Benjamin Rickard - BA (Hons) Product Design
For Benjamin, a real highpoint of the course was the course trip to Amsterdam in his second year. He says: " Although this may sound like an excuse for a holiday, this experience also allowed me to make friends and connect with course lecturers which has had an incredibly positive influence on the rest of my studies. Designing in a comfortable environment with the opportunity for constant peer and tutor feedback creates a much more inviting space to work and collaborate on projects."
Closing remarks
"Product Design has taught me a lot about myself, but it has taken me until my very last project at university to know what I want to do as a career. I always knew that my strengths were within digital design but when I started at NTU I didn’t want to restrict myself for the future. Product Design has provided me with a wide range of adaptable skills, usable in almost any industry - ideation, client connections, prototyping, testing, marketing, graphics, management and, of course, social skills."