10_Lazarillo

An image of our prototype

Inspiration

Helping blind people for them to feel safer, more self-sufficient and productive as members of society. Also one of the main reasons why we are building it is because we want to avoid accidents that involve people suffering from permanent or temporary blindness.

What it does

The prototype has two configurations, one for the temporarily blind people or people with low visual abilities and one for the permanently blind people. The first one operates with sounds coming out from a buzzer, this sounds are regulated by a proximity sensor which vary according to how near is a wall, an object or a person. The Second One will give commands very much alike the first ones but using vibrations instead of sounds, this is because people that cannot see since their birth have a hugely developed hearing sense, so the sounds would stun them or maybe even disorient them.

How we built it

Our prototype is a cane that calculates distance between the person and an object nearby in order to avoid a collision between these two, it is built with arduino uno and an ultrasonic sensor, we also used a buzzer module, bluetooth modules and Android technology to make the applications.

Challenges we ran into

Unfortunately, the members of our team are not immensely good in programming as the rest of the competition probably is, so that was a huge disadvantage for us. Also we lost our bluetooth modules so it was not possible for us to complete the configuration that applies for permanently blind people.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We managed to complete the part that applies for temporarily blind people and we also did an application in MIT's App Inventor that delivers messages to a phone that simulates what in the future will be a vibrating bracelet.

What we learned

We learn a lot about programming a pebble watch and android apps. Also we learned how to pitch ideas in order to sell them to business men that may be interested in investing on our product for a better development of this project.

What's next for 10_Lazarillo

Getting a properly developed version with two modes for each configuration that resembles a street mode and a subway mode so blind people can transport on their own across the city by selecting their destination. Also we would love to improve our already improvised hardware.