Audio-Assisted Compass

Device for determining compass direction for the blind and providing information through different audio outputs

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Inspiration

Alvaro and I both have family members with partial or complete blindness. As natives of California and Spain, we both have grown up with an appreciation and admiration for the outdoors. We wanted to develop a device for those who may not have the ability to see well to still be able to go on hikes and adventures feeling just as confident about reliable technology to help them out on their way.

What it does

Using Arduino technology with multiple peripheral modules, our device determines cardinal directions and, using Adafruit technology, transmits that information through auditory .wav files into the user's ears.

How I built it

We have used the wave shield, to store the 8 main cardinal directions(N,E,S,W,NE,SE,SW,NW) as audio files and to reproduce them. And we have used the IMU, Ardafruit's bmno055 to measure the current orientation and the chenges in the heading.

Challenges I ran into

We had to manage to control two different hardwares with a single Arduino, to keep it simple and lighter. Interfacing the IMU with the Adafruit shield also took some time to figure out.

Built With

  • ardafrit-bno055
  • ardafruit-bno055
  • ardafruit-wave-shield
  • arduino
  • audio
  • bno055
  • microsd
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