VizAssist

As having visually impaired people in our lives, we are passionate about making their lives a bit more hassle-free. Our prototype demonstrates a system that can be implemented onto a small watch-like device that will help visually impaired people avoid obstructions without the use of walking sticks. The buzzer will beep and the person can hear it through an earphone so it is not causing disturbance to others around them. We built it using an Arduino uno, digital buzzer, an ultrasonic sensor, SMD RGB, jumper cables and one 330 ohm resistor. Our biggest challenge was having a limited amount of hardware we could choose from. We wanted to learn how to work with an IR avoidance sensor but unfortunately, we couldn’t get that. We also had to keep our project fairly simple so it’s easy to implement and on the cheaper side so a wide range of people from the blind community are able to afford and benefit from this. We weren’t able to get our hardware on time to get started on soldering so we’re having to use our laptop as a power source instead of the battery pack. We are proud that despite these challenges and haven’t been in hackathons for a while, we were able to finish our project and add extra features to cater the product to a different group of people too. We added an LED sensor so it can also be used by bikers to avoid collisions while on high speed roads as they don’t have rear view mirrors like actual cars. We learned the importance of having a team with different strength. While teammate #1 was coding in arduino, teammate #2 helped with the logic of the sensor and buzzer working simultaneously and teammate #3 physically built the circuit and schematic. We hope that our product can be implemented into existing market products like Apple Watch or Fitbit for the visually impaired. And, bikers can avoid serious road accidents by using the led only part of our project.

Built With

• arduino
• c++