Visionary Guide Cane

Inspiration

Out of the global population of approximately 8 billion people, an estimated 2.2 billion individuals are affected by some form of vision impairment. 4.3 million people are living with blindness. For individuals with vision impairment, prioritizing the prevention of collisions with objects in front of them is crucial for various reasons, such as ensuring their safety, promoting independence, boosting confidence, and enhancing efficiency and convenience.

What it does

To assist blind individuals in avoiding collisions, VISIONARY GUIDE CANE is a walking stick that warns the user if something is in their way. VISIONARY GUIDE CANE can also be connected to your phone and through the VISIONARY GUIDE CANE app, audio instructions that the user can hear will give the users detail of what is in front of them.

How we built it

Through Arduino uno, I implemented an ultrasonic senor module and an active buzzer to the walking stick. Through an input pulse from the sensor, the duration of the where the obstacle is to the stick will be measured. From that the distance of where the object is located will be derived. If the object is in close proximity (between 0 to 0.5 a meter away), the active buzzer will trigger. This will warn the user if there is something in front of them. I programmed this implementation through C++ on Arduino uno board. For the app, I made a Figma prototype.

Challenges we ran into

I ran into a few challenges while programming the sensor and buzzer. Triggering the buzzer based on the specific instance is crucial and the timing is critical for accomplishing the essential goal. Synchronizing the sensor data with the buzzer output and ensuring accurate timing was definitely a challenge and I took a lot of tries trying to find the best program. When the sensor and buzzer setup did not work as expected, finding the cause of the problem was difficult. I had to verify if the jumper wires were connected to the appropriate part, check the logic of the code, and retest the whole program till the issue was addressed. For the app prototype, it was difficult trying to create the app that would allow the user to have the best experience using the app. The app should be user friendly to visually impaired individuals. I had to research various app designs to help me formulate a design that would best suit my goal.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Though the walking stick is definitely not the most reliable on a day-to-day basis, the sensor and buzzer work and set a starting benchmark to where I want to take this project in the future. The buzzer definitely triggers when objects are at most 0.5 meters far ahead of the user, and it takes 1 millisecond for the buzzer to trigger right after the sensor sense the object.

What we learned

Through all the troubleshooting and debugging, I learned that the smallest mistakes could lead to big issues. In my program, I got the echo pin and the trig pin swapped, so the device wasn’t working the way I wanted it to. It was just a simple mistake, but I didn’t care to check until I looked at the code from the top.

What's next for VISIONARY GUIDE CANE

VISIONARY GUIDE CANE will have a camera that is connected to the user’s phone. All the user has to do is download the VISIONARY GUIDE CANE app on their phone. The app will utilize AI and give audible information of objects in front of the user. VISIONARY GUIDE CANE will be adjustable and preferable light so that users can walk and carry it spontaneously.

Built With

• arduino
• figma