Great idea, I like it! :)

I always save these motors “just in case” when scrapping a phone, usually they just unplug but some are soldered.
if you have a lot of phones surplus which are broken then its worth going on a salvaging mission as the LEDs on the backlight(s) and OLED panel can often be repurposed, and many Nokias have a nice colour LCD with plenty of documentation.

what about using infrared?

zeropointmodule, polymythic is using Parallax PING))) ultrasonic sensors. they are very easy to use and can sense things up to about 10 feet away, much more usefull and less limited than infrared. The only downside is that they cant do well with corners, like if half of the signal hits a corner, and im not sure about rounded irregularly shaped objects, i havent used mine in a while.

as a retired firefighter, I could see that invention “built in” to a fire fighter helmet.

good idea! Keep up the good work….

guide dog is much cooler and useful

Feedback that is.

Sherman, set the way back machine for star date 5630.7 (aka October 1968). This reminded me of the sensor dress from the original Star Trek episode “Is there in Truth No Beauty?”

Funny how so many technologies were dreamed up back then and are now realities or on the brink. Still waiting for the transporter to save me from TSA pat downs.

very cool idea!

hope it develops into something practical for the blind.

part of brain that interpret signals on retina is physically located close to part of brain that respond for tong. Sometimes signals misfire to wrong parts and with training one part can take job of the other. So in theory tong (or some other body parts)can be used as retina, we just need small enough electrodes matrix for any usable resolution

Reminds me of something i read where used a magnetometer and a bunch of vibration engines on a belt to continually show where north was. Over time the wearer developed a better ability to navigate inside a city simply by how north changed at each turn taken.

One could even develops something of a “danger sense” using this, by placing the sensors and vibrators at the back of the head.

They’ve been trying this for many many years and yet it’s always stuck at the concept level it seems, I wonder why.

I also built something similar like this a few years ago, but then implemented into a glove.
there were plans to put a RFID reader into the glove so that the user could find specific objects.

but we never got further then a ugly prototype.

hmm, sparkfun have some nice magnetic sensors (HMC5843) ?

@logan, yeah i realise ultrasonic sensor are more versatile but draw a fair amount of power.
perhaps a single transducer set with a phased array circuit to steer the beam would be more useful.
(this technique is used for medical ultrasound)

I think a guide dog and this project would be mutually exclusive: dogs don’t like ultrasound.

Is the user also deaf, black band? Binaural generated sounds would be better than vibes.
Tommy can you see me.
You know where to put the ball.

@therian
I remember reading about an experiment a few years ago. Where they connected a camera to electrodes on a tounge. They tried it on a guy with full vision (blinde fold ofcourse) and he stated that after 12 hours he started to “se”

Umm, sorry to tell you this but this idea is a clone of a more advanced version featured on Daily Planet (Discovery Channel) almost 2 year ago. The idea was originally done as a Fourth Year Design Project, which placed second, at the University of Waterloo. Looking forward to seeing future versions.

Note: There are several patents pending on the design presented at the UW Symposium.