Hackaday Prize Entry: Clunke Button Powers Accessibility

October 5, 2017 by Kristina Panos 11 Comments

An AT button is a device that helps people with all kinds of physical disabilities to interact with their world. There isn’t much to them, just a switch wired up to a 3.5mm mono plug or jack, but the switch is installed in a large button housing that’s easy to operate.

These buttons can be used with any appliance or toy that can be adapted for mono input. They’re a simple piece of technology that makes a world of difference, but for some reason, they cost around $65 each. Because of this, people make their own simple switches, but these aren’t usually sturdy or long-lasting. [Christopher] thinks they should cost way less than that and set out to make buttons for about $10 in materials. Aside from the printed files, all you really need to make a Clunke button is one Cherry MX in your favorite shade of blue, blue, or blue, and either a 3.5mm mono jack or plug, depending on preference.

[Christopher] and his team devised the Clunke Button in collaboration with the local United Cerebral Palsy chapter as part of their senior design project. When it came time to present the project, they wanted to find a way to be able to pass a Clunke button around the audience and have it do something when pressed. They made an interactive ticker by adding an ESP-01 and a battery. [Christopher] has since taken over the project and continues to improve the design as he progresses through the Prize finals. Code for the ticker is available on GitHub, and the button STL files are on Thingiverse.

Hackaday Prize Entry: Scorpion DC-DC Voltage Converter

October 4, 2017 by John Baichtal 32 Comments

Finding the right wall wart or charger to go with an appliance might be a matter of convenience to you and I, but there are some people who really, really need the right charger, because not having it could mean a fire.

[marius] is a Romanian hardware engineer who moved to Papua New Guinea, where he had the opportunity to travel in the remote jungle of that country. There, he saw many people who used solar panels to charge car batteries for a 3W light bulb at night, their phones, or other conveniences that only need a few Watt-hours a day. Connecting car batteries directly to solar panels isn’t a smart idea, so [marius] set out to create a simple, very low-cost DC-DC voltage converter. He’s calling it the Scorpion 3.0, and it looks like a fantastic tool for low-income areas that are far off the grid.

The design of the Scorpion consists of a 3D printed enclosure, with one forked end containing some alligator clip leads, and a standard barrel jack on the other. In the middle is a character display showing the input and output voltage, and a simple rotary encoder for user interaction. The circuit for the Scorpion 3.0 consists mostly of a cheap, low-power MSP430 microcontroller managing the display, encoder, and a buck converter.

Designing something for off-the-grid usage means a few engineering challenges, and being in Paupa New Guinea, there are a few environmental considerations as well. [marius] is varnishing his 3D prints. No, it’s not going to be IP68 rated, but it helps. Making the Scorpion cheap is also a big consideration, most probably resulting in the choice of the MSP430.

It’s a great project, and an excellent entry to the Hackaday Prize. You can check out the demo video of the Scorpion below.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Telepresence With The Black Mirror Project

October 3, 2017 by John Baichtal 12 Comments

The future is VR, or at least that’s what it was two years ago. Until then, there’s still plenty of time to experiment with virtual worlds, the Metaverse, and other high-concept sci-fi tropes from the 80s and 90s. Interactive telepresence is what the Black Mirror Project is all about. Their plan is to create interactive software based on JanusVR platform for creating immersive VR experiences.

The Black Mirror project makes use of the glTF runtime 3D asset delivery to create an environment ranging from simple telepresence to the mind-bending realities the team unabashedly compares to [Neal Stephenson]’s Metaverse.

For their hardware implementation, the team is looking at UDOO X86 single-board computers, with SSDs for data storage as well as a bevy of sensors — gesture, light, accelerometer, magnetometer — supplying the computer with data. There’s an Intel RealSense camera in the build, and the display is unlike any other VR setup we’ve seen before. It’s a tensor display with multiple projection planes and variable backlighting that has a greater depth of field and wider field of view than almost any other display.

Hackaday Prize Entry: Dynamometer For Post Stroke Rehabilitation

October 2, 2017 by Anool Mahidharia 4 Comments

For those who have suffered a stroke, recovery is a long and slow process that requires rehabilitation to start as early as possible. Quite often, secondary stroke attacks complicate matters. Spasticity — muscle contraction and paresis — muscular weakness, are two of the many common after-effects of stroke. Recovery involves doing repeated exercises to strengthen the muscles and bring back muscle memory. Benchmarking progress becomes difficult when caregivers are only able to use qualitative means such as squeezing tennis balls to monitor improvement. To help provide quantitative measurements in such cases, [Sergei V. Bogdanov] is building a Dynamometer for Post-Stroke Rehabilitation. It is an Open Source, 4-channel differential force gauge for measuring and logging the progress of the patient. The device measures, graphs, and logs the force exerted by the four fingers when they push down on the four force gauges.

The device consists of four strain gauges obtained from cheap kitchen scales. The analog outputs from these are fed to HX-711 24-bit ADC boards. An Arduino Nano processes the data and displays it on two banks of eight-digit LED modules. [Sergei] also experimented with a 20×4 character LCD in place of the LED display. In the standalone mode, the device can only indicate the measured forces on the LED (or LCD) display which is calibrated to display either numerical values or a logarithmic scale. When connected to a serial port and using the (Windows only) program, it is possible to not only view the same information but also save it at regular, set intervals. The data can also be viewed in graphical form.

The project page provides links to their Arduino code, Windows monitor program as well as build instructions. Check out the related assistive technology project that [Sergei] is working on — A Post Stroke Spasticity Rehab Helper.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Hand Tremor Suppression Wearable Device

October 1, 2017 by Jenny List 13 Comments

It is extremely distressing to watch someone succumb to an uncontrollable hand tremor. Simple tasks become frustrating and impossible, and a person previously capable becomes frail and vulnerable. Worse still are the reactions of other people, in whom the nastiest of prejudices can be unleashed. A tremor can be a debilitating physical condition, but it is not one that changes who the person afflicted with it is.

An entry from [Basian Lesi] in this year’s Hackaday Prize aims to tackle hand tremors, and it takes the form of a wearable device that tries to correct the tremors by applying small electrical stimuli in response to the motion it senses from its built-in accelerometer. At its heart is an ATMega328p microcontroller and an MPU6050 accelerometer chip, and the prototype is shown using a piece of stripboard mounted in a 3D-printed box. It’s still in development and testing, but they have posted a video showing impressive results that you can see below the break, claiming an 85% reduction in tremors.

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Hackaday Prize Entry: Ebers – Diabetes Care, Step By Step

September 29, 2017 by Lewin Day 1 Comment

Diabetes is a disease that, among other things, has significant effects on the feet due to a combination of neuropathy, vascular issues, and other factors. You may have seen special diabetes socks with features like non-elasticated cuffs for better circulation and a lack of seams to prevent the formation of blisters. Taking care of your feet is essential in diabetes to prevent injury and infection. Ebers is a project that seeks to help in just this area.

Ebers monitors plantar pressure, temperature, and humidity in the sole of the shoe. It then feeds this data back to a smartphone for analysis over Bluetooth. The brain of the project is an Arduino Pro Mini which is tasked with interfacing with the various sensors.

The project relies on 3D printed insoles which fit inside the shoe of the wearer. This is a particularly useful application of 3D printing, as it means the insole can be customised to fit the individual, rather than relying on a smaller selection of pre-sized forms. This has the additional benefit of allowing the insole to be designed to minimise pressure on the foot in the first place, further reducing the likelihood of injury and infection. The pressure sensing is actually built into the insole itself, and can measure pressure at several different areas of the foot.

Overall, it’s a project with huge potential health benefits for those with diabetes. We look forward to seeing where this project goes in future, and how it can bring improvements to the quality of life for people the world over.

Hackaday Prize Entry: Visioneer Sensor HUD

September 28, 2017 by John Baichtal 4 Comments

Only about two percent of the blind or visually impaired work with guide animals and assistive canes have their own limitations. There are wearable devices out there that take sensor data and turn the world into something a visually impaired person can understand, but these are expensive. The Visioneer is a wearable device that was intended as a sensor package for the benefit of visually impaired persons. The key feature: it’s really inexpensive.

The Visioneer consists of a pair of sunglasses, two cameras, sensors, a Pi Zero, and bone conduction transducers for audio and vibration feedback. The Pi listens to a 3-axis accelerometer and gyroscope, a laser proximity sensor for obstacle detection within 6.5ft, and a pair of NOIR cameras. This data is processed by neural nets and OpenCV, giving the wearer motion detection and object recognition. A 2200mA battery powers it all.

When the accelerometer determines that the person is walking, the software switches into obstacle avoidance mode. However, if the wearer is standing still, the Visioneer assumes you’re looking to interact with nearby objects, leveraging object recognition software and haptic/audio cues to relay the information. It’s a great device, and unlike most commercial versions of ‘glasses-based object detection’ devices, the BOM cost on this project is only about $100. Even if you double or triple that (as you should), that’s still almost an order of magnitude of cost reduction.