Digital White Cane

Time to show it off.  We were only given 3 minutes to give our presentation, but during the transition while computers, projectors and microphones were being connected, nobody said that I couldn't walk around in the front of the room. 

While the rest of our amazing team gave the presentation, I continued to wander around demonstrating the device.

The experience of wearing the device was rather striking.  I have seen other systems, for example, that converted images to sound, which required a lot of concentration.  

Using the Digital White Cane, I was able to carry on a conversation with only occasional hesitations when I needed to really focus. While "feeling" the world through this system for the first time, I was trying to narrate my experience.  

I think that since the system was on my head, some of the circuits in my brain that create a map of the world were able to work in a "native" way.  Once I "felt" my teammates standing against the back wall, even after turning away,  I didn't have to try to remember that they were there.  

It "felt" like they were there just as if I had seen them and turned away. (It also felt like they would probably try to mess with me while I was blindfolded.)  In addition, I had no problem remembering where the table was once I had turned away from it. 

Taking turns getting sleep, we made great progress over night. By morning, the sensor array was reading distance values.

In spite of all the work on the multiplexer and the fancy motor driver chips, we were not getting them to talk to the Teensy LC microcontroller. 

This is always the most telling point for a team. Things were going great when progress was fast, but we were about to see how things would go when the different parts are not coming together and time is short.  

Everyone was tired.  We were only a couple hours from presentation time and getting no love from the motor driver chips. Time to change plans. 

Looking through the parts that different team members had brought to the party, we decided to go old school and drive the motors with individual transistors. A quick schematic drawing and everyone jumped in cutting wires, soldering, putting on heat shrink tubing, and rewriting the code, while others put the finishing touches on the presentation.

Sure it got nicknamed the "Electric Dreadlocks" but it was beautiful to us. It was our baby. 

Having won third in 2016 as Team Q for our Personalized PT Assistant – a personalized real-time motion capture application to improve quality and adherence or physical therapy, It seemed like good fun to go back the second year.  

The event started with some keynote speakers, followed by a call for anyone with an idea to make a pitch.

I suggested that we could make device that would help the blind and visually impaired navigate their world with more confidence and safety. It got named the Digital White Cane pretty early in the weekend. 

I guess my pitch was good enough because several people joined the team and we didn't sleep much for the next 36 hours.

The group varied in age, as well as life and professional experiences. The perfect team! 

They included: Isaac, Anthony, David, Jacob, Nick, Donnie, George, Rohita, and Victor.

We set up shop in an open space on the second floor and dove in.

Apparently, my hand drawn schematic for the multiplexer and motor driver board was slightly clearer than mud. That color code seems obvious to me.

It did not take long before the team was suggesting that I go get coffee, so that I was not in the way.