Introduction

3.4 million people over the age of 40 in the United States, alone, are visually impaired. This number is expected to double in the upcoming years, as the baby boomers grow older. Visual impairment can affect more than just one’s driving or reading abilities. Often, watch faces do not allow proper time data transfer from the intended technology to the visually impaired. The disability may cause someone to be unable to read the time on their wristwatch's face, or a clock across the room. In a society that runs on strict schedules, not having the ability to know the time can have many negative effects on someone’s life.

Engineering Problem

Often, watch faces do not allow proper time data transfer from the intended technology to the visually impaired.

Engineering Goal

The goal is to engineer a watch that allows accurate time information to be understood and easily acquired by the visually impaired using specific vibrations on the wrist.

Background

• Visuallyimpairedpeoplearestillabletousetheirvisiontoperformdailytasks,andtheyoftenusevisualaids.

• Hyperopia (farsightedness): caused when the eye is too short, or the cornea is not curved enough and the image is focused behind the retina. Can see objects farther away from their eye more easily than objects close to them. However, objects may appear blurry at all distance

• Presbyopia can cause visual impairment. When a person ages, the lens inside their eye becomes less flexible, which can cause the image to be poorly focused upon the retina.

• The results of a recent study showed that the wrist is one of the most sensitive areas of the body

• The same experiment was then set up in a stimulating and showed that the placement of a watch on the wrist should be successful in conveying information through vibrations in any environment.

• Exteroceptive sensing: includes the ability to feel pain and thermal differences, along with tactile sensing (dynamic and static sensing).

• Cell motors: include two copper coils on an unbalanced weight. When electricity is passed through the motor, these coils become magnets, and their strong, contrasting magnetic fields push against one another, causing this system to steadily spin and vibrate.

• Arduino is an open source project that makes user-friendly

microcontroller boards. The software used is the Arduino IDE.

Materials

• Clock module • Wires and connections • Vibration motor • Bluetooth module • Button

Procedure

Part One (Engineering the Device):

1. Hardware will be soldered to the board. 2. Code the vibrations to relate to the real time 3. Engineer an app, using Android Studio, to communicate with the

Arduino and allow a customizable time to be set as an alarm. 4. Make the hardware compact and 3D print a casing for it using Google

Sketchup

Part Two (Testing): 1. Blindfold seated volunteers 2. Participants will wear the watch on their wrist 3. A certain time will be set on the watch, and the volunteers will press the

button. 4. The watch will vibrate a certain time, and the participant will verbally

relay the time to the tester 5. The responses will be recorded using Excel

Data Analysis

How it works: The clock module constantly sends information to the board, and it is converted to numerical digits. The board also checks to see if the Bluetooth is connected and active. If the Bluetooth is active, it looks for a few different messages to be sent. The first possible message is “settime”. This happens if the button on the app labeled “Set time” is pressed. The board then sends this information back to the clock module, effectively setting a new time to the watch. If the button on the app that is labeled “set alarm” is pressed, a signal is sent to the board that sets an alarm time. When the alarm time is the same as the set time, the cell motor vibrates. Future Analyses: Volunteers will be blindfolded and the wristwatch will be put onto their non-dominant wrist. I will set a certain time on the wristwatch, and the volunteers will be asked to press the button. The watch will vibrate out the time and the volunteer will verbally relay what they believe the time is, basing their guesses upon the vibrations from the watch. This time will then be compared to the real time and percent error and deviation will be calculated to see the accuracy of the information that is sent to the user from the watch.

Future Work

• Start testing • Make a night mode • Add more vibrating motors • Make the design more compact • Add more notification processes

Timeline

Starttestingafterthisfair.

AnalyzeDataMakeanight

modeAddmore

vibratingmotors

MakethedesignmorecompactAddmorenoti?icationprocesses

Testmorevibrationtypesanalyzemoredata

Decision Matrix

Important Aspects Weight (out of ten) Idea 1 (Auditory noises) Idea 2 (Vibrations)

Safe 10 5 5

Cheap 8 4 4

Useful for the VI 8 4 4

Non obtrusive for others around 6 2 5

Can be used in multiple environments 4 2 4

Lightweight 6 4.5 4

Simple 5 4 4

High Energy Conservation 4 4 3.5

Small 3 3 2.5

Total 366 206 225.5

Results

Figure 1. This is the hardware of this device. This shows all the wiring and connections to the board from the Arduino based modules.

Figure 2. This is one of the first prototypes designed. It has the modules and some battery attached to the Arduino board.

Figure 3. This is the latest sketchup model for the casing of the watch device.

Figure 4. On the left: this is the user interface of the Android app. On the right: the blueprint for the app.