The Personal Range Finder
Today’s blog comes to us from Justin Downs, a student at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) in the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University. Justin has a broad range of talents that he’s explored since getting his Bachelor’s degree at the School of Visual Arts in New York in 2002, including welding, for which he is certified in 3 different areas, mechanical engineering, in which he holds one certification, and technology, which he studied while at the New York City College of Technology. I came across Justin while doing research on the Botanicalls project a few weeks ago (they both had presentations at the winter NYU Interactive Telecommmunications Biannual showcase, covered in this video at Rocketboom). Justin is working on a project called the “Personal Range Finder”, which he writes about here, and I think you’ll find it as interesting as I did. I am working with Justin to provide a demo of his project at the October New York Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Meetup, so if you’re interested check out the group and sign up for the meeting when it becomes available!
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Hello readers! My name’s Justin and I’ve been working on a device called the Personal Range Finder (patent pending). This is a device that extends the sense of touch to describe a 3 dimensional space. This could add extra support to visual mapping or take the place of object sensing that would normally be done optically.
The device is mounted to your forearm allowing a directional scanning of the environment guided by the position of your arm. The range finder operates by utilizing a sonar sensor paired with a micro-controller to achieve data input and output. Any number of sensors can be used with this design from IR to ping sensors achieving a customizable device. In operation the micro-controller uses information from the sensor and digests it with an algorithm, this gives an output, which describes spatial distance as a tactile pressure on your arm.
The major concern with the output is to find a tactile response that matches the physical space in regards to the rate of change your skin can discern. In my experiments the nerve response of your arm is only good to about ten feet. This distance can be changed according to the individuals sensitivity.
In making the personal range finder I focused on four things in terms of the ideology of the design. I wanted to make a device that:
- is useful — an object that had application and utility without the need of much explanation;
- is cost-effective – based on technology that is off-the-shelf and easily obtained;
- is scalable — to be able to be easily customizable to the individual owner; and
- has low production cost based on labor hours — make the concept essentially open source so the actual implementation would generate the cost and design advancements.
The major challenges with this device are:
- functionality — how well it actually works;
- budget — keeping the construction of the object under a specific amount, in this case $100;
- dissemination of the device — having a network of users to get feedback.
These are the issues that I try to keep in mind when designing any device. The current mode of design and product understanding lags behind the technological implementations that now exist. Most industry and design functions are from an industrial revolution mind-set where achievement and advancement were only possible through industries of scale. This is no longer true for 70 percent of the product market. The ability to have flexible applications and devices has blossomed with the advent of dependencies based on software and accessibility instead of the justification of large centralized labor and the modern day consumer it created.
It is once again feasible to try and design for the individual in a cost effective manner or better yet have the individual be able to customize their devices by themselves. This design technique also allows for the ability to reuse and retrofit technologies to new uses cutting down on production cost and waste. The job of the designer is now not to produce a mode of function but to let the individual function better in their own mode. This point is especially true in the field of medical and physical assistance where the vast majority of problems are as individualized as the people themselves. With every individual a new implementation of a device needs to be designed and built. The real solutions will come from the ability to implement product systems that will allow the individual to easily harness the power of a device while it adapts to their own personal life.
To learn more about The Personal Range Finder and Justin’s other projects, visit www.johnhenryshammer.com.
Justin Downs
Personal Range Finder
footloose_757@hotmail.com
