Anusha Ravishankar
Auditory Aid Apparatus
In this course, the main criteria was to structure a design process. This was coordinated for all engineering majors to get accustomed to design thinking, hence, the groups were divided amongst various engineering majors and industrial designers. The goal was to follow a step-by-step process:
1. Design question
2. Concepting
3. Preliminary design
4. Detailing
5. Realization
6. Testing
7. Evaluation
EXPERTISE:
User & Society
Technology & Realization
03/09/2020 - 27/10/2020
ROLE:
3D CAD design
Sketching
User Research
The design is build with the purpose to guide the users towards certain sounds. This device contains sound sensors. The sounds detected by these sensors will be indicated to the user via LED lights. Depending on the loudness and direction of the sound, the LED lights will light up at a certain brightness and in a certain direction. Compared to the devices that have already been produced before, the A.A.A. is not only able to detect sound and the sound direction but also give haptic feedback to the user to draw their attention, signal that there is a sound and then with the use of an LED matrix show the direction from which the sound is coming from.
PROJECT GOAL
Many different disabilities where considered when figuring out the design goal, such as visual impairment, auditory impairment and epilepsy. Thus, an auditory impairment aid for in-house use was decided on as a design goal. The team particularly wanted to focus on helping individuals with auditory impairments to perform in-house activities. This group often faces difficulties with hearing important sounds, such as a fire alarm and this might be detrimental to their health and safety.
900 MIL
deaf people by
2050
PROBLEMS
This makes auditory impairment one of the biggest disabilities in the world at the moment. There are already many different devices on the market dedicated to improving lives of people with an auditory disability. However, when looking at the amount of people that suffer from an auditory impairment, we believe it is not enough to only assist these people with predictable, daily tasks but we should aim to improve their standard of living and help them perform unpredictable daily tasks.
A problem arises for deaf people, the late arrival to the scene of an in-house accident is often not a pretty sight.
The goal is to fix the issue of lack of situational awareness of auditory impaired people. It is necessary for them to be able to know that something is going on in a house.
Due to the fact that they cannot hear sounds the device has to have a certain translation of sound to some feedback which is apparent for auditory impaired people. This could be haptic feedback, feedback in the shape of light or another kind of feedback.
OPPORTUNITY
Technical drawing (top, right), Final sketch (left)
CAD design
CODE
First code for sound sensors
The second part of the code was written for the LED matrix
The last part of the code was written to control the vibration/haptic module
Within this project, I decided to practice my sketching and prototyping skills and improve them. Hence, I focused my goals on 3D modeling which sparked my long-term interest, which I continue to water in my free time. Furthermore, I decided to improve my sketching skills since I hadn't completely taken up courses that broadened my sketching expertise. I put up the steps I worked on throughout the design process.
Here is the final report to Auditory Aid Apparatus: Click Here