Course Description
Under the
guidance of Dr. Crowthers, Mass Academy juniors undertake an
assistive technology project as the second part of their STEM course.
This project aims to create a device that can help people in the
local community. Rishit, Vatsal, Medhansh, and I (otherwise known as
the Tech Tanks) decided to create a device that would be able to
increase the directional awareness of individuals who have auditory
impairments.
Problem Statement and Design Approach
One of the largest constraints people with auditory
impairments face is the inability to participate in conversations in
a regular manner. Although the obvious issue in this situation is
that they are unable to speak to others due to not being able to hear
themselves, and therefore are unable to hear speech, there are
different methods around this such as sign language and more. In
contrast, another less obvious issue is that lack of directional
guidance in terms of where speech is arriving from, especially with
glasses that are able to do live speech to text captioning. As a
result, there is a gap in the market which we intend to offer through
this direction guidance. Therefore, our group decided to create
directional glasses that would be able to aid auditory impaired
individuals. After exploring multiple different designs, we
eventually picked a headband design. Essentially, there would be
microphones on the side of the glasses, and this would then help a
built-in display provide these auditory cues.
Engineering Process and Solution
Throughout our engineering process, we improved upon our device based
on the feedback we received from clients. While there is a image of
our final iteration on our right, we needed to make changes to our
device multiple times to reach our final product. Initially, we
strived to create a device that had compartments on the side.
However, we found that this would make the device very clunky, which
would then make the user experience worse. So, we decided to go with
a headband design. Essentially, the compartment would be on the back
of the headband, which would allow for a more comfortable experience
and a more effective way to make our device work. After meeting with
peers, we also found some ways to make the wiring less clunky, which
allowed for us to add other features. One such feature was another
breadboard, which allowed us to connect more wires to circuits to
make our microphones work. By making these adjustments, we were able
to end with our final product. Overall, Rishit, Vatsal, Medhansh, and
I are grateful to have the opportunity to create a product that can
help thousands in the community.
