A Student of the Faculty of Engineering, YSU, Invents an Ultrasonic Blind Wand

4
Mar
2013

When navigation aids for visually impaired people have been invented, wands still become a choice. However, it is still inefficient as the users can only feel things or blockages in a limited reach. Seeing this phenomenon, Tunas Bintar Pamungkas, a student of the Electronic Engineering Study Program, Faculty of Engineering, Yogyakarta State University tried to integrate a system to refine the function of blind wands. His innovation was named “Ultrasonic Blind Wand”.
Generally, the equipment made under the supervision of a lecturer of the Faculty of Engineering, Dr. Ratna Wardhani, worked by utilizing ultrasonic waves emitted by a censor to measure the distance of an object. When SRF04 censor works, the microcontroller automatically actives a buzzer to notify the user if there is a blockage or a road hole.
From the test that had been done, the wand which spent 1.5 million rupiahs could notify the users when finding an object in 1 until 120 centimetres distance. It could also detect an object in 20 until 90 centimetres height and road holes.
Despite his success in creating the innovation, Binar still felt that his invention still needed many developments such as replacing the wheels into bigger ones so that it could be used in wavy roads. The output buzzer also had better to be replaced by a playback series by using an IC Voice Recorder so that the notification would be in the form of sound. (hryo)

submitted by administrator