Design Problem and Solution

Because many people don’t understand what it feels like to be blind, I created a blind simulator in which you put on your head to understand what blind people go through. Blindness isn’t just a blindfold over your eyes, or even closing your eyes to sleep. When someone is blind, some see a varied shade of an unknown color. They don’t just see black, they see light to dark. Because blindness is misinterpreted, I took on the task of creating a blind simulator so ordinary people can see what it feels like to be blind.

Further Elaboration

In order to build empathy and have a better understanding of blindness, it is necessary to reenact what blind people see. I created a helmet that you put on your head which mirrors how blind people see. In my blind simulator, when you put the helmet on, a button is pushed down which completes the circuit to the Arduino. This rotates the cardboard cutout on the outside. There is also a button on the inside which turns on lights to make the effect of blindness even stronger. When I first started working on blindness, I thought of a pair of goggles that you put on to simulate being blind. I soon realized that blindness wasn’t just darkness or black. I had to make something much bigger. I then switched to the idea of a helmet with an outer layer that spins around the helmet and your head. This is what I created my final project on. Throughout the project, I encountered a couple of challenges such as the length and height of the outer border of the blind simulator. I was constantly switching and moving around how big and tall the cutout should be. In the end, I figured it out and created an awesome project.

Iterations

When I first started thinking of how to imitate blindness, I thought of a pair of goggles which could attach to your eyes and you see lights and darkness. As I did more research, however, I found that blind people don’t just see pure black, they see a range from light to dark. As I was thinking, I found that a pair of goggles were just to small to fit everything inside that was necessary to imitate being blind. I needed something bigger that you could still see into.

With this, I thought of a headpiece and a helmet. The helmet would be still while the outer shell moved and could rotate in circles. The helmet would have a build in special rotating system where the outer shell could move but the helmet could stay in the same place. With this idea, I created a small version out of cardboard which I ripped and cut by hand.

After my hand cut mini version, I laser cut cardboard and put all of the pieces together. Instead of tape, which I used in my previous iteration, I used a hot glue cut which secured it more tightly. Again, this iteration had the special rotating thing in the helmet.

My next iteration was very similar to the previous one as there were only small differences. I added circles in the inside of the outside border to make it a perfect circle. I also made the cuts smaller while the border was bigger. I also found a helmet so I attached it to the special rotating thing to make sure that it worked. Sure enough, while someone was wearing a helmet, the outer border could spin.

My final iteration was similar to the last one although they were not identical. I added holes in the border to let a minimal amount of light through so it is closer to what blind people see. I also added black felt in the inside to make it more realistic. In addition, I completely got rid of the special rotating helmet as I put a motor on the helmet itself and it did the job. Additionally, I added lights and a mirror at the very top of the blind simulator. As all of the little details matter, I spend a lot of time designing and figuring out the best solution for each little detail.