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.