
By now, hopefully, most of you will have seen Steve Hoefferโs Tacit haptic wrist rangefinder project in MAKE Vol 29. MAKE regular David Prutchi recently saw it, and just sent me a link to this functionally similar device built by his daughter Hannah back in October.
While Steveโs rangefinder goes โall outโ with an embedded microcontroller, โstereoโ ultrasonic distance sensors, and matching paired haptic servos, Hannahโs design keeps it super simple: An off-the shelf IR distance sensor, an easy analog circuit, and a pager motor. Unlike ultrasonics, IR sensors can be confused by sunlight or other strong IR sources in the environment, but if you just want to experiment with โbat gloveโ technology, or if you want to make a large number of sensors, Hannahโs SharkVision design may be for you. The Prutchis are talking about building an entire suit covered with them! [Thanks, David!]
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