Innovative designs for the handicapped

I know it does seem that I have been blabbering on a lot about 3D Printing. So for your benefit, JB Design has decided to blog on the innovative products that are on or nearly on, the market for people with disabilities.

Blindness

This must be one of the most terrifying, unsettling and less-understood handicaps. I personally have no idea what it would be like to be blind. I can barely go 10 minutes with walking around my apartment with my eyes shut. It is true, that if you lose one of your senses, one or more of your others increase in sensitivity. One of the most heightened senses for the blind is the sense of touch.

A team of Harvard undergraduates understood this first hand. For many years, a young man called George helped a visually impaired school back in his home country of Greece. At Harvard, George had a roommate who on many occasions brought 3D Printed objects back to their room.

I apologise, I thought I could get away from the 3D Printing for one blog, but this is a truly inspirational story so please bear with me.

George loved paintings, and he came up with the idea of “Midas Touch” - ‘translating’ paintings in to a form that the blind community could appreciate. A simple technique of ‘relief’ allowed the idea to become a reality, protruding the images out from the wall.

His Harvard team have successfully created many reliefs, a couple names you may recognise – the “Mona Lisa” and “Starry Night” – are two representations. They won several funding’s and awards amounting of approximately $75,000 / £48,200 / €57,000.

When one goes on the internet and searches 3D Printing, one would most likely see a “3D Printed gun” it really is amazing to think that resources are allocated that way than rather to use the resources to more ‘socially responsible’ issues.

Courtesy of www.vrvis.at

An absolutely superb website to see the future of innovations for the blind is on ‘Trend Hunter’. This trendy, art, design and innovation website have highlighted a whopping 53 innovations for the blind. Take a look. It is fantastic what is here already and what is to come:

Trend Hunter

Sport

Being a lover of sport, I find it inspirational of the many people who embrace their handicap and play sports. Tennis personally being my first sport, I find it fantastic to know that the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) – the main tennis body of Great Britain – is helping provide the service of the sport for the visually impaired. The following link explains how the LTA are including everyone within Great Britain to enjoy Tennis. Some more inspirational stories:

Tennis for the Visually impaired

Courtesy of www.lta.org.uk

There are many other sports that have the facilities to include the visually impaired – Archery, athletics, football, cricket, ten pin bowling, swimming and many more.

Timekeeping

This may seem a silly question. But how do the blind tell what the time is if no-one else is around?

Yes there are a couple timepieces that come to mind initially. Talking watches – however these may be hard to hear in some situations. Secondly, analogue watches that have removable covers, but the drawbacks are that they can be difficult to use and quite expensive to repair.

Yes you have guessed it. There ‘is’ a solution / a product / an invention out there that combats all of these drawbacks. It is called the ‘Bradley’ watch. It is a watch that allows blind people ‘feel’ the time. I mentioned the word “combats” in a previous sentence. There was no pun intended but this device was created by a Lieutenant Brad Snyder – who worked as a bomb defuser expert in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately he lost his vision in an IED explosion. But that did not stop him lead a normal life. Oh no. He won not only one, but two Gold medals at the London 2012 Paralympics. The stylish timepiece he invented uses small ball bearings instead of the conventional hands. One ball for the minutes and another signifies the hours. There are raised bars to indicate the positions of the numbers.

The ball bearings are held in place cleverly with magnets (that is all that is revealed from the schematics of the watch I’m afraid). So with a shake of the wrist, the ball bearings wobble back effortlessly into place.

The video in the JB Design Blog below shows the watch in action.

It is clear that the visually impaired, or any other handicapped persons for that matter, should not feel separated.

Innovation is the future of bringing society closer together.