Where: USA
Year: 2007
Few lines description: Nate Barshay prototyped the device, called eyeRobot, using and hacking the existing iRobot Roomba. EyeRobot guides blind and visually impaired users through cluttered and populated environments. The user indicates his/her desired motion by intuitively pushing on and twisting the handle. The robot takes this information and finds a clear path down a hallway or across a room, using sonar to steer the user in a suitable direction around static and dynamic obstacles. It is also a relatively simple machine, requiring a few inexpensive sensors, various potentiometers, some hardware, and of course, a Roomba Create.
How is it open?
- The project is downloadable on instructables.com platform under the licence Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 Generic (CC BY-NC-SA 2.5). Anyone can download all the necessary elements for building it. Anyone can download the instructions.
- Anyone can clone and fork it.
- The code is available for free, a Roomba hardware needs to be bought.
- EyeRobot still provides a much cheaper alternative than guide dogs, which cost over $12,000 and are useful for only 5 years, while the prototype was built for well under $400.
- He didn’t prototype this project with a specific community, but he did it for a specific kind of users: blind and visually impaired people.
How is it “care”?
- It solves an everyday issue for blind and visually impaired people. It helps their movements in cluttered and populated environments.
Link: http://www.instructables.com/id/eyeRobot—The-Robotic-White-Cane/