EurekaFest is a yearly event held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that showcases the prototype inventions of high school students from around the country. The inventions consist of various gadgets and devices aimed at helping solve real-world problems.
One of the more impressive ideas I saw during the two days I spent covering the event was a prototype “sensing” cane for blind people. The cane features sensors that can detect objects up to eight feet away, at which point the cane’s handle begins buzzing once per second and increases in intensity as objects get closer.
There were actually two separate teams working on sensing canes – one from Harvard, MA and one from Norfolk, VA. I spoke with the team from Norfolk, which you watch in the above video. Their prototype cane cost only about $140 to put together and consists of PVC piping and an Arduino-like logic board that handles all the information from the sensors. Apparently an earlier prototype was made from carbon fiber, but it turned out to be too expensive and not as easy to work with as PVC.
Other interesting concepts included the following:
Pressure-sensitive illuminated computer cable: USB cable that lights up when you squeeze it, allowing you to easily identify a particular cable among other cables plugged into your computer.
Biofilm membrane for oil remediation: A $40 apparatus that attaches to a well in a rural village and filters out oil from water affected by an oil spill. The actual oil is eaten by microorganisms present in one of the filtering sections of the piping.
Alternative energy refrigerator for northern climates: This is basically a $300 attachment that can be easily installed on just about any refrigerator. It hooks up to an outside vent and uses cold winter air to decrease the refrigerator’s energy consumption by up to 50% during the winter.
Assistive mechanics creeper for car repair: An apparatus that allows people with bad backs, bad knees, and the handicapped to easily work underneath cars. “This invention will allow a person to slide from a wheelchair onto the device, lower, and recline backwards to the position of a traditional creeper. This can be done without the person ever having to get up and adjust it. The device will be able to hold a maximum weight of 300 pounds.”
Cooperative cruise control for hybrid commuter cars: A series of sensors attached to multiple cars in the same caravan that allow one lead car to be followed automatically by up to four other cars.
I also got a chance to check out a hybrid electric car developed by a high school in New Hampshire. The vehicle was made out of a motorcycle frame and featured a gasoline generator attachment for extending the mileage. That, plus all of the other inventions can be found in the video at the top of this post. And here’s a list of all the other inventions as well.
Lemelson-MIT Program’s EurekaFest [MIT.edu]
Like this video? View more here…
Posts like this are why I read this blog.
WRONG. I need to know if someone used TWITTER today. what’s going on with TWITTER. where’s my SWEET TWEET OF THE WEEK
I agree its posts like this that made this blog… The problem I have is these posts are becoming like the needle in the haystack… Too many IPHONE and TWITTER posts in the mix
I am the biggest cynic of all people and this is ONE OF THE BEST blogs in a while. Stop with all iPhone and Twitter crap. These are the types of inventions which make America great.
This stuff is amazing.
blogs like this is why post like this
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Great, enjoyed reading this.
I am an alumni of Palos Verdes High School, which built the hybrid commuter cars. Way to go Sea Kings.
Great post. My town’s local high school had a project listed. And I heard about it first via Tech Crunch… not my local paper or news station.
We have MSc and PhD students at our lab studying and developing enactive devices (like the canes in this post) and finding that with enough training, blind and visually impaired people can not only navigate as well as people who can see, but the areas of their brain used by the visual system begin to show similar activity. I can’t believe that work is coming out of a high school now.
That biofilm oil filtering device, though… that is huge.
I like the refrigerator idea. I live in AK and thought about stuff like this. I thought of how I can use the exhaust from my oil heater to heat the garage. Despite the 94% efficiency of oil heat, the exhaust is still plenty warm and wasted out to the cold air outside. I only assume without testing, that any back pressure from attaching any length of hose to the exhaust may cause problems with the heater. Any thoughts on this?
After reading all the wild headlines at http://detentionslip.org, it’s good to see some positive for a change!
Im a student at Brentwood Highschool and i was part of the team, (the one that made the biomembrane). we worked hard on it and im glad we can continue working on it, four members of the team are currently working in stonybrook university to create the next generation of the membrane, we believe that this could actually help the world. so thanks for your support. and great job brentwood.