An American mechanical engineer has come up with a novel navigation device that can guide people through the dark via the sense of touch alone.
The device, a shape-shifting cube, was recently used in an experimental theatre production in London where the audience was kept in darkness most of the time and the cube guided them around the set.
It was developed by Dr. Adam Spiers, a postdoctoral associate in the School of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at Yale University.
The top half of the cube twists to direct the user toward their next destination and extends forward to indicate the distance to reach it. Rather than look at the device, as with a smartphone, users know where to go by feeling the changing shapes.
"The simple idea is that when you've arrived at your target destination, it becomes a little cube again," said Spiers, who specialises in the field of haptics, the sense of touch.
The theatre production was called “Flatland” and was designed to be enjoyed equally by sighted and visually impaired people.
Spiers is analysing data from the way people moved around the set and was surprised at the speed they moved at, just 0.3 m/s slower than average.
He says, while the theatre use was a novel experiment, he feels there could be other applications, particularly for visually impaired people where he feels its unobtrusive nature is an advantage.
"One reason I don't like using audio cues for visually impaired people is that sound is pretty much how they appreciate the world," he said.
"If you visit a city, you look around and you get an impression. That's what visually impaired people do also, but with audio. If they're walking somewhere they usually know some audible landmarks - 'There's the noisy cafe on the corner, there's this fountain over here.' These things help to know where you are."