Automated squinting instead of glasses, contacts, or lasik

February 22, 2012 By Leave a Comment

[Lee] is nearsighted and has had it with contacts and glasses. When trying to figure out an alternative, he looked at the core of the problem. The eye is not shaped correctly and therefore cannot focus adequately. The solution is to change the shape of the lens. This is exactly what lasik (laser eye surgery) does, but instead of going under the incredibly bright knife [Lee] built some headgear that pulls on your face to reshape your eye.

The hardware is from an old portable CD player. The sled that moved the laser lens has been repurposed to pull a thread taped to the skin at the corner of his eye. He built a control system that lets him adjust the tension by moving his fingers. Basically when the skin is pulled tight it causes him to squint and possibly reshapes the cornea just a bit. We’re not sold on the idea, but we can’t poo-poo the experiment; who knows what discovery this could lead to? We’re just glad he didn’t use electrical impulses to hack his peepers.

You can find some test video embedded after the break.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Medical hacks Tagged With: , , ,

See in the dark with this bracelet build

February 13, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Even though she’s only in 8th grade, [Hannah Prutchi] is turning into a very respectable builder. She designed SharkVision, a wearable distance sensor that is meant to help the blind find objects they might bump into.

The SharkVision gets its name from shark’s ability to ‘see’ prey in their surroundings by sensing the local magnetic field. Instead of building her own Ampullae of Lorenzini, [Hannah] decided to take the easy route and use a few infrared sensors mounted to a bracelet. Whenever something is picked up by the proximity sensor, a voltage is applied to a pager motor telling the wearer they’re about to run into something.

[Hannah] and her classmates have successfully tested the SharkVision bracelet by walking around their classroom with eyes closed. They didn’t bump into anything, a fact [Hannah] attributes to neuroplasticity. We think it’s a neat build, but we’re wondering if this could be given to a population of blind people.

Filed Under: Medical hacks Tagged With:

Replacing a phantom limb with a Kinect

February 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Nearly everyone has heard of phantom limb syndrome. It occurs sometimes after a limb is amputated, but the mind of the patient still thinks that the limb is attached. Generally regarded as a mix-up in the wiring of the damaged nerves, a phantom limb can be very painful. [Ben] has been working on a way to alleviate some of the pain and frustration associated with a phantom limb and fortunately for us he went for a Kinect, VR goggles, and gyroscope build.

Today, most therapies for phantom limb syndrome use a Ramachandran Mirror Box. The theory behind the mirror box is pretty simple – if someone recently lost a hand, just insert one hand in one side of the box and the arm stump on the other side. Looking into the box from the side with the good hand will trick the patient’s brain into thinking the amputated hand is still there. It’s a good therapy that has been very successful, but [Ben] thought he could do something that is a little more immersive.

[Ben]’s project uses a Kinect and VR goggles to put the patient in a virtual environment. With the help of a few gyroscopes, the patient gets a virtual representation of their whole self projected into their goggles. The technique isn’t terribly different from VR phobia treatment, although there’s much more electronics and math involved in [Ben]’s build. The first test subject said his pain was going down, so it looks like he might have a success on his hand (no pun intended).

Check out the demos of [Ben]’s treatment plan after the break.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Kinect hacks, Medical hacks Tagged With: ,
Newer Posts »