Air Throb

Today we are surrounded by different sounds, some that brighten our ears while others hinder them. Unfortunately this is not the case for all people, as 5% of the world's population are deaf or have hearing loss. Alongside this percentage of the world's deaf population, there is also a many cases of accidents due to hearing loss.

For that reason, in order to reduce the risks suffered by deaf people, I decided to create Air Throb, a device that is placed on the head capable of recording sounds to warn, in order to be able to prevent people hearing impaired from accidents.

Air Throp is a device capable of exerting the function of a sixth sense, works with the triangulation of three sound sensors and four vibration motors. The sound sensors are located at 120 degrees one respect to the other, being able to record the sounds that surround us the 360 degrees of our head. The vibration motors are placed at 90 degrees one respect the other; in the forehead, in the two sides of the head and behind the head.

The functioning of the device, is simple, in the case of triangulation of microphones, if the device detects a sound higher than threshold, Air Throb is able to vibrate one of the motors to warn us of the direction of the sound, either: front, back, right or left, also the user has the possibility to regulate the intensity of vibration, thanks to the potentiometer also placed on the back of the crown.

To develop this wearable, we need all these components:

- (x3) Sound sensors

- (x4) Vibration motors

- (x1) Arduino one

- (x1) Protoboard

-(x20) Jumpers

- (x1) Baterry 9V

- (x4) 220 Ohms resistances

- (x4) leds

- (x1) Potentiometer

- Welder

- Silicone

- 1 meter of fine cable

- 3D model design

- Arduino IDE

For the operation and interaction of Air Throb with the user, I have used the Arduino program, where I have defined all the possible situations that can occur when we are using the product, and then I have uploaded the code to the Arduino Uno board.

To check the functioning of the code, I mounted the circuit that would go inside the case of Air Throb in a protoboard, instead of connecting the vibration motors I have placed leds simulating the four positions that would be connected the motors in the head.

Once defined everything and check its perfect operation, I designed the housing where the entire electrical circuit will be mounted. In this case being a model, I have used the Arduino One and for that reason the Arduino is not incorporated into the product due to its large dimensions, just as the sound sensors used are very large and have not allowed me to generate an optimized housing.

The design of Air Throb has been modeled with PTC Creo 5, here I leave you the files attached (STL) to be able to print the housings.

Finally when I printed the 3D housings, I proceeded to assemble and weld the Air Throb components.

The distribution I have carried out to make the product: The components of the casing, sound sensors. These are joined all the cables that belong to the negative port, all those that go positive port and finally a cable that goes from the analog pin of each sensor to the pin assigned to each one:

- Mic1 : A1 --> Front

- Mic2 : A2 --> Left

- MIc.3: A3 --> Right

In the housing we also find the potentiometer that is connected to pin A4, the negative cable goes to a different port than the housing, where the voltages of each vibration motor will fall. The positive potentiometer is connected to the 3.6v Arduino pin.

In the second piece, cover, we find connected the vibration motors with their resistance. The four negatives of the 4 motors have welded in the same cable a resistance of 220 ohms, i in the other leg of the resistance there is a cable that goes connected to the negative of the potentiometer. The red, positive wires of the motors are connected in different digital pins:
- Front D6

- Right D2

- Left D4

- Back D8

Finally we connected each pin to the Arduino One, a total of 12 different ones:

- 4 analog

- 4 digital

- 2 GND

- 2 outlets (5v and 3.6v)

Once we have connected all the cables in the Arduino pins, we will observe that the sound sensors will indicate that this ignition is on because a red light will be high. In case one of them receives a greater sound than the threshold, we also realize that a green light is on.