Here I am, back again, trying to stick to my word of more regular blogs. As I've said a good three or four times now that I would blog each step of this project, I've decided to make good on word finally and do just that. Despite a few throwbacks and confusions, I'm still really keen to have the rider feedback in the helmet, rather than on the bike. I do believe (and have a handful of bikers that agree with me) that in-helmet feedback would be the way to make this product stand out from the rest. I'm also reasonably sure that light will be the way forward for the notification 'form', but I'm still not ruling out sound or touch. Over the last few days, I've chucked together a couple of super basic prototypes, a way to get the ball rolling with idea generation. Despite not planning on using an ultrasonic sensor in the final product, I've wired one up to an Arduino, setting it up to turn on an amber LED when anything gets within 10cm of it. Pretty simple, but it gives an idea of how lights would look/fit inside a helmet. Heres a picture of the prototype I made:
Told you it was super basic. Here I've extended the LED off the Arduino by soldering it to longer wires and slotted it between the padding on the helmet. By attaching it to longer cables, it meant that I could stand up and move about without pulling the Arduino off my desk. This prototype proved to be a complete flop, as even at full brightness, the LED isn't visible enough during the day. Onto the second prototype:
Here I've taken a transparent piece of acrylic, laser etched a circle onto it, cut it out and then moulded it to the curve of the helmet. I've attached the same LED further into the helmets padding so when the sensor detects movement and lights up the LED, it sends light down the acrylic, lighting up the circle but not the rest of plastic. This leaves the rest of the acrylic completely transparent, ensuring they continue to have a maximum view of the road ahead.
As I continue on I want to adapt this second prototype, building on this idea of a Heads Up Display (HUD). If I can get it working, I think it would be the best way to display information to the rider rather than on the bike.
That's all for today. Got a lot to crack on with!
See you all soon.
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