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I had just moved to a new apartment, and was constantly looking up directions on my phone. It would have been a fine solution, except I was usually biking while doing so. I wanted to create a safer option for people who use their phones to give them directions while biking.

For my Tangible User Interfaces course, I worked with two other students to design a system where a user could look up directions on their (Android) phone, and then safely store it in their backpack. The phone would communicate over bluetooth to a microcontroller, which would cause either the left or the right glove to vibrate to indicate a right or left turn approaching.

I was responsible for the gloves, and sewed in a microcontroller, LEDs, and vibrating motors. I also programmed the microcontroller in C so that it would control the operation of the LEDs and motors, and helped create the interactive mockup of our “app”.” – Margarita Miranda