Two fascinating projects involving audio feedback from an industrial design student at the Technical University, Eindhoven, Bram van der Vlist.
The image above comes from a project called ‘Extend Your Senses’. In this project, Bram explored how sound could be used to provide athletes with added feedback about the movements they made. The sounds were generated based on signals from acceleration sensors attached to the equipment or bodies of athletes. The intention was that the audio feedback could support the athletes in learning and refining their movements, especially in relation to the kinaesthetic sense. This is the sense we have of the relative position of the parts of our body.
In another project, called Bat Biker, Bram developed a system to give feedback for blind mountain bikers. In the design, the bike in front is ridden by a sighted cyclist and equipped with a loud-speaker that changes sound depending on the kind of terrain the bike was riding over. The cyclist on the bike riding behind could learn to interpret these sounds and adapt their riding accordingly.