MiDoRe

Team: Diksha S, Divya P, Raaghavi S, Akhil G, Sugandha K

Problem Statement

When visually impaired people have to read staff notation, they have to run their fingers over the sheet, memorise the piece, and then play it on their instrument. This process is time-consuming and they are dependent on their memory.

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Solution

So, we came up with MiDoRe. MiDoRe is an assistive wearable that converts braille notes into skin impulses, therefore giving the musician real-time updates of what note they have to play next.

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Process

Empathise

At first, the problem statement was to design a melody music (western) instrument for visually impaired children of the age of 10-15 years, to assist them in learning music. But after meeting the user we found out a common problem faced by them. Visually impaired musicians and learners are forced to read braille music, memorize a phrase and practice that, making it difficult and time-consuming for them.

Define

We aim to bridge the gap by creating a solution that would enable visually impaired musicians to et the notes, thereby saving their time and reducing their dependency on memory.

Ideate

We decided to create a tech that would assist the visually impaired by utilizing live haptic feedback instead of sheet music, to read music, which would essentially help reduce the time involved for the visually impaired to read and memorize bits of sheet music, before producing it.

Prototype

We made four paper prototypes for different placements to recognize the optimal area of sensitivity. Different wearables wearable created for the arm, palm, wrist, and dorsal side. These prototypes were tested on different users before developing the final prototype. The musical notes are converted into braille notes and sent to six vibrating modules on this wearable mimicking the braille notation. The wearable is placed on the user's arm were they get the braille notes in real time to play the instrument.

User Testing

The final prototype was tested on the targeted user, their feedback was recorded for future scope and further development of the product. The most notable feedback was the size of the wearable is big and it should be closer to each other so that it can be easily recognized as a braille note. Moreover, at some points, the vibrations spread which hindered the notes hence the placement of the wearable should be tested further for optimum results.

Future scope

Based on the user feedback, the size of the wearable can be made smaller. The Sharps and flats in the music notes should be included in the notation. Moreover there could be more songs that can be converted, stored, and sent to the device