The blind innovator - be your target group. Have you ever thought about an invention that would help blind people improving their day-to-day live? Have you talked to a blind person about your idea? No? Big mistake. Assumptions about your target audience that aren't confirmed with the group are a rather good way of leaving the path of responsible innovation in the earliest stages of your innovation process.

• how does a blind person find a doorbell at an unknown entrance/house and how does it find the correct one on the panel?
• a blind person may be guided by another navigation system to the house/address or a place in the vicinity. let’s find a solution for the “last mile” to the correct entrance, or just a solution for the doorbell-finding-issue.
• FabLab: Bluetooth beacons prototype would be a solution, and a kind of smartphone based system to first find the door and afterwards ring the correct doorbell. wlan doorbell system or whatever
• for visiting friends etc of course you could just call the friend when you’re close to your house. but if you’re visiting official institutions or offices, the doorbell is just the first obstacle to overcome. in-building navigation is a completely different topic.
• the other question is how realistic it would be that a blind person has to struggle with the doorbell problem, as there might be usually someone accompanying him on the first visit (a seeing eye dog wouldn’t be of great help in this scenario)
  • there is irresponsible innovation all along on the way by just ignoring all the aspects of what happens before and after and by just concentrating on the doorbell challenge
• best idea: ocr app for reading the doorbell name plates and guiding the blind person to the right doorbell
  • this is what is going to be the topic for the workshop as there is no extensive need for hardware prototyping

Topic:

A device should be developed, with which self-hurtful-behaving people (for example, in the context of borderline personality disorder) can cause themselves non-harmful pain, unobtrusively and inconspicuously, controlled and documented.

Details:

All over the world between 1 and 3 percent of people (depending on the source) are regularly causing themselves severe pain and injury to relieve emotional tension, to punish themselves or to feel their bodies more intensely. Self-injurious behavior may occur with borderline personality disorder, eating disorder, depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, psychotic and schizophrenic bouts, with mental retardation, autism and other mental disorders. Examples of self-injurious behavior are: scratch or cut the skin, pulling out hair, beat the head against the wall, pierce the skin with needles, scald, burn, etch and so on.

In therapy, sufferers learn, among other things, to use painful, but not hurtful acts of compensation, the so-called skills. Examples of skills are: to flip a rubber band against the wrist, crush ice cubes in a fist or keep them in the mouth, chew chillies, take an ice cold shower, smell ammonia, running with bare legs by nettles and so on.

During the workshop, a skill tool is to be developed that allows sufferers to cause themselves pain unobtrusively and inconspicuously (for example, at school), controlled (without really hurting) and documented (in the sense of a diary). The wide range of psychological, social, societal and technical implication of the topic is being discussed intensively.

Prototype:

The prototype consists of two parts: the hardware and software. Hardware: a device that is worn discreetly on the body and that can cause a metered pain stimulus. Software: a smartphone app that, wirelessly paired, controls the pain-device and documents the pain events.

Thema:

Es soll ein Gerät entwickelt werden, mit dem sich selbstverletzend verhaltende Menschen (zum Beispiel im Rahmen einer Borderline-Störung) unauffällig, kontrolliert und dokumentierbar Schmerz zufügen können.

Details:

Weltweit fügen sich (je nach Quelle) zwischen 1 und 3 Prozent der Menschen regelmäßig selbst starke Schmerzen und Verletzungen zu, um emotionale Spannungen abzubauen, sich selbst zu bestrafen oder um ihren Körper intensiv wahrzunehmen. Selbstverletzendes Verhalten kann auftreten bei Borderline-Persönlichkeitsstörung, Essstörung, Depression, Zwangsstörung, psychotischen und schizophrenen Schüben, bei geistiger Behinderung, Autismus und anderen seelischen Störungen. Beispiele für selbstverletzendes Verhalten: Haut ritzen oder aufschneiden, Haare ausreißen, Kopf gegen die Wand schlagen, Nadeln in die Haut stechen, verbrühen, verbrennen, verätzen und so weiter.

In der Therapie lernen Betroffene unter anderem, schmerzhafte, aber nicht verletzende Ersatzhandlungen einzusetzen, die sogenannten Skills. Beispiele für Skills: Gummiband gegen das Handgelenk schnippsen, Eiswürfel in der Faust zerdrücken oder im Mund behalten, Chilischoten kauen, eiskalt duschen, Ammoniak riechen, mit nackten Beinen durch Brennnesseln laufen und so weiter.

Im Workshop soll ein Skill-Gerät entwickelt werden, das es Betroffenen erlaubt, sich Schmerzen unauffällig (zum Beispiel in der Schule), kontrolliert (ohne wirklich zu verletzen) und dokumentierbar (im Sinne eines Tagebuches) zuzufügen. Die vielfältigen psychologischen, sozialen, gesellschaftlichen und technischen Implikation des Themas werden intensiv diskutiert.

Prototyp:

Der Prototyp besteht aus zwei Teilen: Hard- und Software. Hardware-Grundlage ist ein Gerät, das unauffällig am Körper getragen wird und einen dosierbaren Schmerzreiz auslösen kann. Die Software ist eine Smartphone-App, die kabellos gekoppelt das Schmerzgerät fernsteuert und die Schmerzereignisse dokumentiert.