Mini projected featured in Make Magazine

A little blurb was written in this month's Make magazine about a project I did. I noticed that some elderly had a difficult time dialing the telephone. There were a number of problems with current solutions for this population. Voice activated dialing seemed to never work for them. They typically drastically changed their speech patterns making the voice recognition inaccurate. Phones with large buttons were viewed as inclusive, but embarrassing, bringing light to their handicap to any guests. Other people's vision had degraded so drastically they could only make out some basic shapes and colors. I decided to build a prototype of a phone dialer that could be activated by gross movements, didn't require the use of knowing a number, and allowed the user to easily select whom to dial. I constructed and coded the below prototype in about 30 minutes one morning. It works by moving a framed picture of the person you want to call near the device. I envisioned a number of picture frames sitting by the phone and the user just moves a framed picture near the phone. Additionally, the picture of a person could be replaced with a solid color for those with poor sight. This configuration would allow people with movement disorders and/or poor sight to easily use a phone. The also previously featured my iphone controlled dog feeder.