Sanket Chitagopkar and Prashanth Harshangi, two Indian teenagers from Karnataka, came up with an electronic walking stick for the visually impaired after witnessing a blind man fall into a puddle. The stick is a simple PVC pipe, but has five different sensory circuits attached— three using infrared sensing techniques to gauge the presence of obstacles. These infrared signals bounce off obstacles and trigger a sound in the user’s earpiece, on the right or left side of the user depending on where the obstacle is. A noise will sound in both ears if the obstacle is directly ahead. The sensors not only look out for hard obstacles: A moisture sensor looks out for stagnant water or moist earth (a hazard in the monsoon season), while another detects manholes and other pitfalls (an all-year hazard). One last feature: an alarm that sounds should someone try to steal the stick.

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