Low-tech approach
Name: Brian
Profession: Electronic engineer
The most common implant I see is the finger magnet. I understand why. It's small and simple put provides a whole new sense just by virtue of being inside your body. Small intrusion and big gain.
The most common topic I see for new implant types are about electronics. I understand why. We understand them and can program them to do amazing things. Transferring data and power are clearly a serious hurdle though.
I propose we take a step back and think about what we can do without electronics. This is counterintuitive to my job title.
The compass is a logical place to start because it's an old technology that relies on simple components; a magnet and something for it to spin on.
All the brainstorming I've seen for a Southpaw involves implanting powered components which makes sense given that the Northpaw is a rugged assembly of electronics. However, I think this is only the first approach.
Think about old watches for a moment. Gears. Springs. Pendulums. Mechanics on a miniature scale and built to last decades. Any antique store has watches older than your grandparents.
A purely mechanical compass implant is not beyond the brainpower of the people reading this. We live with 3D printers and laser cutters. Not only can we conceive and build this device but we can do it quickly and without sponsorship.
Comments
The lack of the required fine mechanical sensory is pretty much the primary reason why most people go with electronics. As amplifying tiny signals and outputting it bigger skin areas is easy, compared to mechanical systems.
Having said such discouraging words, there are still chances to make it work under certain conditions. You could try to build a very simple prototype and glue it to your fingertip for testing. The faster you'd rotate the case (assuming your bearings are perfect), the stronger the feedback you get, but also the less accurate. Worth a try i guess.
For testing you could use a set of coils to produce a rotating field so you can test the feedback you get at certain angular speeds of the magnet without spinning in circles.
Have whiskers ever been discussed?
I have thoughts about transdermals. Isn't every piercing essentially transdermal? It goes from the surface of the skin to below the skin and often back out again. What if someone had snake bites but they had an implant between the two posts instead of holes going to the other side of the lower lip? Is there a better thread for this discussion?
http://discuss.biohack.me/discussion/498/whiskers-as-feedback-devices
I've seen how the transdermal piercings work which is why I would never get one. Correct me if I'm wrong but transdermal piercings are considered healed when skin grows around the anchor section of the foot-looking part. The post cannot be switched or even removed, only the bead.
A surface piercing, like an angled barbell, goes all the way through the skin at one point and comes all the way out at another point on the same plane of skin. They are healed when the skin around the piercing sites has ceased to be a wound. The barbell may be swapped without help. They are less likely to reject than surface piercings.
I might be a little late to the party here, but I had a bit of a brainstorm and a friend of mine suggested a possible change to your implant design.
Instead of having a rigid ledge that the rod taps against, would it be more effective to use something like the 'wheel of fortune' to produce a clicking sensation as you pass a certain bearing? You could have a few of these points close together to make the sensation more noticeable (since that seems to be an issue), as well as being able to point out other directions, ie 3 clicks for north, 1 for south.
What do people think, could this potentially improve accuracy/sensitivity when using the device?
The scale prototype I've been cobbling together is a ping-pong ball with a wire whisker sticking out of it at the NORTH position. Your idea of putting numbered clusters at different locations is insightful. The most obvious flaw of the original is that it only worked for one direction (not a plug for the band). The idea I had been toying with was to have whiskers sticking out at the cardinal directions but that isn't great for a few reasons. Your idea could work as an implant almost anywhere.
The hurdle I see right now is how do we make something inside that has enough force to tap the chassis or a whisker but doesn't stop the compass spinner in its tracks? I'd like some ideas of material I can actually use for the prototype, they don't have to be biocompatible at this stage, just enough to prove the concept.
I'm thinking that a stiff whisker poking through some fishing lure material will provide enough of a buffer that the compass can pass over the whisker and gently tap it while continuing to spin. I'll try to post a picture this afternoon so you can see what I've got going.
Welcome to the party, Nightgaunt.
This first image shows the back of the compass which is a ping pong ball with a section cut out. When you stand south of the compass you see this magnet with a white piece of tape. There is a piece of green tape on the other side.
The two disc magnets are glued to the cap of a pink highlighter which was sacrificed for the project.
The wood screw through the middle is made of brass otherwise the two Nd magnets would simply stick to it.
The little piece of wire sticking out the right side is the "whisker" which gets tapped when the compass faces the same way as the wire. The whisker is shown in the second image from the inside.
Here is a rotated view. The part of the whisker on the inside of the ping pong ball is visible. The impact of the wire sticking off the spinning compass part and the wire sticking through the ping pong ball create the Wheel of Fortune affect of tapping when facing a particular direction.
Ideally the ping pong ball would not absorb much of the impact between the two wires and most of the force would be transferred to the whisker and therefore nerves.
This is of course a model which has been scaled up. None of these parts are intended for implantation into anyone.
Here is a video of me spinning the brass screw, thus rotating the ping pong ball. It clearly points north without fail and hopefully it's clear how the whisker will be tapped when rotated through the correct angle.
http://s664.photobucket.com/user/phreak-of-nature/media/Simple Compass/2014-02-17202010_zps710006d3.mp4.html
Here is that same video on youtube
This is the material I used. Nothing fancy. I wound up using just the tip, Archer reference, which turned out to be roughly the same diameter as a standard hole punch.
From the outside you can see the whisker sticking out. There is also a hint of my cat.
Here is whisker from head on.
I plan to make a photo rig which will focus on the spinner and whisker while keeping the camera stationary in respect to the screw and ping pong ball. This should allow me to make a clear video of what happens when the compass goes to the angle I'm sensing.
Thoughts so far?
http://youtube.com/v/_U5CsGqY0Ts
Most of the parts of this model are similar to the ping pong ball model. There's a compass spinner on top of a brass screw. Only this time the whole unit is enclosed in an aluminum shell.
The next step will be to drill a hole in the pill case and put a whisker that can be tapped by the spinner and make it sensible from the outside.
I'll wear this for a few days on my arm or something and see if this design is usable as a haptic compass.
Of course you could build yourself seven similar units and make a ring like a Northpaw but each of them would have the whisker facing a different direction and the wire inside the compass would also face a different direction.
I am pondering a different design which uses a spherical magnet. This would reduce the complexity and size of the compass spinner. Thoughts, anyone?
Here I insert the spinner into the flashlight body while holding the whisker out of the way.
For the next video I turned on the camera light so the spinner was visible while I spun in an office chair. Hopefully this demonstrates how the straw and whisker will jiggle when facing north.
Lastly I have a picture of what the whisker looks like after being held in place with silicone. I hope there is enough mobility to jiggle the whisker.
1. A toy compass is not rugged enough to be implanted.
2. The overall shape of this compass is disc-like and inconvenient for implantation while the ones I'm focusing on are tube-like.
3. The magnet in the toy is not strong and more strength means more mass which interacts more with a whisker.
Beyond those three factors what you're describing is EXACTLY what I want to do. How would you overcome those three factors?