The invention that helped me write again - BBC News

Awesome! Great invention!

I stumbled across this on YouTube, and the commercial applications of this technology staggers the mind. So, from early 12/8/2016 I have been trying to contact Haiyan Zhang in London. To ascertain if Ms. Zhang,
needs representation in North America. Guess what? She is a Director of Innovation at Microsoft, England. Well...

She is a busy lady who stated she hopes someone makes a commercial product from her idea's.

She had over 10,000 emails in her pending folder since 2014. Any technical details if they appear, will be on the BBC's GitHub web site, maybe check back in a few weeks. GitHub - bbc/MiD: Make it Digital: the BBC's Digital Creativity initiative

Meanwhile I should have my bag of parts arriving from Digikey and make up a quick prototype to see how I do with the six vibrating motors around my wrist and if it makes a difference. BBC has a couple of different "to fit time length" versions of the show and one had a screen shot of the motor pattern.

Thank you TexasTom for getting the ball rolling. Please let me know how you get on. I, too, am trying to build an "Emma". My parts list and approximate prices is:
Arduino Pro Mini 3.3V - £3
6 x 3v micro vibrating motors in coin format - £3
3.3v step up power supply - £3 - this lets me run it off 1 AA battery.
3xAA battery box with switch - £1. I can strip out two of the battery bays and use this space to hold the electronics.
Wrist guard with Velcro straps - £1
Wire, misc £1.

John

Its great to see the ball rolling in attempts to develop a device to reduce tremor. My wrist tremor is abated if my hand, wrist or arm scrapes against something so this concept of using sensory nerves to reduce tremor fits with my experience.

The Arduino could have a lot of potential. How is this to detect the tremors? Can the micro vibrating motors be used as motor-generators and thereby detect the motion of the tremor? Or are there plans to incorporate an accelerometer? Arduinos run a limited version of C++. Is that expected to be the language of choice? I suppose there are many ways to put together an algorithm that would respond to the 4-6 Hz motion of tremor but not to other things.

Bill Patterson

Bill,

My original thought was just to try the motors. The screen shot shows when each of the six motors is active. Just to get an idea if it works.

Currently no tremor measurement is done, but thankfully I also have a MM7150 Sensor Fusion Module that can measure all sort of things.

Post DBS I had zero tremor. I still have zero tremor in my left hand, but right at times have difficulty with a keyboard and using a mouse. Sigh. Still working on dialing in my DBS.

Microsoft still, in 2019, considers this project in the research stage only (Project Emma - Microsoft Research). I'm wondering why no one has yet (or maybe I missed it) publicized an app for a watch to vibrate when its sensors detect a tremor. Does anyone know more about this?

Where do I buy one? NEVERMIND......

a respected member of this forum stated, on another thread..."this simple gadget" reduces tremor.

another member of this forum has been on the phone, for as long as his voice heldout, for five days calling everyone in the rolodex, who might have knowledge as to how to make such a "gadget". That is, how could it be replicated (from Profs of medicine at UCLA, Stanford,etc, Profs of EE at Georgia Tech, and a couple universities in Boston, to the individual who won the Beverly Hills High School Science Fair). They kept talking about: "amplitude, wave length, motor muscular, electric impulses, input/ output, feedback loops(?), measurement, variance of frequencies, etc,etc,etc. It maybe a little complex to make.