EchoPronto: A Second Chance at Sight

EchoPronto is a student created, run, and produced organization that has the hopes to eventually aid the visually impaired in their journey through life. One of our main goals is creating the plans for a device that will allow consumers to use echolocation in order to determine their surroundings. The EchoPronto group is made up of a small number of students from Bethel High School, all of whom are enrolled in the Academy of Digital Arts and Sciences. This program is designed for students to combine their scientific and technological knowledge in order give them life-long skills and improve their academic achievements and engagements. Through this program, the students participate in the Innovation Expo, a more-or-less enlarged science fair. Each year, the rules of the Expo change, and the requirements become more involved and interested in the community. Last year, the students in the Academy created a project using biomimicry, the idea of imitating nature in any way that could solve a problem. This year was something just a little different. The EchoPronto students were required to incorporate nature-inspired design into their project, which is the idea of using a quality that an animal or plant has to create something that people can use. The EchoPronto group decided to base their project off echolocation and its effect on the visually impaired. Echolocation is using reflections of sounds off objects to find something in space, and it is most commonly used by bats and dolphins. So far, the thirteen freshman involved in this project have collaborated and created videos, podcasts, surveys and more. They are working in conjunction with many experts in the hopes of improving their experiment. EchoPronto has contacted people such as the famed Daniel Kish, a visually impaired man who works with echolocation, and Seth Horowitz, a neuroscientist who focuses on its use to mankind. With the intention of increasing their knowledge of the subject of echolocation, these students are planning to interview these experts in the very near future. They, as well, plan to visit the center of an organization, Guiding Eyes, to see the process they take in training guide dogs for visually impaired customers. Using the information they have already acquired, and with the hopes of incorporating new information after their conversations with these professionals, EchoPronto has begun conducting experiments. These experiments have increased their awareness of the life of being visually impaired, as they have ranged from simply walking around blindfolded to testing the range of hearing without sight. The EchoPronto group has high hopes for the future of their experiment, and hope to help as many as possible. Please visit www.echopronto.weebly.com for more information, or follow EchoPronto on Instagram or Twitter at @EchoPronto.