Bad ideas are costly, young inventors told
Published on: Saturday, June 25, 2016
MENGGATAL: Bad ideas are expensive because these incur a lot of costs.The advice came from Senior Rotarian cum Daily Express columnist, Datuk John Lo at the recent 10th Sindex (Sabah Invention and Design Exhibition) Awards Night held at Institut Sinaran, here."As an ex-banker and a businessman, I want to say this to you (boys and girls). Bad ideas are very expensive.
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If you can imagine, if you make a mistake in a hotel with 500 rooms, the mistake is repeated 500 times. So bad ideas are very expensive."On the other hand, good ideas are not expensive. Always remember that good ideas can make you rich and powerful, and above all, can help other people to lead a better life," he said when addressing the gathering. Lo, who was a past President of the Rotary Club of Kota Kinabalu, was particularly impressed with young inventor, 19-year-old O'Dell Obrien Gapitar, a Maktab Sabah student who invented a sensor for the blind to improve their mobility.
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"Where is the boy? I think the idea (SonicEye) is fantastic," he said to applause. "The invention itself may not be new but it is exciting by coming from the heart that he actually wanted to invent this to help the blind people…that is the making of a great man," he remarked.Priced at RM290.00, SonicEye, which won the Rotarians' Choice Award, is a wearable device that helps the blind people who depend on the white cane in their navigation.
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In his presentation at the finals, O'Dell said it is targeted at those who have permanently lost their vision and rely heavily on other senses to navigate around.He came up with the idea to help in navigation "by providing stimulus to the user's facial skin based on the detected obstacles ahead, where a different part of the face will be vibrated according to the distance of the obstacle at that part of the detection.""That is, the left cheek will be vibrated vigorously if there are any obstacles at the left side of the user coming very fast or very near," he said.For the purpose, SonicEye user an array of ultrasonic sensors on its rear end to detect to detect distances of objects and obstacles (examples, wall, doors, entrance, etc)."The detected objects and obstacles will then be processed, where the surrounding map will be generated from the distances detected by the ultrasonic sensors. The men will then be used to provide haptic feedbacks to some parts of the user's face to notify and inform the user about the objects and obstacles in front of them, thus helping the users in their navigation," O'Dell explained.According to the inventor, the main advantage for this invention is that the method being used here is miles better than the conventional method."While the conventional method uses only one to two units of ultrasonic sensor, SonicEye uses at least five to provide a higher resolution of object detection. SonicEye is also far cheaper than other solutions," he said, adding that it is also faster than other solutions.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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