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Industrial Design Student Work: A Measuring Cup for the Blind

By Xueyu Ji of the Istituto Europeo di Design

By Rain Noe - July 26, 2023

in design.edu

Sway, done by Xueyu Ji as a Product Design student at Italy's Istituto Europeo di Design, is a measuring cup for the blind.

The concept is good, but there's a central flaw in the design that I'm surprised no instructor picked up on:

"It translates visual information into auditory with a simple mechanism. A lid is placed on the container as a seesaw and it acts as a measuring spoon. When the weight of the liquid or solid it carries exceeds 50 grams, it swings down and empties. When it returns, it bumps against the edge of the container producing an audible feedback sound to the user."

So as demonstrated with liquid, it works like this:

Enter a caption (optional)

The issue is that while the description reads "grams," the vessel has "50mL" printed on it.

Grams, of course, are a unit of weight. Milliliters are a unit of volume. The spring on the lid can be calibrated for weight, but not for volume.

Central flaw aside, I think the goal was good.

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Dan Lewis

a year ago

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"Grams, of course, are a unit of weight. Milliliters are a unit of volume. The spring on the lid can be calibrated for weight, but not for volume."
This is of course correct, unless you are measuring water, where 1gram, 1mL, and 1cc are the same. The video appears to be measuring water or a liquid similar to water.

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Tom Osman

a year ago

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Dan Lewis is right, for water that works well. For most other stuff you eat or drink, you wont be far out, probably withing 5%

Underestimating soup and over estimating whiskey which is the right way around!

I can't see how it works, but I suspect a weight rather than a spring which would be difficult to set

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