Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

North Paw

sensebridge.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 142 posts

Re: North Paw

#51

Post by kag0 »

amanj41 wrote: post #42

Can someone help me understand what it means to develop the sixth sense for north? Does it mean: a) The user must be wearing the anklet at all times to initially calibrate but their body is able to determine how much rotation / transposition they have undergone in order to point north. b) After training, one could tell which way is north without ever having to put on the anklet again

It's A

But once users spend a lot of time in an area wearing the device, they have a better ability to navigate that area even with the device removed. I imagine it's similar to how you would be able to navigate your home in low light

Re: North Paw

#52

Post by kelnos »

mabbo wrote: post #2

> As you might have guessed by the long period with no posting, Sensebridge is out of business. We’ve been out of stock on Northpaw Kits since late 2016; we do not have plans to make more kits.

On their downloads page[0] it looks like they have CAD files for the board and a BOM for the components. Probably wouldn't be too hard (or expensive) to have a few boards fabricated by PCBWay or OSHPark. I imagine the enclosure could be 3D printed, though I don't see any CAD files for that. And not sure how easy it'd be to source the other components, especially with all the component shortages these days. But I imagine it'd be possible to resurrect the project, and given that they're not in business anymore, they might be willing to share more information with anyone interested (like CAD files for the enclosure, or specifics on where they sourced the components).

[0] https://sensebridge.net/projects/northpaw/northpaw-downloads...

Re: North Paw

#53

Post by wartron »

hammock wrote: post #45
ASalazarMX wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because of the plasticity of the brain, it has been shown that most wearers gain a new sense of absolute direction, giving them a superhuman ability to navigate their surroundings. So you would say that this quote isn't exaggeration?

I have what you might describe as a "spidey sense" about whether a photo depicting a North American coastal scene is on the Atlantic, the Pacific, or something else like Lake Erie. You might have this feeling also. I suspect it comes from an innate, unconscious comprehension of the highlights and the shadows (since the sun will typically be in the south). And I don't mean the obvious shadows but even the subtle ones.…

You should play some https://www.geoguessr.com/

Re: North Paw

#54

Post by smnrchrds »

bentcorner wrote: post #17
isaacdl wrote: post #5

I own one of these - bought it pre-made years ago rather than assembling the kit myself. It's a ton of fun, and really does give me a more-intuitive sense of direction. After wearing it for a while around places I go to regularly, I keep that intuitive sense of direction without having to wear it. I've mostly stopped wearing it though, because it looks a lot like a GPS-based parole-monitoring device, and I got tired…

I was thinking the same thing (as in this resembles a GPS ankle-bracelet). It sounds like the original research used a belt, which to me sounds like a more subtle device to wear: > The original idea for North Paw comes from research done at University of Osnabrück in Germany. In this study, rather than an anklet, the researchers used a belt. They wore the belt non-stop for six weeks, and reported successive stages of…

I feel like a wired belt would raise even more troublesome questions. This situation will be more likely with a belt than an anklet:

https://www.dw.com/en/radiation-student-raises-fake-bomb-ale...

Re: North Paw

#55

Post by MengerSponge »

hammock wrote: post #45
ASalazarMX wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Because of the plasticity of the brain, it has been shown that most wearers gain a new sense of absolute direction, giving them a superhuman ability to navigate their surroundings. So you would say that this quote isn't exaggeration?

I have what you might describe as a "spidey sense" about whether a photo depicting a North American coastal scene is on the Atlantic, the Pacific, or something else like Lake Erie. You might have this feeling also. I suspect it comes from an innate, unconscious comprehension of the highlights and the shadows (since the sun will typically be in the south). And I don't mean the obvious shadows but even the subtle ones.…

Georainbolt is an absolute wizard at this.

Re: North Paw

#56

Post by shagie »

isaacdl wrote: post #5

I own one of these - bought it pre-made years ago rather than assembling the kit myself. It's a ton of fun, and really does give me a more-intuitive sense of direction. After wearing it for a while around places I go to regularly, I keep that intuitive sense of direction without having to wear it. I've mostly stopped wearing it though, because it looks a lot like a GPS-based parole-monitoring device, and I got tired…

Was it the battery pack? Looking at https://www.adafruit.com/product/5579 and https://www.adafruit.com/product/1201 it should be fairly possible to get to a more reasonable size. As an alternative to the leg, having the vibration as something in the collar might be an alternative.

One of the "hmm... things to make" is a lidar detector for things behind a car that then is mapped to an array of the vibration motors that are in the back of a driver's seat - so that you could feel a car passing you.

Re: North Paw

#57

Post by loa_in_ »

amanj41 wrote: post #42

Can someone help me understand what it means to develop the sixth sense for north? Does it mean: a) The user must be wearing the anklet at all times to initially calibrate but their body is able to determine how much rotation / transposition they have undergone in order to point north. b) After training, one could tell which way is north without ever having to put on the anklet again

Maybe not forever, without ever putting it on, but you got it right in general.

Re: North Paw

#58

Post by kelnos »

usgroup wrote: post #43
thatguy0900 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thinking about it the ankle is a pretty clever Place. My wrists are very often in different orientations to my body, but my ankles are more or less always in line with the way I'm facing.

Belt is better still by the same arc of reason.

Downside of a belt is that you have a much longer way around your body, which means longer wires, and perhaps an easier chance of breaking something. A belt also implies pants that can accept a belt, which probably wouldn't work for a lot of people, at least not every day with every type/style/color of clothing.

The anklet is reasonably unobtrusive, and unless you are wearing form-fitting pants, you can keep it under your pants leg to keep it out of sight. Even if you're wearing tighter pants, shorts, or a skirt, and you don't mind the under-house-arrest tracker vibe, it's still wearable, and might make for a fun conversation topic.

Agreed that the belt is better from the standpoint of what the device is for, but I think the anklet is a bit more practical. I know I would definitely wear it more often (more or less all the time), but I could not say the same about a belt.

Re: North Paw

#59

Post by kuboble »

In a sport of orienteering (quite popular in Scandinavia and Switzerland) having perfect sense of the North as opposed to checking it with compass would offer a competitive advantage.

I wonder if anyone tried to develop that.

Re: North Paw

#60

Post by kelnos »

staplung wrote: post #31

IIRC Oliver Sacks was interested in this kind of thing. Think there's an episode of Radiolab where he talks about how ho used to carry around a couple of extremely strong, oblong magnets in his pockets that would stay oriented north even while he moved around. He wanted to see if his brain could learn to make sense of the input and develop a new sense, akin to the magnetic navigation that retain birds have. Not sure…

> do not have words for "left" and "right" and instead use cardinal terms for everything. Speakers of such languages presumably then must know their orientation at all times.

Huh, interesting. Do you know if they actually do know their orientation at all times, or is it just that "west" is always "left" and "east" is always "right", regardless of absolute orientation?

Post reply on HN