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NC State Engineering Camp for Visually Impaired: Kahmile’s Perspective
High school student with visual impairments writes about his NC Engineering VIB Camp experience.
The NCSU Engineering Camp was the best summer camp that I have ever been to, it was one of the best experiences of my life I am definitely going back next year and all the years I can attend. I even plan on helping out with the program in the future for students like me. This is the first time that I have been around others just like me, not only did they know what it was like to live with a visual impairment but they also were interested in engineering. I also enjoyed the peace I had there, I didn’t have to worry about anything the people there really cared about you and the campers always helped each other out. Everyone accepted you with open arms because we were all alike yet very diverse at the same time, we came from many different parts of the country.
Each morning we prepared for the day in the dorms, then we all took the van over to the dining hall and enjoyed an all you can eat breakfast. Next we got back in the van and the residence advisors (current college students at NCSU) took us to the engineering building for class. Then they left to attend their college classes etc. while we did several design projects addressing the Engineering Grand Challenges. We built a path for a Nano bug to navigate through with certain constraints, designed and built windmill blades, designed an enclosure that was both waterproof and heat resistant, worked with arduinos 
and learned about several other engineering topics. For lunch we had a choice of four different restaurants which we paid for,as for all of our meals, with our meal cards. Then after an hour or so more of class our residence advisors Oliver and Lydia would come back to pick us up for the evening. All afternoon we would rent and watch movies, play board games and pool, question Oliver about electrical engineering, visit a cookie bakery, go to star bucks, eat a buffet dinner,spray paint the free expression tunnel, watch the NBA Finals Game, exercise, play basketball, play football, play soccer, share jokes, visit the music hall, have a karaoke night, and so much more. It is hard to explain in words the fun I had at the camp and all the things we did. I was fascinated by everyone’s skills, talents, and interests and how much we learned from each other. This camp helped me become an advocate for myself and showed me others that still became successful even with a visual impairment.
This isn’t even half of what we did. One day we visited the Museum of Natural Sciences and got to use the blind square app to test the ibeacons we set up in the museum. For someone that is blind or has a visual impairment the ibeacon will tell them where they are in the museum and the exhibits they are near, also it will tell them what is around them to help them navigate. At a set distance away someone with an iPhone and blindsquare app will have information sent to them via the phone from the beacon and it will speak to them information. Also when we were there we got to see some of the exhibits and we ate lunch in the daily planet café on the first floor.
Throughout the camp we were exposed to many different teachers, rising college freshmen, undergraduate students, graduate students, college professors, and accomplished professionals with visual impairments or not who gave us advice on college, living with a visual impairment, common things to look out for, and strategies for school.
We also visited several engineering labs where they showed us what it was that they did exactly and gave us information about their field. we visited the Biomechanics Lab, a Biological engineering lab, a computer science lab, and got to participate in hands on activities, in some actually conducting the very research ourselves.
At the closing ceremony we presented our engineering capstone projects which was a bit stressful but I was amazed by the ideas we came up with. My partner and I presented ours on using music to regulate heart rate for use in hospitals, recreation, and for certain heart conditions. Another group decided to use beacons in grocery stores where you can input a shopping list and it tells you where each item is and the items you are passing, also it serves as a reminder to get all of your groceries. To address the problem of finding items in the dark for the blind or hearing impaired one group wanted to create a certain beeping and flashing device mainly attached to light switches or other devices for easy locating. When you clap the device will recognize the frequency and begin beeping and flashing it will do this more intensely and quickly as you get closer to help you find the item. Lastly another group wanted to create an enhanced version of the Google glasses to expand fields of vision, enhance the vision itself, capture pictures, and to read things to you such as restaurant menus.
For more Paths to Technology posts about the engineering camp, search for “Tech Time-Out” blog posts or “NC State Engineering VIB Camp”.
Written by Kahmile, 2016 NC State Engineering VIB camper; posted with permission.
By Diane Brauner
