Project Description

#2823

MUSHIN SPIDERSENSE

“Mushin” translates from Japanese to mean “no mind.” It means to act without thought, or with an “unfettered mind.” This moment-to-moment awareness is at the heart of Zen, but is also the key to practicing martial arts. The expert can react to attacks seemingly before they begin. But not everyone has the time to cultivate this ability. Likewise, not everyone is Spiderman.

Like Spiderman, many people could benefit from the ability to sense threats before they are visible. Intended for people who work in hazardous environments, police and military personnel, or just everyday people, Mushin Spidersense can detect an object moving towards the body before it is too late. This could be a falling object, moving vehicle, an attacker, or even a projectile weapon. It does this by sending and receiving low-energy electromagnetic waves. Just like a state trooper’s speed gun, it measures the velocity of incoming objects. Like a military aircraft, the CPU builds and updates a model of the user’s environment and looks for abnormalities relative to the device’s movement. The user sets Mushin’s target distance and velocity. The radar array is made up of many nodes that circumscribe the user in the convenient form of a belt (for more sensitive situations, a collar would provide more haptic data, but it would be a hassle for daily use). Each node is only responsible for a thin wedge of space. When something enters this space, the node is triggered and gives the user a haptic alert. Small tabs, which can be worn inside the clothing for more sensitivity, pop in and out against the users body, a forewarning of the possible collision.

Mushin Spidersense is a revolutionary safety product. Many technological devices that are meant to help people in crisis fail for one simple reason: they require the user to spend vital mental resources on tending to them. The 9/11 disaster and the recent hearings have demonstrated all too many cases of this. Spidersense simply acts as an extension of the body’s senses, and communicates directly with the body through a haptic interface- in terms the body can quickly understand without the slowness of thought. Hence the name “Mushin.”