NYU ITP student Corey Menscher has designed a fetal monitor that detects when his baby - still in the womb - kicks! Whenever junior gives mommy a boot, a Bluetooth device attached to her belly sends a message to his Macbook which Tweets the event. He affectionately calls this device the Kickbee (which is also the Twitter username).
Here's Corey's more technical explanation:
"The Kickbee is a wearable device made of a stretchable band and embedded electronics and sensors. Piezo sensors are attached directly to the band, and transmit voltages when movement underneath is detected. An Arduino Mini transmits the signals to an accompanying Java application wirelessly via Bluetooth. (A SparkFun BlueSMIRF v2 module that communicates serially with a Macbook Pro)
The Java application receives the sensor values and analyzes them. When a kick event is detected, a Twitter message is posted via the Twitter API."
Very cool! I just hope junior isn't adversely affected by any Bluetooth "radiation".
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(Shameless plug)
Via Boing Boing
