The goal of the project is to build an open source design of a community thought walking stick for the seniors ( elderly ) .

The current goals are:

  1. Should have a bare minimum 1 axis accelerometer to detect fall in case of any accident and an algorithm to filter out possibilities and trigger an alarm.
  2. Should have a capacitive sensor to detect whether someone is holding it or not.
  3. A rechargeable but featherweight battery charged by any 5V Micro USB Phone charger. A 1000mAh LiIon would work fine based on current calculations.
  4. Cross compatible microcontroller code so, people would not have issues and give up on saying, "Its MSP430/PIC/ARM, I know/have/like only Arduino". The aim is to release code that is wiring based and will work on Arduino based forks for other MCUs too.
  5. Super Cheap
  6. Using democratic parts, nothing proprietary !
  7. Should have a 0.5W LED as flashlight.
  8. Should have a mild horn/Buzzer to trigger an alarm or ask people to shoo away ( oh! I wish i could use VW's horn )
  9. Can have a USB Charging just in case somebody needs juice for the phone [Can make it heavy due to bumped up battery requirements]
  10. May have an RGB LED to give it some bling!
  11. May have BT Connectivity to trigger calls/Texts in case an SOS is triggered
  12. May have a ultrasonic sensor for obstacles [Can make the whole thing fragile. If anyone knows how to use those car sensors in sticks?]