Giudice to study device to help visually impaired, Arkansas Online reports

UMaine Alert

Posted: April 19, 2024 - 1:32 PM

At approximately 9:24 a.m. on Friday, April 19, a University of Maine graduate student was struck by a university vehicle on Long Road at the University of Maine campus in Orono. The student reports that they are at a local hospital with minor injuries.

Emergency services, including the Orono Fire Department, University Volunteer Ambulance Corps, University of Maine Police Department, Orono Police Department and Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office responded to the scene.

The university vehicle involved in the incident was a Chevrolet Express van. It was being operated by a university employee.

Counseling services and support are available for students, faculty or staff who may have been affected. The Counseling Center can be reached at 207-581-1392 and the Dean of Students Office can be reached at 207-581-1406.

The scene has been cleared and Long Road is now accessible. An investigation is being conducted by the University of Maine Police Department with assistance from the Penobscot County Sheriff’s Office Crash Reconstruction Unit. Any witnesses to the incident are encouraged to contact Lt. Noel Santiago at noel.santiago@maine.edu.

May 16, 2018 UMaine in the News

Arkansas Online reported on inventor Brandon Foshee’s device that aims to help visually impaired and blind people avoid obstacles. Foshee has received about $600,000 in grants from several agencies to develop his Roboglasses, according to the article. Nicholas Giudice, a professor of spatial informatics at the University of Maine, will study the Roboglasses as part of the grant from the National Institutes of Health, the article states. “People have been working on electronic travel aids for the blind since the 1960s,” Giudice said. “They usually don’t get out of the lab or the design phase, sometimes because they’re designed by a person with sight who’s looking for a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. This is different, because Brandon is blind and I am blind and that leads to something distinctive about the development and research behind his glasses.” Roboglasses, if successful, will complement, not replace, the traditional guide dog and cane, Giudice said. “The purpose of all these tools is to help detect and avoid hazards, but the cane and the dog sometimes don’t help much with hazards higher up,” Giudice said.