Where GPS Fails, A Shape-Shifting Cube Can Guide You Home A Yale University engineer builds a small cube that acts as a tactile compass for the visually impaired (or those caught in the dark).

Compasses and GPS help people without disabilities find their destinations every day, but are of less use to the visually impaired, or even sighted people in the dark. Adam Spiers, a Yale University engineer, has built a shape-shifting cube that indicates direction by its shape independent of sight.

The bottom half of the cube is a stable, unmoving base. The top half separates and indicates the direction a user should go to reach a set destination, and rotates in real time to indicate turns ahead or that the user has drifted off course. The current iteration isn�t sensitive enough to keep somebody on the sidewalk instead of a nearby street, but will keep up with the turns and directions normally provided by a smartphone or in-console GPS.

No single technology used by the cube is new. Instead, it relies on existing and mature navigation systems and haptic feedback for the directions, and simple 3D printing techniques for production. The innovation is in how Spiers combined them to create a needed new technology. Because it uses only existing technologies, it could be produced and distributed very quickly.

Directions from the cube are limited in scope, indicating only where the user should go. It provides no other visual cues or any audio component, though future iterations could include that option.

As of August, 2015, the cube is in preliminary stages and has yet to even be officially given a name. Spiers was originally calling it the �Haptic Sandwich,� but has since leaned more toward �Animotus.� According to Spiers, the next stages in design will be to refine the level of touch technology so the cube can communicate more effectively. He has made no announcements as to whether, or how, he will continue development towards turning the idea into a product.