By Daniel
In 2017, when Robert Kerekes Jr of Morris Plains New Jersey called Evergreen and threatened to “execute as many people on the campus as I can get ahold of,” the students in Senior Zack Hurtz’ program scattered.
“Everyone was gone, and my professor is like, ‘hey, do you need assistance?’” recounted Hurtz, who is blind. Hurtz’s professor, Ralph Murphy, eventually gave Hurtz a ride home.
“I look at that, how do we make that more accessible?” said Hurtz. “How do we set up these scenarios where users can be safe while getting out of an unsafe area?”
Now, Hurtz has an answer, in the form of a mobile app called Reference Point Navigation, which Hurtz developed with a team of Evergreen students.
“You’re sitting in class and a fire alarm goes off, and you can bring up your phone, open up the app and say, ‘get me out,’” said Hurtz.
Using GPS and local sensors, the app provides point-to-point navigation across campus. Users will be able to save their own points of interest and submit map changes for review.
The app is still in development, but has made huge strides since Hurtz started the project last September.
“Richard Weiss, who is an amazing instructor, allowed me to recruit some people from this class,” said Hurtz. “And when I say I recruited, I mean, he gave me some people, and he said ‘These are the people you will be working with.’”
Hurtz first approached professor Scott Morgan with the idea during Morgan’s tiny house class last summer. “We’re talking about codes and structure rules and all of that,’ and I said, ‘You know, there’s some rules here that the school doesn’t follow with the Americans with Disabilities Act,’” said Hurtz. “There’s some signs that are missing here, there’s not updated emergency evacuation routes.”
Morgan told Hurtz to put together an ILC proposal for the fall. “I didn’t know what I was getting into,” said Hurtz.
In only five months, Hurtz and his development team —- including Evergreen students Chris Daley, Geddy Pence, Nicholas Smith, Dragon Wittmier, Lacey Brazeau, and Chris Kai —- have written more than 40,000 lines of Java and Python code. Hurtz insisted on thanking his development team by name. “They’re doing a lot of work and should be recognized.”
Hurtz hopes to implement the system at Evergreen by the end of the year, as a “proof of concept.” But he doesn’t want to stop there. “Our goal is to be in schools within five years, nationwide,” said Hurtz. “Obviously, that’s a pretty big goal.”
To get there, Reference Point Navigation (or “Reference Point” for short) is competing for $50,000 in grants and prizes. Reference Point produced a video for the $25,000 Holman Prize, which is run by the LightHouse for the Blind and Visually Impaired, an international charity. “We recognize that asking a blind person to upload a video may challenge some people’s ideas of what blind people are capable of — of what blind people can or should do,“ says LightHouse CEO Bryan Bashin.
“The more likes we get on that video, the better our chances of moving on to the second round,” said Hurtz. “If we get the most likes we automatically get to the final round without being removed.”Hurtz wants to use the money to build an organization that could administer and build maps for other campuses.
Unlike road or trail maps, Reference Point maps will contain rich data, including the location of stairs, signage, elevator buttons, and other important landmarks. “We would allow schools to send in their own people to be trained on how to build their maps,” said Hurtz. “If they don’t want to have us do their maps, they can take care of it themselves and just have it verified through us.”
“That’s one of the real challenges in mapping for people who are visually impaired. There are different classes of landmarks that people need to be aware of, as well as extra information that is obvious to sighted people, that we need to capture and provide to the user,” said lead developer Chris Daley. “For example, a hallway intersection is no challenge for a sighted person to navigate, but for a blind person, that can be a maze of potential misdirection.”
In their video, Hurtz describes the Reference Point system as a cheaper and more easily modifiable method for campuses to comply with “outdated” ADA standards. “Following the ADA can be expensive and puts hardships on campuses. This results in outdated signs, which over time causes hazards when we as people with disabilities are relying on accessibility tools that aren’t being maintained or improved,” says Hurtz.
The digital maps provided by Reference Point will be easier to modify than braille signage, which often needs to be ordered from a special printer and can lead to delays or improper signage over time. And as users will be able to add their own landmarks, the maps will become more detailed over time and conform specifically to the needs of its blind and visually impaired user base.
“We will we allow users to implement their own landmarks. So if they’re at a spot that they want to remember, they can tap a button. And then if they want to submit it for review, then it gets uploaded to the map, or it gets uploaded to our in-house marking services to look at,” said Hurtz.
Each campus Reference Point expands to will need new maps, but once the system has been tested, there’s no particular reason to limit themselves to college campuses. In this way Reference Point mirrors the growth of Facebook or Tinder, both of which were started on a limited number of campuses before their global launch.
“Right now we’re building it on accessible navigation and information for the blind,” said Hurtz. “But we can expand and fluctuate to whatever the services are required. So whether that be a museum, a hospital, an airport, a school or city, they can turn it into whatever they they like.”
Hurtz envisions future institutional users expanding on the app to provide contextual information. “You have a user going to the museum, and as they’re walking past a painting, it starts telling them about the painting, or describing it or giving the history on it,” said Hurtz. “We’re taking one side of what people might take for granted and putting in the hands of users who would kill for this kind of information.”
Hurtz hopes that the app, when implemented, will improve inequities on campus. “All the students that go to the school pay money to be here. They don’t understand that they’re paying into a system that is failing them in a lot of respects in terms of accessibility, but until they need it, they don’t think about it,” said Hurtz. “When we students with disabilities are expected to be just like every other student, and we don’t have the tools to do so, it puts us at a disadvantage.”
