By Anuradha.
All of us are different from each other in drastic ways. The way that we think, our appearance and everything is really unique to each of us but there is no doubt that this diversity is what that adds beauty to our world. We are talking about differences because we are going to talk about people’s heights. Each of us is of different heights and often ‘short’ people experience many disadvantages because of their height. They cannot get a good view particularly when they are in places where people are much taller than them and Dominic Wilcox is a person who understood this issue faced by people who are not much taller.
Speaking about how this idea was initiated, Dominic said “I have a friend who’s 6’6″ (about 200cm) and every time we find a spot in the crowd to hear a concert I can hear people behind us tick in anger. Turns out, this problem is way more common than we assumed”
So, he created a ‘One Foot Taller Periscope glasses’ which allows the wearer to see ‘one foot taller’ (30.5cm) than their normal eye level.
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“One foot taller periscope glasses”
Image credits: Dominic Wilcox
Dominic says that “I was challenged by Microsoft Surface to think up some everyday problems and come up with some interesting or extraordinary solutions. It was for an exhibition in London in May. A few weeks earlier, I was at a gig standing near the back and I noticed a small woman dancing behind me who clearly couldn’t see the band because of all the tall people around. This gave me the idea to try to solve that problem. Also, I think we’ve all been at the cinema and someone big sits in front and blocks the view, this device could help, as long as you don’t block the view of the person behind you!”
Image credits: Dominic Wilcox
Dominic said that when he’s working on a project, most of the time is taken up thinking through the idea and designing it. “I did have about five attempts at making the finished object. I cut my finished design out of a sheet of mirrored plastic then very carefully heated and bent the parts into the correct angles to reflect the light from up high, down to the eyes. I quite enjoyed working out how to make this quite unusual and functional object from one single sheet.”
Image credits: Dominic Wilcox
“I’ve been designing unusual things for many years so that helps speed up all the little decisions you have to make on any design project,” Dominic explained. “It took about a week of thinking, testing, failing, more testing, etc to go from a doodle to the end piece.”
Image credits: Dominic Wilcox
Image credits: Dominic Wilcox
After putting on the glasses, Dominic said that as a wearer, “you can see a rectangle in the center of your vision of the higher view. It’s a sort of slightly bonkers analog AR device.”
However, Dominic has also created many more cool things including the ‘Directing jacket’.
‘Ice tray and snow shoe grips in one’
‘No place like home, GPS shoes’.
‘Tummy rumbling amplification device’.
‘Bimaudio: The sounds of a city’.
‘Luxury skimming stones’
