Unique device brings solar eclipse experience to blind, low vision community

SAN ANTONIO – The University of Texas at San Antonio is taking part with Harvard University and development gadgets for the blind and low vision community to experience the solar eclipse with sound.

“It has a high dynamic range of light sensors, so in bright lights it kind of has a flute sound, and as we go into eclipse, as the moon eclipses the sun, it gets dimer. So we go into a clarinet range. So the sound goes down when the light goes down. So from flute to clarinet, to a low clicking sound when you are in totality,” stated Allyson Bieryla, an astronomer at Harvard University.

The Lightsound Project has achieved a workshop at a number of universities together with The University of Texas at Austin, Harvard University and the University of Arizona.

“For blind or visually impaired folks it’s been really wonderful to just be included in an event and thought about beforehand and not after,” Bieryla stated.

On Thursday morning, UTSA scholars and group of workers participated in a workshop on the MakerSpace within the Science and Engineering development to put in combination the GentleSound gadgets.

“Once we realized we we’re going to have these two eclipses in San Antonio, then we wanted to host a workshop here,” Lindsay Fuller, Eclipse Project Manager at UTSA stated.

UTSA scholar Tiffany Jensen has been connecting with the blind and low vision community and introducing the GentleSound device.

“They’ve heard of eclipses before, but that’s not really for me. I can’t see it or I can’t see it clearly enough and when they heard about these boxes and I demoed these boxes for them, they immediately got really excited. They were like, how can I get one,” Jensen stated.

The gadgets made right here will cross to native organizations.

San Antonio and the Hill Country have the uncommon success of seeing two solar eclipses inside six months.

The first is an annular solar eclipse on October 14, 2023 and the second one is a complete solar eclipse on April 8, 2024.

“This is pretty once in a lifetime opportunity for folks, so the more people we can engage in this and educate about the eclipse, it’s great,” Bieryla stated.