Take the headphones off, turn your cell phone to silent, and listen to the new sound on campus: wind chimes. They are part of a pilot project started in early last December to help visually impaired students get oriented by following audible cues.

There are six metal wind chimes hanging from light poles and tree branches near the library, the student union, the student service center and the humanities and science buildings.

"It’s such a simple idea, but sometimes people don’t think of simple ideas,” said Toshiro Yamamoto, who proposed the project to the disability programs and resource center.

About two years ago, Yamamoto, who is almost completely blind, was walking with his white cane from 19th Avenue to his house on 31st Avenue. As he was counting each crossing he got distracted and ended up lost. The sound of the wind chimes in the neighborhood helped him find his way home.

“It was like a dying sound, very gentle,” he remembered.

Yamamoto, a SF State kinesiology major, said the chimes are important in case there is an emergency or if he’s alone on campus.

“If we get lost we can ask people (where we are), but sometimes nobody is around, especially at nighttime, weekends, during the break. In that situation if wind chime(s) (are) making a sound that’s very lovely and helpful,” said Yamamoto.

In the event of a natural disaster, like an earthquake, wind chimes can be helpful because they identify certain areas, making it easy for blind people to know where they are, according to Yamamoto.

Geoff Brown, coordinator of the disability programs and resource center, agrees.

“Our legislation requires to make things accessible, for example with the room number in braille, or the yellow tape on steps for low vision students, but it doesn’t say anything on auditorial inputs,” said Brown.

Yamamoto’s persistence convinced Brown and Phil Evans, manager of the campus grounds, that a $60 investment was worth the try. Yamamoto has finished his classes at SF State and he is graduating in May, so he is not taking advantage of the chimes. But he said he is happy to finally hear their sounds, however, some cues are silent.

“Some chimes are sensitive to the wind but some are not, so we don’t hear all the six,” he says.

Another problem is the chimes are easily damaged and their strings get tangled into silencing knots. On Feb. 9, the chime in front of the humanities building was broken and the one near the science building was mute. Design and industry students together with the engineering department are working to make a more effective audible device, possibly solar powered.

"We want to have at least one ready by the second week of May, so Toshiro can hear (the audible device) before he graduates,” said design and industry major Yara Afshar, who is writing her senior thesis on the project and is coordinating the next stages.

In the meantime Yamamoto has some simple suggestions to improve what’s already working.

“They are all metal chimes,” Yamamoto says. “So the sound is too similar and confusing.”

The one at the east entrance of Burk Hall, for example, sounds like the one near the library.

“Each chime in each location should have a different sound, ” he said.

Materials like bamboo or glass produce a very distinctive music, he points out. But his favorite is the Furin, which is a typical bell in his native country Japan.

“I prefer gentle sounds,” says Yamamoto, who started to lose his sight at 12, after being hit by a soccer ball in the face. “Someone might get annoyed by loud chimes.”

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