Put Windshield Wipers on Your Face with These DIY Automatic Rain Goggles

Do you sometimes find yourself in wet environments? Do you prefer to keep your eyeball-area and that wet environment separate? Do you have access to some basic fabrication equipment, and too much time on your hands? Then have we found the project for you!

William Osman is known for building interesting, but usually ridiculous and impractical, gadgets on his YouTube channel. These Automatic Rain Goggles are no different, and if you had the inclination — for some reason — you could probably build your own. Osman, along with his friend Morgan Ryan, started the project by modeling the frame of the goggles in Autodesk Fusion 360.

After 3D printing the goggles frame, they used a laser cutter to cut some lenses from some sort of sheet material. It could be acrylic, or polycarbonate, or polyurethane — who knows. Whatever it was, they hot-glued the frame and lenses together, and then added a servo motor controlled by an Arduino Nano.

A moisture sensor on top of the goggles is connected to the Arduino, which then moves the servo back and forth. The ends of the servo arm are connected to a linkage, which in turn oscillates a pair of wipers. After slapping on some weather stripping and a sprayable waterproof coating, the goggles were ready to hold up to the harsh environment of a self-service car wash.