This past weekend Eyedrivomatic won the Hackaday Prize, a contest which called for Makers to build a project that would effect positive change in the world. The Eyedrivomatic is an Arduino Uno based system that augments eye tracking software to physically control a motorized wheelchair. The winning team of Patrick Joyce, Steve Evans, and David Hopkinson get to choose whether they want to go to space or take the cash equivalent of $196,883. This project is especially compelling because two of the team members — Joyce and Evans — use this device to control their own motorized wheelchairs.
HOW IT WORKS
A software package called Eyegaze enables subtle eye movements to control special computer software. Most commonly this is used for text-to-speech technology. Eyedrivomatic extends the functionality of the Eyegaze software package. It allows users to control their motorized wheelchairs in the same way they interact with Eyegaze.
The hardware build of the project is an Arduino Uno connected to a relay shield and a servo controller shield. A 3D printed enclosure aligns the servos to behave as a joystick control to the wheelchair for manual control. A sketch loaded on the Arduino coordinates the eye movements from Eyedrivomatic with movement of the two servos.
The project is open source with STL files for 3D printing and source code for the Arduino.
http://makezine.com/2015/11/19/eye-tracking-wheelchair-control-design-wins-hackaday-prize/
No comments:
Post a Comment