A brainwave-controlled helicopter project is hoping to make the move from classrooms to homes with the help of some Kickstarter capital.
The project, originally posted as a DIY hack on Instructables two years ago (and featured in the April 2011 issue of Wired), aspires to be more than a clever toy. As well as getting a product to market, Puzzlebox, the company behind the mindcopters, is also keen to promote education around mind-controlled devices and will release guides and software to make it easy for owners as young as 10 to understand — and eventually rebuild and modify — their helicopters.
[partner id=”wireduk”]The system uses a NeuroSky MindWave Mobile EEG headset to record brainwave data, which is then sent to software on either a tablet/smartphone or on a specially designed pyramid-shaped base. The software converts the brainwave data to flight commands, which control the flight of the spherical helicopter, Orbit.
In the tablet/smartphone version the command signals are issued via an infrared dongle connected to the audio port while the pyramid version features high-powered infrared emitters, which, with additional software, can be used to operate other toys and devices such as television screens.
Users can then select an action for the helicopter to perform, such as hovering in place or flying across the room, when the EEG headset detects that a particular mental state has been reached and maintained.