Project Year: 2010
Course: New Ecology of Things
Instructor: Phil Van Allen
Project Title: The Useless Network
Project Members: Solo Project by Link Huang
Course: New Ecology of Things
Instructor: Phil Van Allen
Project Title: The Useless Network
Project Members: Solo Project by Link Huang
NEW ECOLOGY OF THINGS: THE USLESS NETWORK
The 11th Finger
This project critiques the redundancy of human devices we carry for ourselves. Cell phones no longer only functions as phones, but as web browsers, video players, portable gaming devices, as well as social network hubs. They can do just about everything our personal laptop can do, with additionally some people may have a tower size computer at home which can also do the same tasks their laptop, ipad, smartphones can do. The 11th finger utilizes a Infrared Eye Tracker modified from a Sony PS3 Eye camera in conjunction with a MAKE controller embedded in the helmet, and results in the finger on top of the helm pointing at the direction the eye is looking at.
In various scenarios this is a great and usless device for the lazy person who does not want to lift their arm to indicate a subject towards a direction, then this device can be used to help communicate without lifting a biological finger.
The eye tracking camera came from a DIY tutorial I found on the web by Graffiti labs for their "Eye Writer". This setup comprised of the Playstation Eye Toy camera, modified with several IR LED lights to illuminate the iris for tracking.
The Software used to drive the servos and eye tracker was NETLab Toolkit. Developed by my instructor Phil Van Allen. It allows widgets operating in Flash that can be customized by java code for customized features. https://staging.philvanallen.com/project/netlab-toolkit/
I implemented the motion tracker feature to allow the movement of the pupil to drive the servo motors in x and y axis. Providing the affordance to put the extra finger at the direction of the user's gaze.
Demo video recorded during class critique.