Thinking Physically: Brauswitch

[Follow-up with a short video demonstration of it available here.]

front

The Brauswtich is a digital switch to be worn on the forehead, just above the eyebrows. Raising one or both eyebrows will close the switch. There is a small gap between the upper and lower portions of the headband. It is made with a heavy burlap; the upper portion is stiffer than the lower portion which generally moves less as the eyebrows are raised and enables the switching motion.

It was designed without a specific output in mind; the task was to work within the confines of the assigned body part – in this case the head and torso. In class we attached each of our switches to an Arduino +WaveSheild and used them to trigger sound effects.

insideWhen adjusted correctly, it takes a very subtle movement to activate the switch although larger movements will work as well.

Nothing groundbreaking here, but this was my first experience working with conductive fabric to build a wearable circuit. I may be hooked.


corey

Corey wearing the Brauswitch.


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7 responses to “Thinking Physically: Brauswitch”

  1. […] [Original post at robertcarlsen.net] […]

  2. jan Avatar

    nice idea. make it into a hat and control your ipod while snowboarding.

  3. naus3a Avatar
    naus3a

    nice stuff; i’m making similar experiments via computer vision: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-PIG9I9Sgk&feature=channel_page

  4. robertcarlsen Avatar

    that’s fun looking. we’re getting into computer vision (mostly in C and using openFrameworks) in another class, but i haven’t personally worked with facial recognition. i couldn’t read the text on-screen…was the system not only detecting the face but also the emotion? that would be interesting.
    in this class we’re specifically looking to work with physical interface for the body. using eyebrows was a reaction to being given the head and torso to work with. it turned out to be fun.

  5. […] ¿Te gustaría controlar tu música y más con solo tus cejas? Prueba el Brauswitch de Robert Carlsen: […]

  6. […] appeared on Engadget on Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:29:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments SHARETHIS.addEntry({ […]

  7. […] Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments Written by startme in: Engadget | […]

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