Commissioned by Solar Flare Studios, I was technical lead and developer for this Mind controlled Scalextric track at the Goodwood Festival of Speed 2021
Yes! The public could use mind reading headsets to control the cars!
Using Emotiv Brainwear technology, in under 8 weeks, I had to design and create the hardware and software solution to use these headsets to control real life Scalextric slot cars!
I had to determine how to control the cars via digital signals and establish how best to use the Emotive headsets to enable slot car racing controlled by the mind!
This entailed me building a Raspberry Pi micro-processor circuit to control the motor speeds using PWM and then building a framework so that I could determine the Emotive headset API data and respond accordingly.
PRESS :
“…The software itself merits further attention. ‘I had about seven weeks to make it,’ explained Sheehan…”
It was great that The Register Magazine gave an excellent write up!
Scalextric test track arriving!
Through my software, up to 4 players can be setup at once.
Designing the layout of the track.
It was interesting working with this latest generation of brainwear technology; I experimented with all sorts of different triggers before settling upon an easy task for the general public to achieve – focusing on a small dot!
After a few practice goes looking at a dot on a screen which gives you immediate feedback on how well you’re focussing by growing smaller or larger, it soon becomes easy for most people to achieve on demand and can thereby control the cars going around the track!
I used Unity3D for the visuals for the active table display and enrolling calibration process, and Raspberry Pi with Python with some electronics to control the motor power for the cars.
I had some support from Grigor for the emotiv api handshake and some comms.
Pictures and Videos:
… I soon realised I was going to have to make the speed control more subtle …
Here it is in use.
