Cheap Eye Tracking System

Okay, so movement-based video games are cool. That's why the Nintendo Wii is the number one video game console in the country. But how about video games based on eye movement? Sounds a little over the top, but it's a revolution for people who can't move their arms for any number of reasons.

Eye motion capture has existed for years, but usually at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars. And it hasn't exactly been applied to video games. A team of students at Imperial College London developed not only a cheap motion-capture system but also applied it to a simple video game similar to Pong.

Using about £25 of materials, five students working in Dr. Aldo Faisal's research lab developed a special pair of glasses containing a webcam and an infrared light to track the movement of one pupil.

What's cool about that is that anyone can potentially make their own eye tracking device because all the materials are easily available and inexpensive. The team hopes to share the technology for both the tracker and the calibration system that allows it to function within a simple game online. In making it an open source technology, the researchers would allow outsiders to make their own applications for the system, and the possibilities are endless.

In addition to more complex video games, someone with limited bodily motion could use their eyes to move a cursor, blink to click or turn a page in an ebook, or any number of things that disability had made nearly impossible before.

But my favorite part of this story is that students made the tracker. For an assignment. And then went above and beyond and linked it to a video game. It says a lot about the potential for bright people to make things more accessible.