Engineering On The Edge

I’d guess that, as a child, almost everyone had a friend that loved remote controlled toys. I knew a kid that had a bunch of remote controlled cars, and another that had a remote controlled plane (I’m pretty sure he crashed it). I was never all that interested in that sort of thing when I was younger, but even I think this new device is pretty cool.

Puzzlebox has designed a toy helicopter called the Orbit, which uses EEG to control its movement. The Orbit uses a NeuroSky MindWave Mobile EEG headset, a sort of miniature broadcast tower (made via 3D printing), and a smartphone to control the movements of a miniature helicopter. The harder you think, the more it moves around.

The Puzzlebox Orbit uses "brain-control" to direct its flight. Courtesy of Puzzlebox.

The Orbit is surrounded by a kind of circular cage, sort of like a continuous roll bar, that keeps the helicopter from suffering serious damage if it bumps into a wall or has a crash landing. Puzzlebox says it tested the toy by dropping it, without the helicopter suffering serious damage.

The EEG remote doesn’t quite offer true control capabilities (yet). When a user concentrates, the Orbit takes off, and if concentration wanes, it starts to descend. The Orbit also will zoom around the room on pre-programmed flight paths when the user reaches certain levels of concentration.

Below you’ll find Puzzlebox’s (now successful) Kickstarter video.

Source: Puzzlebox