Driven by
Mind Control

Solution

Putting
Our Brains
To Work

We started scribbling down increasingly far-fetched uses of creative technology. Then some bright spark at Splendid piped up, "How about we build a mind-controlled car?". We laughed. And then wondered, what if? Computer driven cars have been proven by Google’s self-driving car. And EEG headsets that enable you to control basic computer commands have been around for a few years. So what if we put them together?

Firstly, we needed a full-size remote control car. Enter, Dr James Brighton and his robot driven BMW. Then we needed to connect the EEG headset to James’ robot, and find a way of turning brainwaves into steering commands - think left, turn left, think right, turn right. After A LOT of calibrating, testing, calibrating, and testing again, we got it working. #EPICMindDrive was ready. Now it was time to find some drivers.

Use
your head

Splendid had recruited a number of very excited driving and tech writers, plus celebrity brainiac Carol Vorderman. We were tasked with finding a member of the public to join them on the test track, by creating a competition which required drivers to use their heads.

We created a dual-screen game in which players used their mobiles as controllers and desktops as monitors. Once they’d dialled in on their mobile via Skype or Facetime, we used face-tracking software to turn tilts of their head (captured through their phone’s camera) into driving commands - tilt head left, turn car left. The person who navigated our Tron-like track in the quickest time won the chance to drive our mind-controlled car.