NeuroGaming Hackathon

This past weekend Brainihack organized the NeuroGaming Hackathon as part of the NeuroGaming Conference and Expo.

NeuroGaming Conference and Expo

The NeuroGaming Conference and Expo was founded a year ago by Zack Lynch and held at YetiZen on May 1-2, 2013 preceded by a hackfest. I heard of it through the coplay space at YetiZen but was unable to attend. Following the success of last year, this year's NeuroGaming Conference and Expo will be much bigger and is being held at City View at Metreon.

Hackathon

I didn't want to miss out on a NeuroGaming hackathon again so I signed up early this year. There were a lot more people signed up for this year's hackathon than last year so it had to move from YetiZen to Apportable. There ended up being 100 participants and 22 teams presented their hacks on Sunday.

The best part was getting to play around with all the cool technologies brought in by the companies partnering with the hackathon. We had access to motion/gesture control from Leap Motion and brain-computer interfaces from Emotive and NeuroSky. OpenBCI was also a partner for the hardware hackers interested in DIY brain-computer interfaces.

On the software side of things, Unity was providing trial pro versions of Unity 3D to use for the hackathon and many of the devices had Unity plug-ins available.

Leap Motion

Leap Motion brought 20 of their Leap Motion Controllers for us to hack with. These controllers use infrared cameras and LEDs to sense your hand and finger motions. You use the controller as an input device like a mouse but you don't have to touch anything.

I made a game to address anxiety using Unity 3D and a Leap Motion Controller. The game is called "Freedom". In the game, you use your hands to fly around the clouds peacefully.

Demonstrating my game "Freedom" at the NeuroGaming Hackathon

There is a video of the demonstration on Leap Motion's blog.

Emotiv

I wanted to get my hands on one of the research-grade EEG headsets. I went with Emotive because their headset had the most and best positioned sensors. It had 14 sensors positioned all over your head, not just on your forehead. It also had a gyroscope to track head movement. When trying to get useful information about brain activity, the more sensors, the better. The only downside was headset wasn't very comfortable to wear, especially for prolonged periods. The upside was being able to control things with your mind. It was very rewarding to make a virtual cube float with my mind. I was interested in using the headset in a meditation game, so I joined a group with others that had the same goal.

The developers who used Emotiv at the NeuroGaming Hackathon

NueroSky

NueroSky was behind the adorable Necomimi Brainwave Cat Ears that show your brain activity levels through cat ear movements. I received a pair of these as a gift a few years ago and they were delightful. Unfortunately, the ears never seemed to calibrate to my brain. Most unfortunate is that the companion "shippo" cat tail that wags based on your heart rate never even made it to market.

The NuroSky Mindwave is an improved version of the cat ears headset minus the ears. It is like the Emotiv EEG headset, but with fewer sensors and also uncomfortable to wear for prolonged periods.

Conclusion

Over the weekend I worked on two games using two different types of sensory input. It was really fun to work with both technologies, and it was a good experience to work both with a team and solo.

Working with a team was rewarding and gave me opportunities to pair program. By pairing with my teammates, I was able to dramatically reduced the time it took to hunt down bugs and logical errors in the code (from hours to minutes), allowing us to spend more time developing features.

Working on my own was also rewarding as it allowed me to create a game entirely as I had envisioned it. I had complete control over the gameplay, art, and sound, so I was able to bring my vision to life without compromise.