Project Cobra’s Tactile Gaming Interface

Project Cobra is a portable gaming interface developed by Zi Ye and Hammad Khalid of the Human Media Lab at Queen’s University, Canada. The gaming system is unique in that users interact with the game by bending and twisting sides of a handheld board.

Gizmag has more on Project Cobra’s system:

The Project Cobra system consists of a pico projector mounted on the strap of a regular laptop bag hung from the gamer’s shoulder. This shoots an image onto a flat piece of plastic board held out in front. The laptop bag also holds a netbook or laptop which runs the game, giving users the level of freedom offered by handheld devices whilst also benefiting from the processing power generated by a larger mobile unit.

The board, which acts as both a display and an input device, is made up of two plastic sheets, thin enough to be flexible but sturdy enough to snap back into place and not sag if held in one hand. Inside the plastic sheet sandwich are three infrared LEDs. These help a customized Wiimote camera mounted above the pico projector keep track of the board’s position and orientation relative to the player. The housing also contains four bidirectional bend sensors and two pressure sensors controlled by an Arduino Bluetooth control board.

As the user enters gameplay, the sensors pick up any bending or pressure from the gamer and send the information wirelessly to the netbook or laptop controlling the game. So bending a corner of the board forward could, for instance, power up a sword, and releasing or bending it back could then bring down all the force of hell on a once mighty opponent!

The technology behind Project Cobra system may also see its application beyond gaming, with controlling video, tilting through 3D landscapes and mixing audio, all potential future applications for the flexible, mobile display interface.

Human Media Lab

Gizmag: “Gaming flexibility takes on new twist with Project Cobra”