Honduras Man Designs Affordable Eye Tracker Technology: The Eyeboard

A few weeks ago we were introduced to a wonderful young man named Luis Cruz. This young prodigy from Honduras is taking an early interest in helping the disabled community approach expensive technology in a cheaper, more effective, and sometimes do-it-yourself way.

AbleGamers’ Editor-in-Chief, Steve Spohn, sat down with Mr. Cruz to talk about disability, technology, and his hopes for attending college in United States of America. At the bottom is more information about how you can help this future engineering achieve his dreams of helping the disabled lead more accessible lives.

Luis Cruz: My name is Luis Cruz, I just graduated from high school and I love working in the programming and engineering fields.  Let me tell you a little about my story...

First of all it's a pleasure for me to address to you these few words of excitement and personal reward to all the readers at ablegamers. I want to share with you my testimony about a crucial decision I took when I was a freshman in High school to succeed at life and learn everything I could in the field of engineering before going to college. After a couple of years of programming experience, as a sophomore in High School, I began to venture into the digital electronics world. Posterior an extensive research I made about microprocessors and embedded systems, I purchased a kit with projects oriented to the digital electronics world, and that decision not only made me choose my future career, but changed the course of my life in the following years. That's how I began working on many projects of mine in the digital electronics and computer science fields.

As a 16-year old junior in high school, I began to combine my game programming and digital electronics experience to build a video game system.Which was considered the first video game system made in my native country, Honduras.

LC: Subsequently to my graduation at High School under an 11-year program in Honduras, inpursuit of the American dream and better opportunities in my future career, I moved to Colorado Springs, CO, USA with my parents' support and financial sacrifice in order to finish my senior year of high school. While devoting part of my time to keep good grades, I also worked in many different electronic projects to enrich my knowledge on this field when I had free time. A stronger motivation was going to make me work on a new project when I met one of my classmates who was tetraplegic. Meeting him, and hearing about some testimonies of people with similar illnesses, made me realize that a lot of people with disabilities don't have access to technology that help them overcome communication problems just because those systems are way too expensive. I also thought that it would be a good way to combine this new project with my older projects, such as playing my video game system with the eyes!

Combining some ideas I had for previous projects, and the motivation to help people with disabilities in developing countries and the whole world made me work hard enough to finish my first stable version of a Human-Computer Interface that would provide the user the ability to communicate with other people and interact with a computer using just their eyes. The prototype of the monitoring system of bioelectrical signals I developed, could be built with as little as two hundred US dollars, while other similar biomedical systems available could cost a minimum of ten thousand dollars.

LC: After meeting a fellow student who was tetraplegic at my senior year of high school, I thought about possible ways that disabled people could use in order to overcome communication problems. I made some researches and discovered that many applications in the market had a cost of $10,000 or more. This is where I began my own researches about ways to establish a human-computer-interface at a low-cost. After some intensive researches about how Electrooculography worked, about filters and bio-amplifiers, I developed my own electronic circuit and code to develop The Eyeboard.

SS: The cost of eye tracking technology is incredibly high. Do you see your product and future inventions helping make accessible technology more affordable to those on fixed incomes in the disabled community?

LC: My main goal of The Eyeboard is helping the disabled community for those who do not have access and cannot afford expensive systems. I hope seeing The Eyeboard in many other applications and innovations in the market as well in a way that could help a lot of people and make our lives easier. This is another reason why I released all the code as open source.

In many developing countries these type of technology does not exist whatsoever. I am pretty confident that The Eyeboard is going to solve that issue and help a lot of disabled people at many places around the world.

To make sure that happens, I am making the first step on this regard by selling a Do-It-Yourself kit of the eyeboard so anyone can build it at home!

LC: My main goal with The Eyeboard is going to be fulfilled when I see the project in organizations that help disabled people, seeing my project made and improved by high school and college students at science fairs, and eventually seeing the project evolve into another application in the market.

SS: You said you're raising funds to be able to come to America and study engineering. Do you have other projects in mind for down the road as you become an increasingly more amazing engineer?

LC: Hopefully I will be enrolling college next year in the US, in the meantime I am always doing something new just for the sake of learning! That's how my daily life is as an entrepreneur, and I love doing it. For instance, lately I have been working in a website in which I am combining my programming knowledge, networking, database managment and internet marketing. The website I am working on is about mixing a professional social network with a totally new platform that offers the option to have an interactive online resume with photos and videos, and at the same time having a unique URL to that page which can be used on people's business cards.

Webiste is http://www.myicv.com

My online interactive resume is: http://www.myicv.com/lcruz

LC: Recently I just launched The Eyeboard at kickstarter, with the intention to find backers that support The Eyeboard to succesfully bring it to the market as a Do-It-Yourself kit.

To make sure that a lot of people reach this technology, I will be selling a DIY kit of The Eyeboard on my website.  The pre-order button is already available on my website! I am using some of my savings to make this possible, however, to share the project with even more people I hope that I find enough backers at Kickstarter.

The Eyeboard at Kickstarter: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lcruz/the-eyeboard-0

LC: I am always doing some new improvements to my project, and uploading new programs on my website so people can download them and use it with The Eyeboard. I also hope that there will be a community of programmers and developers that will be improving this project to have even more applications (such as video games that can be controlled with the eyes) available to the end-user! Make Magazine will be publishing a “How-To” article next year, I then hope that a lot of people will be willing to improve my code and circuit!

Until now you can check the following video in which I am controlling the video game system I developed (The EES) just with the eyes! (Start watching at minute 2:55)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlgKOV_mn18

This basically proves that The Eyeboard can control almost anything we wish in our environment, it's just the matter of developing the correct interface and implementing the idea!

LC: Absolutely, in fact right now I am currently trying to develop more ways (besides applying it with the EES) in which The Eyeboard can be applied into the gamer community. Everything will be released as open source on my website when it is done. I started with the vision of being a game developer in the future, I now want to combine that passion for video games that I have had since I was a little kid with my new passion which is the Engineering field.

SS: What's next for Luis Cruz?

LC: If it's God's willing, I will be studying Electrical or Electronics Engineering at a university in the United States, probably next year.  Always keeping in mind that passion to learn more everyday and contribute a little bit towards the advancement of our society globally which hopefully will be of benefit to many people.

I know as a fact that this is only the beginning of my journey and endeavors, as I am always making new projects to improve my engineering skills, and thinking about new ideas that can change people's lives for good. But that wouldn't be possible if it wasn't for my perseverance and dedication; and so my fellow readers, I tell you that we shall not endorse defeat as our failure, but take that as an experience to succeed at our endeavors, as with enough effort and perseverance anyone can succeed at their goals, but wait not for success knock at your door, as it will probably not happen whatsoever.

Thanks, Luis. For more information, the eyeboard kits, and schematics, visit http://www.intelsath.com.

Comments (3)

georgli

December 07, 2011

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great project!

CariWoW

December 07, 2011

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Very nice! Luis, I hope you will be an active part of our community here, and wish you the best with school and business.

Luis Cruz

December 09, 2011

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Hello, thanks for your comments! I would love being part of this community as an active user.

I will be posting updates about the eyeboard whenever I can. If you have any questions don't hesitate to ask me



Thanks!




Luis Cruz

INTELSATH Chief Executive Officer
http://www.intelsath.com
MyICV Resume: http://www.myicv.com/lcruz

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Support the Eyeboard at kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/lcruz/the-eyeboard-0

Remember to tell your friends about this unique kit that can surely help a lot of people!
See video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zObidmxnj5Y

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