Detecting Attention
What
During my senior year at MIT, I worked at the Fluid Interfaces lab at the MIT Media Lab. There, I worked for Nataliya Kosmyna on AtttentivU. AttentivU is a smart glasses that can detect when the user is distracted. This is accomplished by reading the EOG (eye muscle movements) and EEG (electrical activity of the brain) signals. I was responsible for the design of the glasses frame and the electrodes.
The frame has to be able to house the electronics, the batteries, and the electrics. At the same time, it has to be ergonomics and look pretty. It was actually quite a challenging project. Designing for human ergonomics is very difficult. There’s not a way to “calculate” your way to a comfortable design. It must be done through many iterations. Furthermore, it has to be pretty, and I have very little experience in industrial design.
The design of the electrodes is more straight forward. There’s quite a bit of research on electrode design already. I did a rough journal review to figure out the revelant design parameters. In the end, for the best result, I selected silver as the material. The nose pads of the glasses are designed to be EOG electrodes. The bridge of the glasses is the GND electrode. Finally, the temple tips are the EEG electrodes.
You can read more about this project here: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/attentivu/overview/
I’m currently working on the second iteration of this project. When that iteration is published, I can talk more about my roles.