wheelchair 2.0

Today, I spent like 3 or 4 hours going around in the electric wheelchair.  This time, I had to control it with more than the joystick.  The first ten runs, I did it again with joystick, but apparently it was too easy for me.  Next, was the touch screen control, no more joystick, it was getting interesting.  The control was a bit rough, but it was pretty straight forward and easy to control.  The next control was with facial movements (what I need to do for my project), and it was hard.  If you turned too much the camera didn't recognize your face, and it was hard to stop.  But once you got it, the ride was way smoother than the previous.  Then came the jaw clenching, you had to do a jaw clenching series that create EMG signals to detect.  That was a very simple one to get to work, it worked pretty flawlessly.  The next and last one, was trying to control the wheelchair with jaw clenching for going forward and eye closing for going right or left.  Trying is the key word here.  I could not get that thing to turn in the right direction.  Let's just say that I had to switch back to joystick control several times to not crash.  Apparently my eye muscles are weak! 

Unrelated note: It's all bad news with my eyes.  Poor eyes.  I love seeing but my eyes just don't work right.  People often ask hypothetical questions like what would you rather be deaf or blind?  I would rather be deaf!  I am a visual person. 

Anyway, my project is not advancing much, I am hoping the phd student finishes his experiments soon so I can experiment!