The Handy is an interesting project by Zaizhuang Cheng, Derrick Ko, Colin Tan and Naga Setiawan from Purdue University. Very impressive since the parts cost is around $100.00.

“The motivation is to provide a button-free environment in which the user can just use hand gestures to control the sound system. For example, when the user is driving, all he has to do is perform the appropriate hand gestures to control his sound system, all without taking his eyes off the road. Our project will comprise of three main hardware components: the Microcontroller, the sensing plate and the LCD screen. The infrared sensors will be mounted on a flat plate in a 3×3 grid. When a user passes his hand over the plate, each sensor will detect the position of the hand and send the information to the microcontroller. The microcontroller will then process the raw information and translate it into a specific command which is then sent to the sound system via infra-red. Users will be able to assign their own hand movements to correspond to different commands (eg. play, pause and next). An LCD screen will then display the command that is detected by the microcontroller and provides a user interface for the user to assign hand gestures to each command.”

Via: TechEBlog