Student Creates Multi-Touch Software and Table for Science Project

10:04 | Brad Baldwin | Jun 23rd, 2008 1:54pm |

Here’s one student that takes the “Science Fair” to the next level. Bridger Maxwell, a high school student at Utah County Academy of Sciences (UCAS) decided to create a multi-touch table for his Science Fair entry–kinda like an iPhone screen, and Microsoft Surface on a budget.

The multi-touch experience allows for object movement, rotation, growing and shrinking, and even multi-hand, multi-person use. Inspired by movies like Minority Report, Maxwell leverages Apple OS X, code developed during Google Summer of Code called Open Touch, and his own code. The table, made from plexiglass and a dissembled Acer monitor, uses infrared light emitting diodes and an IR camera to detect and transmit fingertip motions as inputs.

Maxwell also expects to experience a future where multi-touch technology becomes a standard way to interact with applications, particularly for graphic manipulation and even gaming. Maxwell submitted his code back to the community at code.google.com/p/corkboard/ and has received coverage on Ars Technica and a local NBC news story.

Maxwell also expects to experience a future where multi-touch technology becomes a standard way to interact with applications, particularly for graphic manipulation and even gaming. While ...