Dreaming Big,
Working Practically
sFU students unveil screenless
computers for capstone project
by Caitlin Dawson
S
cience fiction has long been a wellspring of inspiration for engineers.
So when a team of five Simon Fraser University students brainstormed
their final capstone project for ENSC 305/440, they set their sights on
an idea that's one part fantasy, two parts practical problem solving.
"We knew we wanted to create something brand new and futuristic," says
team member Carmen Tang.
The result is the LumenX3: a mobile computer that projects a user inter
-
face onto any surface. In doing so, the gadget liberates the interface from a
bulky, fragile physical screen.
"The projection is sensitive to touch, so users can tap,
drag and interact
with it as if it were a touch screen," says the team's CEO Gary Yu.
"It runs on Windows and uses all the applications you would expect from a
PC, including things like Dropbox," adds team member Herman Mak.
Inspiration for the project stemmed from celluloid: in a recent Spider-
Man movie, a futuristic machine projects a computing screen on a table.
Team member Mike Ng explains: "Movies always display cool devices that
don't exist yet. Because we were creating our own product, we thought: why
not try to make something similar to what we've seen in the film?"
After the brainstorming challenge came some practical considerations:
how would this project help solve a real-world problem?
"Current smart devices have screens that crack easily," says Tang. "We see
the LumenX3 as an alternative to a tablet: you can bring it to a meeting and
people can interact with it. To make the screen larger, all you do is increase the
size of the projection, so it's very portable."
"It's a new frontier in terms of how people use devices, " adds Yu. "There
is no screen, and yet it's a full computer."
With just four months to complete such a major project, the team, called
ObelXTech, recommends getting an early start on the brainstorming process.
"We actually came up with some ideas almost a year before the project due
Be the one
The ObelXTech capstone team: (back row) Herman Mak and Mike ng; (front row) Carmen
Tang and gary Yu. not pictured: Davin Mok.
