SpecialEffects recent crowd funding project, Playing with your eyes, has been a success. The money has been raised to purchase a new eye controlled controller.
The fund raising project on Gambitious for SpecialEffect to purchase a controller for disabled gamers to play the games we all love with their eyes is coming to a close today and the charity has hit their goal!
Thanks to all the donations SpecialEffect received, the eye-controlled gaming system will be able to help more of the increasing number of people contacting them quicker than before. The equipment will be used with a wide range of people over it’s lifetime and bring many gamers with disabilities unimaginable joy.
A statement featured on the SpecialEffect website has this message for everyone “Bless my cotton socks – you did it! THANK YOU to all you fantastic people who’ve dug deep and donated to our charity crowdfunder and raised nearly £7,000 for a very special controller to enable disabled gamers to join in the fun of playing video games, just using their eyes.
We’re honoured that so many people – including Jonathan Ross, Tim Schafer and Tom Watson – have put their weight behind the campaign. The eye-gaze system it funds is going to make a huge difference to a whole bunch of people.
Gaming charity, SpecialEffect, need your help in raising money to afford some futuristic equipment to help change deserving gamers lives.
The charity has setup a Gambitious page to help receive funding to purchase a very special eye control gaming system. There are a range of different eye-control devices available, but your donations would help purchase a product designed specifically to suit a range of needs for disabled people, such as those with locked-in syndrome, motor neurone disease, muscular dystrophy and cerebral palsy.
Everyone’s needs are different, and making eye-control work successfully, especially in the cases of complex disability, is rarely a simple task. SpecialEffect has been working with eye-control technology and complex disability since the charity was founded in 2007. Founder, Dr Mick Donegan, is an acknowledged world leader in the development and application of eye-controlled technology. Thanks to the charity’s expertise and experience, it’s in a strong position to be able to use this technology successfully with a range of different people.
SpecialEffect has already had great success in using the eye-control technology like with young Henry. His parents contacted the charity after hearing about eye-controlled computers and wondered if the technology could benefit their son. Henry and his family were invited to the SpecialEffect GamesRoom in Oxford and they had a wonderful afternoon being introduced to simple eye-controlled activities.
“The look on Henry’s face when he first used the eye-gaze to control something on a screen was indescribable,” said Henry’s father Rob. “For the first time he could play with something completely ‘on his own’. It was a landmark moment for us as a family.”
Soon afterwards, SpecialEffect visited Henry at home and set up an eye-controlled computer for him to borrow, and before long he was enjoying a range of eye-control games as well as playing with a toy train set, just by moving his eyes.
I had the great pleasure of going to visit SpecialEffect at its headquarters in Oxford on Wednesday. The charity held a get together to thank supporters for their work during the Art Charity Auction back in December.
As I arrived at the building I was struck by how incredible it looked. I drove up a long road, flanked by trees all the way up to a Manor building where SpecialEffect is housed. I parked around the back and entered the easily accessible building where I was met by Hannah Whittaker, who works at SpeciaEffect.
As I entered the office I was greeted by Gavin Tan, who is a developer for the charity. I chatted with Gavin for a bit about games, that is the reason we are in this industry, and he then showed me some of the controllers they use to help disabled people to be able to play games.
The first controller I tried was the “EyeGaze”. This is a device which tracks your eye movements and lets you do all the things you want on a computer using nothing but your eye movement. Following a quick calibration I got to play racing game, Dirt. To control the vehicle you moved your eyes to the top of the screen to go faster, to the bottom of the screen to brake and reverse and direct your eyes left or right to turn. I am normally terrible at racing games but using the EyeGaze I managed an average time which pleased me!
Following on from the EyeGaze I got to experience voice activated controls in Street Fighter. A control was set up which is used for movement and can be controlled by your chin with a sensitive microphone for the voice commands. The commands were simple like “Punch” for an uppercut, “Kick” for a spinning kick and “Move” to do a Hadouken.
Seeing and experiencing these controllers for myself really showed me how helpful these can be for people trying to get back in to gaming and back playing games on a level playing field. It truly is an amazing thing that the people at SpecialEffect do.
Over the next half an hour several games industry people turned up to the office for the event. There were people there from Sega, Warner Bros, and Take-two. Once everyone had arrived it was time for the main event.
Everyone was welcomed to the event by Kirsty Payne, a Vice President of SpecialEffect, who can be seen in the picture above. She gave a quick run down of the event in December. The art auction featured games art from across the industry and was held at the London City Hall and was visited by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson. The auction managed to raise over £30,000!
The floor was then given over to Dr Mick Donegan, founder of SpecialEffect, who showed where the money will be going and who is being helped.
After the presentation SpecialEffect offered us drink and food. It was lovely just being able to talk with some of the games industry people who do so much for our industry and hearing their opinions on the games industry at the moment.
It was an incredible day and I will continue to do what I can for this amazing Charity! I will leave you with this amazing video of a young man called Alex who has been able to play games again and has used Special Effects help to be able to become a Train2Game student!
SpecialEffects recent crowd funding project, Playing with your eyes, has been a success. The money has been raised to purchase a new eye controlled controller.
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