Think touch screens are cutting edge? Five engineering seniors can control a computer without touching anything at all.

How? With their winning capstone project, a touchless sensor system made of copper plates and circuitry. (Check out the video below for a full demo.)

Modeled after the natural phenomenon of fish electrolocation (whereby surface skin cells pick up on changes in the immediate underwater environment), the device links to a computer via USB and can draw, compose music, and simulate scratching on a vinyl record. Countless other applications—a surgeon consulting records in the OR without removing gloves, for example—are also possible.

Now that the class project is complete, the group is trying to patent it and make improvements. “Our project was something that hadn’t been done before,” team member Mark Hollenbeck states. “It was truly a capstone in that the work was cumulative from the last five years—what we learned on co-op, in the classroom, and from each other. It all came together.”

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