Second Guess

Inspiration

So many horrible decisions are made in the heat of the moment. With no time to think, and no time to process all the possible outcomes and implications of their actions, a social media user may lose their friends, a celebrity may lose their status, and a young, naive adolescent may make a decision that resonates throughout their life, as well as others. What could be done to prevent such a tragedy? Maybe if they just thought for a second.

What it does

Second Guess is a Chrome extension that monitors your brain waves in order to detect when you may be in danger of making an impulsive decision. It uses the Muse Headband to track your reckless tendencies through your likelihood to possess emotions such as anger, stress, and anxiety, and warns you if you are typing something that you should be cautious.

How we built it

We did research to discover that certain brain waves, called beta waves are indicators of these emotions. By measuring beta wave patterns, it is possible to estimate the likelihood of snap decision-making through these types of emotions that trigger intense outbursts. The Chrome extension connects to the muse-io driver via a UDP connection, and receives OSC packets in order to process incoming brain waves.

Challenges we ran into

Anthony had never coded before. David had never made a chrome extension before, and had not made a web app in several years. It was challenging to quickly learn the neurology in order to integrate with the extension. It was also challenging because had several ideas, and did not finalize ours until midnight. We had checked out several hardware devices in chase of several ideas, but we ended up using the least likely candidate: the seldom picked Muse.