We’re familiar with games functioning with electrical signals, but videogames powered by biotechnology sounds like something you’d expect to hear in science fiction.
Well, thanks to science–and thanks to Stanford University bioengineer Ingmar Riedel-Kruse–living microbes have been used to reinvent classic videogames from the 1980s. With his custom electronics and augmented reality software, Riedel-Kruse coaxes microscopic organisms to play key roles in Pac-Man , Brick Breaker and other 8-bit games from the same era.
Single-celled protozoans called paramecia (organisms typically found in ponds) are what are used for Riedel-Kruse organically powered games. Like how electrical signals send impulses to move muscles, changes in electrical fields alter the maneuvering of the microbes. Translated in context of a videogame, the microbes swim toward electricity using cilia (microscopic hair-like structures, which can provide propulsions in some protozoans) that cover their bodies.
In order to control the microbes, a shallow, thumbnail-size, electrode-lined chamber with a glass bottom gathers together the organisms, and the chamber itself is wired to a controller with an omnidirectional button. Depending on which direction the button is pushed towards, the electrical signal respective to that direction will attract the microbes; move the button left, the microbes will be drawn to the left, thus changing the chamber’s direction.
Though they’d only appear as a speck to the naked eye, the microbes can be viewed with a webcam that’s paired with a 5x-to-10x magnifying lens. The webcam itself is affixed to the top of the chamber, which is illuminated by LEDs.
As for the interface, object-detecting/motion-sensing software turns the whole thing into a game by locating the organisms as they move around in their chamber while a video overlay allows for the microbes to interact with digital images. Using Pac-Man s as an example, the microbes “eat” the small pellets as they swim past them on the digital image.
A video demonstration has been embedded below.
[ Popular Science ]