Meet the Beyond Touchscreens Competition Winners

Posted; August 13, 2020

The results are in! We’re excited to present the winners of our Beyond Touchscreens developer competition.

We challenged developers to create a proof of concept for the post-COVID-19 world that allowed you to control a public interface without touching a screen.

Entries were judged by our internal tech, UX and product maestros Tom Carter, David Holz, Hannah Limerick, Matt Corrall, and Saurabh Gupta, together with Catherine Morgan of Ocean Labs.

"I was really impressed by the wide range of entries from a whole host of talented developers across the world. It was fascinating to see how the different developers had applied Ultraleap’s touchless technology to revolutionize everyday human interaction."

Catherine Morgan – Director - Ocean Labs

First prize: Touchless.Design

Ideum

The Ideum team created an integrated hardware and software solution for touch displays and touch tables in museums. The system includes a Leap Motion Controller, a 3.5-ft display, and LED lights that work in concert with custom cursors.

The interaction was, unusually, designed for a horizontal screen. It used novel gestures, and the use of LED lighting for additional feedback was great. This got a big “wow” from us – and a deserved first prize.

See the full video here and open source code here.

Second prize: Soulful Bowl with Touchless Control

Patrick Saalfeld and Danny Schott

Customize your own bowl to the level of single ingredients. Instead of tapping on a small, pre-defined selection of ingredients via a touchscreen, the customer can grab, prepare, and drop single ingredients in a flexible, touchless way. Turning the user into the chef and making ordering food in a self-serve restaurant an immersive experience is very cool.

See the full video here and open source code here.

Runner-up: Vendoor

Ashish Bakshi, Cesar de Castro, Gabriel Santa Maria, Kavya Bakshi

Vendoor is a touchless walk-up storefront solution designed for small businesses. The interface is built around physical metaphors. Using it is more akin to hand-crafting a bespoke item than ordering off a generic point-of-sale machine. It’s also difficult to think of a more fun product for this application than unicorn ice creams!

See the full video here and open source code here.

Runner-up: Touchless Elevator Concept

Tanay Singhal & Mahika Phutane

Tanhay and Mahika’s concept for a touchless elevator includes not only hand tracking but also mid-air haptics. We loved the inclusivity of it: the design includes both touchless tactile braille and audio feedback. There are intuitive gestures for opening/closing doors, and button magnification on hover for improved accuracy.

See the full video here and open source code here.