Every year each of us lose about 192 hours (8 days!) of visual sight time to blinking.

Andrew Schneider, a students of Despina Papadopoulos‘ class of Wearable Technologies at ITP, has decided to try to get these valuable moments of sight back by taking a Polaroid picture everytime he blinks. His invention -named BlinkCam– turns this solution on its head by pointing the camera back at the wearer, allowing him or her to see what others see when they blink.

The BlinkCam uses custom-built soft conductive thread and conductive fabric swtitches that complete the circuit of the hacked shutter-release button. The thread and fabric is affixed to the face with spirit gum and the simultaneous closing of both eyes triggers the camera to take a picture. Every picture is taken during a blink, with the eyes closed.

Video demo and construction documentation.

Kind of related: Steve Mann‘s perpetual personal camera experiments and Sobject where Alberto Frigo meticulously photographed every object he touched with his right hand, building up a visual representation of the patterns inherent in his life.

More helmets: The Interstitial Space Helmet (ISH), the toaster helmets, the lense helmet, the meat helmet, the masticator, the Brain Tumour helmets with Microwaves, the prayer helmet and the Smile Helmet, over here!