This Helmet Judges Your Ability to Handle Spicy Foods

When eating a ridiculously spicy taco, it’s convenient to have a soothing beverage on hand to ease the burn. But what if that soothing beverage was on your head, and what if it was attached to a suite of sensors that worked together to determine how much you were reacting to the spicy food you just ate? Then you’re probably wearing the Nuclear Taco Sensor Helmet, presented by Lisbon’s altLab at this year’s CodeBits conference.

Of course, after they built the taco sensor hat, the only possible way to present it was by making a fake Japanese game show.

So here’s how it works: The hat measures body temperature, perspiration, and the amount of a spice quenching yogurt-water mixture slurped by the helmet’s wearer. This information is crunched down via an Arduino board and then displayed in the form of a brightly colored chart complete with moving arrow. The more you heat up, sweat, and drink, the higher the arrow goes.

For added fun, the altLab crew added a webcam to capture every moment of your suffering.

While surely embarrassing, the fact that the helmet provides delicious relief to spicy food gets a thumbs up from me. I’ll gladly give up my dignity for a silly hat and a tasty meal I can survive.

(altLab via The Verge)

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