Initially, I thought it was a couple of students who had pulled this off which lead me to, "Wow, what an awesome curriculum". However, the fact that it was a couple of scientists in research doesn't surprise me. It's still very clever and innovative.
On a side note: I'm very certain, having worked for my local school district's special education program during the summer times, that there exists many disabled students who rely on weak technologies as their way of broadcasting a message. (They cannot simply just walk into the classroom and 'text'.)
For instance, I was astonished when I saw this poor girl, in a push wheelchair, swaying back and forth a little bit, using a head button* to decide on a letter/word/picture/phrase sitting in a 5 x 10 table scrolling the x, then the y to a final destination. 2 minutes later, she said "Good Mrning". I can almost guarantee that a nice bit of software to detect a few twitches and movements is far more welcome to them.
*Head Button: Imagine the chair in the picture below with an over-sized arcade button taped to the chair's headrest. The display she used looked worse than an old Gateway of mine.