Discussing plans for a brain-computer interface-based hackaton at EMFCamp

253 views
Skip to first unread message

Andrew Vladimirov

unread,
May 16, 2016, 5:51:48 PM5/16/16
to London Hackspace, Colin Rowat, Martin Dinov, Dirk Bruere, Javier Asensio Cubero, I Bard, thewin...@zoho.com, Daniel O'Doherty
We are planning to include a BCI-based hackathon at the EMFcamp this august and will meet with Colin (who runs Google Cardboard workshops at EMF and CCC) this Sat 3 pm at Hackspace to discuss it in detail. If you are interested in participating, or want to offer any relevant ideas/insight do join us on Sat; you can also talk to me Tues evening when we run the usual neurostim tests on volunteers.

All the best, 

Andrew (on behalf of the Brain Hackers group) 

Colin Rowat

unread,
May 17, 2016, 5:03:13 AM5/17/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, dirk....@gmail.com, jav...@neurotechx.com, i.b...@lse.ac.uk, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk
To add to Andrew's invitation, here's a bit of the back-story:

The Cardboard workshops at EMF and CCC have been a big success, partly because Cardboard dropped the costs of VR to almost nothing.

Thus, with the VR wave beginning to mature, we've been looking for the next wave to 'cardboardise', and wondered about BCI: can we drop the cost of entry-level brain-computer interfaces by having our phones do the processing?

Some projects we've discussed: a portable lie detector; retrieving passwords from your head; f-NIRS (a low cost version of f-MRI).  We'll bring some EEG gear along.

If you're interested in bringing BCI to the masses, we'd love to see you Saturday,

Colin

tim_n

unread,
May 17, 2016, 5:34:21 AM5/17/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, dirk....@gmail.com, jav...@neurotechx.com, i.b...@lse.ac.uk, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk
I have a cousin confined to a wheel chair who loves computer games but due to his condition control is a complete PITA.  He's recently got a Stephen Hawking-esque chair with a button behind his head to control the tablet to communicate.  Whilst motion detection is completely out, a working brain interface would allow more sophisticated control.  It's well beyond my technical abilities and time available, but if anyone wants to work on it I'd happily do what I could to help out including buying equipment etc.

Andrew Vladimirov

unread,
May 17, 2016, 7:40:15 AM5/17/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, dirk....@gmail.com, jav...@neurotechx.com, i.b...@lse.ac.uk, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk


On Tuesday, May 17, 2016 at 10:03:13 AM UTC+1, Colin Rowat wrote:
To add to Andrew's invitation, here's a bit of the back-story:

The Cardboard workshops at EMF and CCC have been a big success, partly because Cardboard dropped the costs of VR to almost nothing.

Thus, with the VR wave beginning to mature, we've been looking for the next wave to 'cardboardise', and wondered about BCI: can we drop the cost of entry-level brain-computer interfaces by having our phones do the processing?

I think we can, and we can do accessible concurrent neurostim too.  

Some projects we've discussed: a portable lie detector; retrieving passwords from your head; f-NIRS (a low cost version of f-MRI).  

Low cost substitute for fMRI for local BOLD :) 

Andrew Vladimirov

unread,
May 17, 2016, 8:57:56 AM5/17/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, dirk....@gmail.com, jav...@neurotechx.com, i.b...@lse.ac.uk, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk
Hi Tim,
you can youtube not only for mind-controlled drones flown from a wheelchair but also for mind-controlled wheelchairs - you'll find a lot. However, realistically speaking currently the easiest way of controlling anything is mimics rather than mindstates recognition. Emotiv Epoc is great at that, I'll bring it on Sat (and can bring it today, if needed). However, Emotiv is close source and relatively expensive :( but that's exactly where Colin's cardboarding ideas come in.
Andrew

Colin Rowat

unread,
May 18, 2016, 5:37:19 PM5/18/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, dirk....@gmail.com, jav...@neurotechx.com, i.b...@lse.ac.uk, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk
Andrew's just drawn my attention to this 2002 paper, http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~tanja/BCI/BCIreview.pdf, which does a good job of reviewing the basics of BCI.


On Monday, May 16, 2016 at 10:51:48 PM UTC+1, Andrew Vladimirov wrote:

Andrew Vladimirov

unread,
May 31, 2016, 11:14:30 AM5/31/16
to london-h...@googlegroups.com, Colin Rowat, Martin Dinov, John Mitchell, Daniel O'Doherty, Franjo....@banctec.co.uk, Alex Unku
Hi folks, unfortunately I won't be able to make it to hackspace today, hopefully see you next Tues. 

Cheers, 
Andrew

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "London Hackspace" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/london-hack-space/hHOQx1g9rgs/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to london-hack-sp...@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

Colin Rowat

unread,
Jun 11, 2016, 3:49:24 AM6/11/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk, Franjo....@banctec.co.uk, alex...@gmail.com
Hi all,

We're going to meet at 11am tomorrow (Sunday) at the Hackspace to push forward with the hardware design.  I'm going to bring components that I have; if you can bring any that you have, that would be useful.

Thanks!

Colin

Colin Rowat

unread,
Jun 13, 2016, 11:22:44 AM6/13/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk, Franjo....@banctec.co.uk, alex...@gmail.com
Hi all,

I'd like to invite people to the space on Sunday for a smartphone/brain-computer interface hackathon this Sunday (19th June).  The hackathon would be open to all.  We're also inviting people in the London neurotech Meetup.

The events calendar shows nothing until the evening.

Would that be OK?  (I've mentioned this to the IRC, who propose asking here.)  I expect numbers to be small.

Thank you,

Colin

Colin Rowat

unread,
Jun 14, 2016, 11:55:46 AM6/14/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk, Franjo....@banctec.co.uk, alex...@gmail.com
We're going ahead with the flash hackathon on Sunday.  Please join us if you're interested.

@keyholders: will one of you be in the area on Sunday morning for 10:30?  If so, could you open the shutters for us?

Thanks,

Colin

Colin Rowat

unread,
Jun 18, 2016, 3:06:33 AM6/18/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk, Franjo....@banctec.co.uk, alex...@gmail.com
Hi all,

Tomorrow morning from 10:30am we'll be holding a flash hackathon to make progress on the smartphone-BCI project - which aims to get a simple working BCI kit in place to give a workshop on it at EMF Camp in early August.

Please join us if you're interested!

@keyholders: will one of you be in the area on Sunday morning for 10:30?  If so, could you open the shutters for us?


Thanks and hoping to see some of you tomorrow,

Colin

Colin Rowat

unread,
Jun 28, 2016, 7:37:39 AM6/28/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk, Franjo....@banctec.co.uk, alex...@gmail.com
Hi all,

We'd like to hold another hack session at 10:30am on Sunday morning for the smartphone/brain-computer interface project.  I'd expect about a half dozen people for 2-3 hours.

There's nothing currently in the Events Calendar for Sunday.

If no one minded, could we add this to the calendar?

All Hackspace members are very welcome.

Thank you,

Colin

Paddy Duncan

unread,
Jun 29, 2016, 5:26:48 PM6/29/16
to london-h...@googlegroups.com

I’ve put it in the calendar, let me know if you want any added info…

Cheers

Paddy

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "London Hackspace" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to london-hack-sp...@googlegroups.com.

Colin Rowat

unread,
Jun 30, 2016, 2:34:55 AM6/30/16
to London Hackspace, pad...@padski.co.uk
Thanks Paddy - that's great!

Best,

Colin

Andrew Vladimirov

unread,
Jul 2, 2016, 9:44:22 AM7/2/16
to london-h...@googlegroups.com
Hi Colin, 

Is there anything specific I should bring along with me? 

Best,
A

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "London Hackspace" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/london-hack-space/hHOQx1g9rgs/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to london-hack-sp...@googlegroups.com.

Marco Datola

unread,
Jul 2, 2016, 11:47:32 AM7/2/16
to London Hackspace, c.r...@espero.org.uk, marti...@yahoo.com, thewin...@zoho.com, m...@danielodoherty.co.uk, Franjo....@banctec.co.uk, alex...@gmail.com
Hi Colin,

Are people who didn't manage to make it on your first session going to be of any help tomorrow?
I would like to get involved but I have the feeling I would be slowing you down more than helping.

Is there maybe some material I can go over today?

Cheers,
Marco

Colin Rowat

unread,
Jul 2, 2016, 12:50:48 PM7/2/16
to London Hackspace, marti...@yahoo.com, thewin...@zoho.com, Franjo....@banctec.co.uk, alex...@gmail.com

Dear Marco,

 

Yes, of course.  I think that we’re going to be rebooting a bit on the hardware side tomorrow, so everyone will be catching up.  If you wanted to look in on that discussion in advance, you could join our Slack channel (#smartphone-bci sub-channel of NeuroTechX at https://neurotechx.herokuapp.com/).

 

I hope that you can make it tomorrow, and look forward to meeting,

 

Colin

Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages