Let a thousand neurons fire

On July 20th and 21st, Backyard Brains ran part of the Health and Biomedical Engineering for Girls Camp, where, over the course of two days, 45 area high school girls learned about electronics and neuroscience. They built and soldered their own SpikerBoxes, and then used their new devices for their own neuroscience experiments. See below for a wonderful sight of brand new neuroscientists brought into existence! Watch out oh professors of the world, in 5-7 seven years you might be seeing some unusually talented graduate students.

If you are interested in Backyard Brains coming to your student group and teaching about neurons and electrical engineering, don’t hesitate to contact us!

Posted: 2010-Jul-30 — Filed under: Education, Marketing, Outreach

Backyard Brains bringing spikes to Maker Faire Detroit this weekend.

Those of you in the Midwest, bring your families and friends to the Maker Faire at the Henry Ford Museum this weekend (July 31st and August 1st). Backyard Brains will be participating in this nerd paradise. Our exhibit number is 3534. Also, the “silent third” partner of Backyard Brains was recently highlighted by the University of Michigan School of Education for her work with the organization Michigan Future.

Posted: 2010-Jul-29 — Filed under: Uncategorized

Now offering DIY “Bag of Parts” Kit for $49.99. Build your own Neuroscience.

Depending on what generation you are, you may fondly remember home-built AM radio kits. Backyard Brains is inspired by the amateur electronics heads of the 60’s and 70’s, and we now announce our SpikerBox “Bag of Parts” kit. You get the board, you get the chips, capacitors, and resistors, some instructions, and off you go! Here’s what it looks like when you are done.

And with the enclosure, which we also provide in the kit.

Here is a picture of our first customer who ordered the bag of parts version. Yes, Luis does have a MakerBot behind him. With such a 3D printer you can build your own enclosure. Unleash the output of your mind and hands, my fellow creatives!

Posted: 2010-Jul-19 — Filed under: Hardware, Marketing — Tags: DIY MAKE neuroscience

How to Roll Your Own iPhone Data Recording Cable

Many users, while enjoying the SpikerBox demo’s we have done, have also expressed excited curiosity that the iPhone can be used as a portable data recorder / oscilloscope. To truly take advantage of your iPhone though, you want your signal to go directly to the line input. Though you can buy one of these cables, in the open-source spirit of Backyard Brains, here is the schematic to build your own. You need: one 4.7 kOhm resistor, one 10 uF capacitor, one 3.5 mm audio three conductor cable you cut in half, and one 3.5 mm audio four conductor cable you cut in half. Bring out your soldering iron, your wire-stripper, and your favorite beverage!

Wrap all exposed wire in electrical tape, cover with heat shrink tubing, and you’re ready to rock! This design splices the left and right audio channels in the microphone input, so if you use this cable to record music, you are only recording in mono.

This of course is our favorite use…

Posted: 2010-Jul-12 — Filed under: Hardware, Marketing