FAQ
We all have questions. Here are answers to some common questions we receive. Send us an email if yours isn’t on our list.
Backyard Brains is a small company that makes neuroscience educational equipment and experiments for students of all ages.
We are neuroscientists, engineers, and educators. You can find more detailed information about the people who work at Backyard Brains on our About Us page.
We started in and are primarily based in Ann Arbor, MI. We also have operations in Santiago, Chile, para llevar la neurociencia a todos. We have educators working out of San Diego, CA, and Seattle, WA.
We accept return requests within 30 days from the date you receive your item. Unopened products in their original packaging are eligible for a full refund. Opened items must be unused, in their original packaging, and may be subject to a 15% restocking fee. Consumables, such as electrodes or gel, cannot be returned. To start a return, contact us at hello@backyardbrains.com. For full details, including exceptions, exchanges, refunds, and EU/EEA withdrawal rights, please see our Return Policy.
We incorporated in March of 2009 and shipped our first product (a SpikerBox to the graduate program at UC-San Diego) in April of 2010.
Yes! We have an ethical statement regarding our insect experiments at: Ethics
We accept all major credit cards on our website, and we can take your card over the phone. Schools and institutions can also pay by purchase order (Net 30); see below.
Sign in to your free Backyard Brains account and go to My account, then Quotes, then New quote. Search for the products you need, choose where we should ship, and pick how you'll pay: by card before we ship, or by purchase order. Your quote shows shipping, tax and the total, and you can download it as a PDF for your purchasing office. Quotes hold their prices for 30 days.
Yes. Build a quote and choose purchase order. When your PO is ready, open the quote and choose Send PO: enter your PO number and upload the PO as a PDF (up to 10 MB). We ship your order and email you the invoice, due in 30 days. Purchase orders carry a $20 processing fee, and PO invoices are paid by check or ACH, not by card. Rather pay by card? Pay from your quote before we ship and there's no fee.
We typically package and ship all products within 1-3 business days (90% are shipped the same day). Domestic (U.S.) shipping transit time is then 1-4 days depending on distance from Michigan. We offer variable shipping options for international customers, with shipping transit times ranging from 1-5 weeks depending on the option you choose.
By our lovely and hard-working production team in Ann Arbor, MI.
Of course! We ship everywhere around the world. Is your country represented? See our map
No. The shipping fee you pay at checkout covers shipping only. Customs duties and VAT are government taxes collected by FedEx (or the carrier) upon delivery. These charges are your responsibility and vary by country—we don’t collect or control them. Customers are responsible for paying any customs fees or duties. If these charges are not paid and the package is returned to us, we will deduct these fees from your refund.
Please check out our product help page and user forum.
The Muscle SpikerBox has circuit protection on all inputs and outputs and has true differential amplification to isolate the noisy muscle electrical signal through the skin. The electrodes are also designed for use with humans. The gain and filter settings (1000x, 300-1200 Hz) are the same.
Everything ships with batteries save for our DIY kits.
It’s worth clarifying that our work at Backyard Brains is strictly educational. We do not create devices that are designed to treat, detect, or diagnose disorders or assess their severity. Consequently, we do not give or speculate on medical advice. The principal elements of our experiments are: recording EMG and other signals and delivering functional electrical stimulation. On one side of the circuit, we record the electrical activity of the controller's muscles, then we use that electrical signal to directly stimulate the muscles in the other participant. Curiosity is important, and informed citizen scientists are crucial to an educated and advancing society, especially as we collectively work to better understand, treat, and someday cure neurological disorders.
Scroll down to the bottom of the experiments page and you will find a FAQ specific to the experiment.
All products are powered with 9V batteries and are electrically safe. We use small map pins for our electrodes.
Our neuron recording experiments use non-poisonous insects that do not bite or sting. Our human muscle recording experiments are non-invasive (simple patch electrodes) and are safe.
With adult supervision, >~10 years of age is appropriate. Without adult supervision, appropriate age range is >~13.
Several of our customers are science fair students. You can even read about and look at some of their experiments in our “Customer Page” (Coming Soon!). We like to work closely and mentor many of our science fair students. Most of the time, high school teachers are approached by students interested in doing some sort of neuroscience-related project and in turn contact us for help.
We love customers contacting us with discoveries they have made using our equipment. You can use our Contact Form and describe to us what you have discovered. Please feel free to attach any pictures, videos and data. We will get back to you as soon as possible with questions, comments and celebratory congratulations, who knows we may even ask for your help in creating our next featured Backyard Brains Experiments!
We are working on online teacher training resources and online video training. We are also attempting to hold a national two-day training seminar. Soon to be released on our website is a product help page that has an extensive video and picture library going over potential problems you may encounter with our products and experiments and how to solve them. As with any biological experiment, problems can arise and we want to be there for you as much as possible.
See our product pages for bulk discount orders.
We get invited to classrooms and neuroscience outreach events frequently, and we wish we could attend each and every one. Unfortunately, we are but a small team, and as we’ve grown it has become increasingly more challenging to attend small events. Ultimately, we do the work we do so you do not need a Ph.D. neuroscientist to introduce students or the public to neuroscience! In the past, we’ve charged honorariums, but now we encourage you to instead invest that money in a powerful, live demonstration like the Human-Human Interface, to study the phenomena (the TED talk is a great introduction), and to present it yourself! Together, we are citizen neuroscience: Viva la Neuro-Revolution!
Currently we offer teacher and student versions of all experiments and we have more in-depth experimental resources to offer teachers. In the works is a formalized teacher and student lab manual for all of our experiments. This lab manual will closely adhere to National STEM educational standards so that teachers can seamlessly incorporate neuroscience into their curriculum. You can use our Contact Form if you would like to inquire about these resources.
As scientists ourselves, we hold a firm belief in collaboration. Our Muscle SpikerBox was born out of a close collaboration with Dr. Tracy, a muscle physiologist from Colorado State University. We are actively looking to collaborate on an optogenetic project (we have the equipment but not the genetic organism). If you are interested in collaborating with us, please contact us. We would love to hear from you.
We're not hiring at the moment. Due to recent grant funding cuts, we are not currently seeking new teachers or staff. We appreciate your interest and will announce any new opportunities and position needs here as they become available. Please check back for updates.
We love collaborating with our customers. If you are an educator or teacher that has an idea for a new lesson plan, experiment, or has developed one then we would love to hear from you. We also are looking to reach out with museums and work on neuroscience based exhibits where the user can really interact with the exhibit.
Yes! We love working with artists. Some examples include Emily Verla Bovina of RKLog and FieldWork Marfa, Brittany Ransom of TwitterRoach, and Guy-Ben Ary with some custom culture dishes (more info coming soon).