Starwars Force Trainer and the Propeller video
Oldbitcollector (Jeff)
Posts: 8,091
I finally got unpacked over the holiday weekend and setup a camera to shoot a video of the Farce? Trainer.
The Starwars Force Trainer and the Propeller: A midnight UPEW collaboration.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCTnbz47WzI
OBC
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Propeller Feature Projects: PropellerPowered.com
Visit the: PROPELLERPOWERED SIG forum kindly hosted by Savage Circuits.
The Starwars Force Trainer and the Propeller: A midnight UPEW collaboration.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCTnbz47WzI
OBC
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Propeller Feature Projects: PropellerPowered.com
Visit the: PROPELLERPOWERED SIG forum kindly hosted by Savage Circuits.
Comments
Good job on the project! I'm really impressed.
John
To test this theory close your eyes, and don't move them. When you close your eyes your "normal" awake brainwaves change to an alpha waves.
Now with your eyes open try starring at stationary object without talking. This brings back normal awake brainwaves but minimizes the electrical interference when your eyes move.
Finally move your eyes back and forth, this maximizes the electrical interferences from your eye muscles.
These tests should give you some sense on whether they are doing anything legit with your brainwaves.
I was thinking maybe try putting a paper towel (dampened with a little water with a pinch of salt dissolved in it) up against the sensor and see if that affects anything. I'd be surprised if this thing can pick up actual brain waves but maybe it simply monitors skin resistance??? I'm just guessing, of course.
I wouldn't be so sure, gathering EEG data isn't all that difficult. Its just a matter of amplifying the electrical signals that already exist at the scalp with some analog to digital converters. How do I know? I work for a company that makes EEG amplifiers and software. Check out the OpenEEG project, they have a $20 amp that does just that.
openeeg.sourceforge.net
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
90 * 2 = Pi
That's very interesting. I would have guessed that changes in skin resistance would render a "dry" sensor almost useless when looking at brain signals. But, as I said earlier, I was just guessing. Thanks for showing me what's possible with your link. Still, however, I'm puzzled why skin resistance doesn't swamp the sensor - unless, that is, you employ another sensor or two to measure skin resistance and you somehow filter out its effects???
thanks,
Mark
You are right in that you need a good connection for a proper EEG and typically gel is used to keep the resistance under 10K. I'm not sure how much resistance there is with a dry contact and if the brainwaves (which are in microvolts) can over come it. With all that being said I know of other toys that do actually read brainwaves so its not all that unusual.
Gramps
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
'What is your life?"
"It is even a vapor that appears for a
little time and then vanishes away."
Saint James 61 A.D.
http://www.neurosky.com/
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Quicker answers in the #propeller chat channel on freenode.net. Don't know squat about IRC? Download Pigin! So easy a caveman could do it...
http://folding.stanford.edu/ - Donating some CPU/GPU downtime just might lead to a cure for cancer! My team stats.
That's the one I was thinking of, also look here:
ericmika.com/itp/brain-hack
OBC, Have you made any further progress with your Force Trainer?· Thanks for posting the video.· I liked it.
The brain-hack website said many of these toys use the same electronics (Mindset).· Neurosky offers free development tools for their Mindset.· Reading through the communication protocol1 I was reminded of Dynamixel's AX12+ protocol (I haven't read a lot of communication protocols).· I figure I'll try to get a Prop to talk with the Mindset electronics in Mindflex.· Is anyone else working on this?· I don't want to reinvent the wheel.· I think I'll start with the AX12+ object as see if I can modify it for Mindset communication.
I figured out a way to justify this as a business expense.· I'll have my employees wear it to I can monitor their concentration.·· I'll also tell them not to think of me as their "Boss" but as their "Big Brother."2
I am joking about making employees wear it, though I might ask them to try it sometime so see if there is in correlation between mistakes they make and any of the brain information·the·Mindset outputs.
If I make future posts about my project, I'll start a different thread.
I've thought about this (OBC's) project a lot and I'm excited to try my own version.
Duane
Footnotes:
1.· I've attached the Mindset communication protocol pdf.· While it's available for free, you have jump through a lot hoops to download it.· You also have download a the tool set; you can't just download the protocol.
2.· I read George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four so I could understand all the references made to it.· Talk about a depressing book.· I'm not big on reading about people being tortured.
Good luck on this. This type of device doesn't read brainwaves its just shows activity.
There is a lot of noise from the facial muscles and the dry contacts and there is only one channel, where many more are used simultaneously in real EEG diagnosis/therapy.
Toys like the force trainer use the same technology, but their chips are permanently reprogrammed to only output the data used by the toy -- generally the sketchy synthetic channels Neurosky provide for which they don't document the generative algorithm.