A bright idea
HollyMinkowski
Posts: 1,398
Jerry Ellsworth has built a brain wave monitor and connected
its output to a light bulb that floats over her head and lights up
to indicate brain activity level.. :-)
http://hackaday.com/2011/05/30/a-bright-idea/
What a cool idea! I'd have built it into one of those plastic tiaras
that usually come with those cheap little girl's princess costumes.
You could put LEDs all over it to indicate brain activity..and it would
be a lot cuter than a floating light bulb.
(I have pics of me wearing one of these costumes when I was a little Jewish Princess ..lol)
its output to a light bulb that floats over her head and lights up
to indicate brain activity level.. :-)
http://hackaday.com/2011/05/30/a-bright-idea/
What a cool idea! I'd have built it into one of those plastic tiaras
that usually come with those cheap little girl's princess costumes.
You could put LEDs all over it to indicate brain activity..and it would
be a lot cuter than a floating light bulb.
(I have pics of me wearing one of these costumes when I was a little Jewish Princess ..lol)
Comments
a project that detected brain waves. It was all centered around
a very sensitive op amp. The entire circuit only had a handful of parts
so it can't be that complicated. I bet there is an open-source
project somewhere to look at.
I worked on the software for that device. It was pretty simple
software to write. I don't know very much about the hardware though.
Just the fact it had a really sensitive op amp in there that connected
to the probes...I think there was a resistor in between the probe
lines and the op amp connections. I have photos of the board in
the documentation for the software.
I do remember there were some filters in the circuit to limit interference
from things like nearby electrical wiring. Those filters and the software
got rid of unwanted signals.
Yikes! :-(
Abrading the skin near the eye sounds awful.
We had this stretchy cap thingy that went over the head and held down
electrodes to the scalp... a nasty blue slime was used to help get good
contact. I had to repeatedly use this rig while debugging my code since
I needed a signal source. The goo was a mess to get out of your hair.
(reminded me of something else but I will say no more)
The caps would get all icky and were too flimsy to wash in a machine
and too expensive to treat as disposable. I got the bizarre idea to use
a disposable toddler sized diaper in place of the cap...right size and it
was stretchy enough to work because of the gathers at the waist and
legs....they laughed until I put one on my head and proved it worked just
as well... and they cost less than .50 each. :-) girl power...no guy would
ever have thought of this..haha engineer guys don't usually have much
experience with diapers...well maybe erco does because of the twins :-)
Rubbing with a paper towel and electrode jelly worked just as well, and didn't damage the skin.
I was also involved with heart rate measurement via a wireless link, for a big project, for which a couple of chest electrodes needed to be used. Management thought that women involved in the study might not want electrodes attached to their chests, so I went round the site conducting a survey. None of the women objected, but one said it depended on who was attaching the electrodes. In fact, they would have attached them themselves. After six months designing the study and scheduling over 100 subjects, half from on site and half from the local university, the project was canceled!
...built a prototype, found it didn't didn't work....was afraid to ask someone to help me test it for fear of THEM being able to light it up!
Rick
If I remember correctly they were girls overnite
Huggies. The size 5 or 6 seemed just the right size
and the padding was thick enough and in just the
right places to put the right amount of pressure on
the electrodes for a good reading. It seems the adult
human head is the same size as a toddlers bottom.
The velcro like tabs at the waist allowed for adjustment
for small or large craniums.
erco could try this at home and let us know what he thinks.
maybe he could supply a picture. :-)
here is an image of a little girl with an EEG cap on.
You can see how a diaper could be made to work
for the same purpose. (isn't she adorable)
I've seen this before:
Here is another EEG project, brain hack: http://frontiernerds.com/brain-hack
They used a Mind Flex and Arduino + PC (Processing) Mind Flex has a serial output(inside) which is a good and easy place to start from.