We have received a fair bit of press the past week related to some of the community events we have done. In June Tim spoke at the Humanity Plus Summit at Harvard on the “Rise of the Citizen Scientist.” The room was jam-packed with “trans-humanists” and Tim was interviewed for a Boston Globe piece on […]

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 […]

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 […]

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! […]

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, […]

The SpikerBox allows you to amplify and listen to spikes in a cheap, portable, and easy way. Using the built-in headphone jack you can also record the spikes from your SpikerBox on a computer, but we all know modern laptops are way too bulky and are beginning to go out of style. What if you […]

In early March, Backyard Brains made history by doing the first neural recordings on a commercial airline flight. As professional scientists however, we know that experiments should be repeated before conclusions are made. On a flight from Chicago to Kansas City in late April, we again performed the experiment. Before that though, during our layover […]

During Backyard Brains’ recent visit to California, one of our events was at the Computer History Museum. We are geeks at heart: Our heroes consist of the trilogy of Woz, Engelbart, and Roberts. Tim and Greg have gazed longingly at the core memory units, the signed Apple I, the memory drums, and all the other […]

Flying back from a successful trip from California, Tim and Greg of Backyard had decided there was time for one more experiment… Thanks to the kind TSA folks at the San Francisco International Airport and Delta airlines, we were able to record spikes in flight. Quite possibly the first neurons ever recorded on a commercial […]

You’ve heard us say we were working on it. An idea, a dream, a fully portable electrophysiology rig with built-in amplifier, dissection scope, and manipulator for sophisticated experiments on the central nervous system. Impossible. But wait…maybe not? Ladies and Gentleman….the Ganglionizer.

Backyard Brains just returned from a packed trip to the Bay Area, where, among other things, the highlights included meeting the folks at MAKE Magazine. The night before our morning meeting, we were up late in the hotel making sure everything worked. Thankfully, everything was fully operational battle station, and we spent a good two […]

Read an interview with UM senior Ahmed Suhaib that appeared in today’s issue of the Michigan Daily discussing Backyard Brain’s collaboration with the Biomedical Engineering Design Program to help design our RoboRoach. Stay tuned, as we work to bring you this and other exciting products in the near future!