• [Summer’16 Internship] The Dragonfly: Building a servo laser set-up, prototype 2
    Education
    • July 11, 2016
    • by Greg
    I built a servo laser set-up (prototype 2) that allows me to control the movement of the laser beam across a curved screen using an X direction servo and a Y direction servo. Below is the final result of prototype 2: The problems: The hot glue on the mirrors makes the mirrors tilt at an angle, and not […]
  • [Summer’16 Internship] The Dragonfly: Connecting the laser to the Spikerbox
    Education
    • June 29, 2016
    • by Greg
    From previous neural recordings, I have data of the spikes of the TSDNs. However, I had yet to find a way to record the onset of the stimulus (turning on the laser) so that I could correlate it to the spikes. In order to both simultaneously record the event of the laser turning on and […]
  • Internship
    • July 11, 2016
    • by Greg
    The next steps of the project are… 1) set up a coordinate system in Matlab so by inputing the change in degrees of the servos, I can know the change in position on the screen. 2) Using Matlab, create figures that relate the neural activity to the position and direction of the laser beam. 3) Test with dragonfly […]
  • [Summer’16 Internship] The Dragonfly: Catching Dragonflies
    Education
    • June 22, 2016
    • by Greg
    Catching the dragonflies: The first step of my project is to collect the dragonflies. Dragonflies love vegetation near waterways (rivers, streams, ponds, lakes etc.) All you need to catch them is a butterfly net and a mesh cage. Once I caught enough, I put the dragonflies in individual cups and place them in the refrigerator (this […]
  • [Summer’16 Internship] The Dragonfly: Dragonfly neural recordings
    Education
    • June 23, 2016
    • by Greg
    Neural recordings: Yesterday, I recorded from the neuron of the dragonfly without the lasers, just to ensure the materials are working and that I can find the TSDNs. For the neural recordings of the dragonfly, I aimed to place the electrode in the TSDN. These neurons run down the dragonfly’s neck, on the right and left […]
  • [Summer'16 Internship] Killer Dragonflies
    Internship
    • June 21, 2016
    • by Greg
    The dragonfly is a killing machine.  They can use their 360° visual span to swoop down and devour their prey mid-flight with a 95% kill rate.  They are superheroes- or maybe super villains – of the insect world. Incredibly biologically equipped, dragonflies have eyes with four or five opsins (in contrast to the human’s three), […]
  • [Summer’16 Internship] The Dragonfly: Manipulating the code for the laser set-up
    Education
    • July 11, 2016
    • by Greg
    In order to replicate Paloma Gonzalez-Bellido’s experiment, I need to be able to manipulate the direction and position of the laser beam. In Paloma Gonzalez- Bellido’s 2012 paper she publish these results: Gonzalez-Bellido, P. T., H. Peng, J. Yang, A. P. Georgopoulos, and R. M. Olberg. “Cozzarelli Prize Winner: Eight Pairs of Descending Visual Neurons in […]
  • [Summer’16 Internship] The Dragonfly: Laser show first prototype
    Internship
    • June 29, 2016
    • by Greg
    Today I started working on the first prototype for the laser set-up. Previously, I had tried to make a laser show out of bass speakers. However, I found that the bass speakers that I had did not allow me the range of motion that I wanted. A picture of the bass speaker set up that I […]
  • [Summer’16 Internship] The Dragonfly: Laser set-up, version 3
    Education
    • July 11, 2016
    • by Greg
    Given the previous problems, I then started on a new set-up hopeing to 1) solve the curvature of the beam problem 2) make a more stable, cleaner set-up. The final result: What I did: I cut wood to use for a stand, and used an acrylic sheet for a base. I made the Y servo mirror much longer […]
  • The Electrophysiology of Dragonflies
    Education
    About Me Hi everyone, I’m Jaimie. I just graduated from Boston’s Northeastern University in Behavioral Neuroscience. My academic background is in biology, but I picked up some engineering and coding skills through previous lab research. Originally I’m from the Chicago area, so I’m pretty familiar with the Midwest atmosphere, though I had never been to Ann […]
  • [Summer’16 Internship] The Dragonfly: Nature's Guided Missile
    Education
    • August 10, 2016
    • by Greg
    DESCRIPTION The dragonfly can capture its prey mid-air with a 95% accuracy rate. What biological equipment does the dragonfly have that allows it to do this amazing feat? To examine this very question, I will be replicating Paloma T. Gonzalez-Bellido’s 2012 PNAS paper using DIY open source tools. Gonzalez-Bellido found that there are neurons that run […]
  • Intracellular recording in Snails - Juan Ferrada
    Education
    • April 4, 2018
    • by Greg
    About me Hi! I am Juan Ferrada, a biochemistry student at the lovely Universidad de Santiago in Chile. That’s me below with my girlfriend Rocia on campus. She is an important part of my project. At the university I work with Dr. Patricio’s Rojas, a longtime colleague of Backyard Brains. Thanks to Patricio, Backyard […]