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 […]

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!

Tired of having to dampen those sponges, and adding fresh potatoes for your cockroaches during these dry winter months? Well, this may be the solution for you. Here’s what you’ll need: Twine (We borrowed some from Colin Stoetzner’s science video art project) Shampoo/Mouthwash sampler bottle Pair of Scissors Cockroaches (Optional) Simply poke a hole in […]

As you know, Backyard Brains is a small start-up in the struggling state of Michigan. Last month, Ray Suarez and the crew from PBS came to highlight Ann Arbor, as one type of city in it’s Patchwork Nation project. The scope of this project is add granularity to gross segmentation of “blue states” vs. “read […]

Backyard brains was pleased to participate in the Health and Biomedical Sciences Summer Camp put on by UofM’s Women in Science and Engineering organization. The H&BS camp was a week-long set of activities with the goal of giving high school students hands-on experience in different health science related fields, and to broaden their perspectives about […]

Tim spent the tail end of last week in Kansas City, MO. Here is the demo he made while visiting the Kauffman Foundation as a finalist. Tim is applying for the Kauffman Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship program. We here at ByB wish him the best of luck!

Backyard Brains is beginning to make in-roads with the OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) initiative. This week we were able to display spike waveforms from a cockroach leg in real-time on the OLPC laptop. We are using the “Measure” application to display the data. Note the spikes on the XO PC below from our prototype […]

Backyard Brains was highlighted in June 2009 by the University of Michigan News Service for the University’s Center for Entrepreneurship. The video is provided below.

Backyard brains is proud to announce the addition of our first intern! Evan, a gifted high-schooler, will be joining the Backyard Brains team as a part of the University of Michigan’s mentorship program. Evan’s tasks will include working with the OLPC to get it up and running. Our Backyard Brains weekly meeting in the home […]

The One Laptop per Child association develops a low-cost laptop"the “XO Laptop”"to revolutionize how we educate the world’s children. Their mission is “to provide educational opportunities for the world’s poorest children by providing each child with a rugged, low-cost, low-power, connected laptop with content and software designed for collaborative, joyful, self-empowered learning.” We at Backyard […]

Below you can listen to the interview that Nature Magazine had with Tim and Greg about the genesis of Backyard Brains. It was featured in the November 2008 version of Nature’s Neuropod podcast. In this light-hearted interview, we describe the need for pushing technology into the hands of amateur neuroscientists and children everywhere. To hear […]