—Written by Sofia Eisenbeiser— Please give a warm welcome to the newest additions to Backyard Brains: the tiger barbs! Hello, everyone! It’s Sofia, coming at you with an update on the BYB fish. So, we last left off with making the discovery that one of our African cichlid fish likes to chase a laser pointer around his aquarium. Shortly after […]

—Written by Nour Chahine— As you may recall from my introductory blog post, this summer I’m working on building a TinyML device that can guess which card you secretly picked based on your brain’s EEG signal. But it’s a road paved with many SSVEPs (Steady State Visually Evoked Potentials)! These past two weeks have been all about SSVEP […]

—Written by Sachin Pillai— Lo and behold, somehow I’m already five weeks into the BYB fellowship program this fine summer. At this point, the only bluff I’ve certainly encountered is just how fast time can pass! Just kidding. I have in fact made significant progress with my Poker Bot over the past weeks and that includes […]

—Written by Samuel Kuhn— These two photos just about summarize the past 5 weeks of searching for the Readiness Potential. I’ve hit a stone wall trying to replicate it so that it could bring me one step closer to understanding the free will phenomenon! I have been collecting EEG data just about every day trying to […]

–Written by Sarah Falkovic– Welcome to the update on my lie detector project! In my previous blog post, I discussed the modality of electrodermal activity, a.k.a our unconscious sweat response and its ties to stress. However, as a method of measuring lies it leaves much to be desired due to its ability to be swayed by […]

—Written by Fredi Mino— Fancy having a robot hand that mimics your real hand’s gestures?  Me too! That’s why I’m designing one with another helping hand – from our good old friend, TinyML. I will do this by measuring the activity of the muscles involved in hand movements using surface Electromyography (sEMG). Then, we will use digital signal […]

***Written by Sofia Eisenbeiser*** Ever had this feeling that fish in your aquarium are having a blast?  This summer I am working with a few of them to determine whether or not they exhibit play behaviors.   This study began as a simple replication of Dr. Gordon Burghardt’s 2014 publication, which found that three white-spotted African cichlid fish […]

***Written by Nour Chahine*** Can you use a brain-computer interface to perform magic tricks? Guess what card someone is thinking of? That is exactly what my TinyML project, Pick a Card, is all about.  I will develop a small screen to show a set of playing cards while measuring EEGs. The subject chooses a card, and an AI […]

—Written by Ariyana Miri— How much do you notice throughout your day? Are you paying attention to your surroundings? Are you present in every moment of your life? Odds are, the answer is no. As most adults know, the more we grow up, the more we seem to live on autopilot. We’ve got places to be […]

—Written by Sachin Pillai— This summer at Backyard Brains, I’m developing a Poker Bot trained via machine learning that can detect when players bluff and predict how risky a player’s hand is based on internal physiological reactions during the game. A full month into the fellowship, I’ve already had substantial progress with my project! The first week […]

—Written by Samuel Kuhn— This summer I am lucky enough to get to work with Backyard Brains on a project that pulls together neuroscience, computer engineering, philosophy, and philanthropy. This summer I am trying to build a device to detect free will!  To even try and define free will, we must turn to the humanities for help. […]

—Post written by Sarah Falkovic— Can TinyML be used to design a small-scale lie detector model? Lie detection has been a field of interest for about as long as the field of neuroscience itself, if not longer! However, lie detection in our current culture involves administration by a trained professional in the form of a polygraph. While […]