The Fellows Summer Experience: Tigers Game and July Fourth Parade

One of the most attractive things about a BYB Summer Fellowship is the chance to spend a summer in colorful Ann Arbor. We changed the program name from an internship to a fellowship because of the lasting connections made throughout the summer, and these connections are made possible by the things we all do together! Before we get to some project updates, here’s a little bit about our summer together so far.

Take Me Out To The Ball Game

Last summer, we sponsored a student whose visa required participation in a “cultural appreciation” event, so we piled into a bus and headed over to Comerica Park for some of America’s favorite sport, baseball. It was such a hit, we went again this year! Luckily, Backyard Brains signature color  (orange!) matches pretty well with the Tigers brand 😉

Fourth of July Parade

Another celebrated BYB Summer Fellowship pastime is the Jaycee’s Fourth of July Parade! Each year, the fellows design and build a costume representing their summer research and wear it as BYB walks in the annual parade! Check out some of the looks from this year:

Meet the Fellows, See the Projects

Catch up with our Fellows! Since our Fellowship started, each fellow has been hard at work on their summer research. Check out these posts introducing each Fellowship research track:

• Jess – No Nose, No Mouth, No Problems: the Silkmoth Story
• Jessica – Introducing Pavlov’s…Plants?
• Yifan – Know Your Birds
• Ilya – Neurorobot Vision
• Aaron – Nothing In Life Is Free
• Dan – Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em…Shrimps?!
• Anusha – Creating Professor X
• Molly – Bee-search: How Do Bees See
• Maria – Electric Relaxation
• Anastasiya – Secret Life of Jellyfish
• Ben – Python

First Progress Reports:

If you’ve been dying for an update on what we’ve been researching, fret no more! Feast your eyes on our first batch of updates!

• Jess – Becoming a #MothMom
• Jessica – Plant Nanny: If at first you don’t succeed, Try, try, try again
• Yifan – Human, Quiet, Crow: Teaching Computers to Distinguish Birdsong
• Ilya – Neurorobot on Wheels
• Dan – Mantis Shrimp: I Want You To Do Me A Favor. I Want You To Hit Me As Hard As You Can
• Molly – Bee-lieve You Can and You’re Halfway There: The Prototyping Process
• Aaron – Is It Actually My Choice To Not Title This Post?
• Anusha – In Search of the Mu Rhythm 
• Anastasiya – Jellies, and GUIs, and Costumes, Oh My!
• Maria – Meditation Data or Bust

Second Progress Reports:

Science marches ever onward! The Fellows have kept plugging away on their research in between all the fun and games, and here are their newest updates!

• Jess – Silk Moths, Enter The Arena: Binary Choice Paradigm
• Jessica – A Peagrim’s Progress, or, “Let’s get down to pea-zness”
• Ilya – Neurorobot Video Transmission In Progress
• Yifan – Volume Threshold for Songbird Audio
• Dan – Houston, we have a datum
• Molly – Beauty is in the eye of the Bee-holder: studies with a hive begin!
• Aaron– We don’t have free will. Change my mind.
• Anastasiya – On Set in the New Jellyfish Mobile Recording Chamber
• Anusha – …And I Almost Read His Mind!
• Maria – Fresh, organic, locally sourced meditation research

Conclusions:

The summer is winding down, and with it our Fellowship. While scientific exploration is never really finished, here are some wrap-ups from our Fellows on the projects they have devoted their inquiry to over the past weeks.

• Jess – Finishing the Silkmoth Story
• Jessica – New kid on the block
• Ilya – Quicker and Smarter: Neurorobot on the Hunt
• Yifan – Take a Step Back and look into the future
• Dan – Shrimp! Heaven! Now!
• Molly – From bee-fuddled to a bee-stower of knowledge: the end of my bee journey
• Anusha – Movement Mind Reader: Hopefully not the end…
• Ben – Summer Summary
• Anastasiya – The End of My Jellyfish Summer (Or Is It?)

Tech Trek and Fellow Updates

Fresh, organic, locally sourced meditation researchLast Friday, Backyard Brains once again opened our doors (even wider–they’re always open during business hours!) to our fellow and aspiring citizen scientists as a part of this year’s Ann Arbor Tech Trek!  Dozens of local tech companies had their doors open to the public that evening and we, like our friends around town, had people streaming in from open to close! BYB has participated for the last few years, and it is always a hit.

For four hours on Friday afternoon, we were packed with people from all walks of life who were interested in learning about Backyard Brains and neuroscience! It was a day of education, outreach, and new connections. In the office, we demonstrated our classic, the Human to Human Interface, as well as The Claw, and we even helped people control Mario with their eye blinks!

Our Summer Fellows also got in on the action, presenting their work down in the Makerspace at All Hands Active. This was the first chance our fellows got to share their science with the community, letting people in on their secrets and experiment rigs. For example, Silkmoth Fellow Jess was running experiments on a cockroach antenna during Tech Trek: Some kids were watching when she used different odors to try to get a reaction in the antenna, as pictured below:

It was definitely a unique opportunity, full of its own trials. According to Mantis Shrimp Fellow Dan, “I was trying to collect behavioral data with the mantis shrimp while his implants were falling out, and people would come by who obligingly ooh-ed and ahh-ed at the prep and politely listened to my spiel about EMGs and the strike. I’ve never presented about my research while actively conducting it.”

Meet the Fellows, See the Projects

Catch up with our Fellows! Since our Fellowship started, each fellow has been hard at work on their summer research. Saw a cool project and you want to know more? Check out these posts introducing each Fellowship research track:

• Jess – No Nose, No Mouth, No Problems: the Silkmoth Story
• Jessica – Introducing Pavlov’s…Plants?
• Yifan – Know Your Birds
• Ilya – Neurorobot Vision
• Aaron – Nothing In Life Is Free
• Dan – Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em…Shrimps?!
• Anusha – Creating Professor X
• Molly – Bee-search: How Do Bees See
• Maria – Electric Relaxation
• Anastasiya – Secret Life of Jellyfish
• Ben – Python

First Progress Reports:

If you’ve been dying for an update on what we’ve been researching, fret no more! Feast your eyes on our first batch of updates!

• Jess – Becoming a #MothMom
• Jessica – Plant Nanny: If at first you don’t succeed, Try, try, try again
• Yifan – Human, Quiet, Crow: Teaching Computers to Distinguish Birdsong
• Ilya – Neurorobot on Wheels
• Dan – Mantis Shrimp: I Want You To Do Me A Favor. I Want You To Hit Me As Hard As You Can
• Molly – Bee-lieve You Can and You’re Halfway There: The Prototyping Process
• Aaron – Is It Actually My Choice To Not Title This Post?
• Anusha – In Search of the Mu Rhythm 
• Anastasiya – Jellies, and GUIs, and Costumes, Oh My!
• Maria – Meditation Data or Bust

Second Progress Reports:

Science marches ever onward! The Fellows have kept plugging away on their research in between all the fun and games, and here are their newest updates!

• Jess – Silk Moths, Enter The Arena: Binary Choice Paradigm
• Jessica – A Peagrim’s Progress, or, “Let’s get down to pea-zness”
• Ilya – Neurorobot Video Transmission In Progress
• Yifan – Volume Threshold for Songbird Audio
• Dan – Houston, we have a datum
• Molly – Beauty is in the eye of the Bee-holder: studies with a hive begin!
• Aaron – We don’t have free will. Change my mind.
• Anastasiya – On Set in the New Jellyfish Mobile Recording Chamber
• Anusha – …And I Almost Read His Mind!
• Maria – Fresh, organic, locally sourced meditation research

Conclusions:

The summer is winding down, and with it our Fellowship. While scientific exploration is never really finished, here are some wrap-ups from our Fellows on the projects they have devoted their inquiry to over the past weeks.

• Jess – Finishing the Silkmoth Story
• Jessica – New kid on the block
• Ilya – Quicker and Smarter: Neurorobot on the Hunt
• Yifan – Take a Step Back and look into the future
• Dan – Shrimp! Heaven! Now!
• Molly – From bee-fuddled to a bee-stower of knowledge: the end of my bee journey
• Anusha – Movement Mind Reader: Hopefully not the end…
• Ben – Summer Summary
• Anastasiya – The End of My Jellyfish Summer (Or Is It?)

ELECTRIC RELAXATION

Without superpowers or a power drill there are only a couple ways we can observe brain activity and most of them require large expensive equipment:

                   Free shipping though…

Luckily, with the help of Backyard Brains, you can make the equipment yourself! This summer, I’m going to be using such DIY equipment to do some electroencephalography (or EEG) experiments to study meditation!

This has proven a difficult subject to define, though. Aside from problems that arise from isolating meditation from its spiritual context and marketing it as a panacea, the problem with meditation in scientific research is that it is it vaguely defined. A scientific review in 2014 that examined 47 trials with 3500+ participants found only moderate evidence for reduced anxiety, depression, and pain. However, one study showed that long term meditators have increased grey matter in certain areas of the brain after just 8 weeks of meditation.

What exactly is going on (or even not going on) during meditation? What actions or thoughts can be considered meditation? How do you take a rich spiritual concept into a standardized framework for testing? Can my 11-year-old brother teach me how to play the trumpet over video chat? Will the art school student survive the neuroscience fellowship? (Is neuroscience really for everyone?) Stay tuned to find out!

This past winter I stumbled upon Backyard Brains at the New York City Toy Fair and was enamored by their focus on accessible, hands-on education (ie. what I went to art school in search of). I learned about their research fellowship, applied, crossed my non-science-major fingers, and here I am! My name is Maria, and I’m originally from a little cul de sac in Silicon Valley, which is probably why I think that scientific validation is important, but I do think that technology has the potential to be used for things other than financial gain (like sibling bonding over video chat). At the Rhode Island School of Design, I rollerblade, study industrial design, and run a Sunset Club that goes to immersive natural environments to promote mental health awareness and health. I’m excited to learn how to make intimidating topics like neuroscience more accessible and understand the mechanisms of meditation to apply them to wellness in the community.