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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:

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!

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!

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.


Jellies, and GUIs, and Costumes, Oh My!

Hello again! This is Anastasiya, and I’m here to tell you that there have been a LOT of developments in my project since we last spoke. For starters, we now have live jellies!

And while that’s arguably the most important news, I also have updates on the tank setup, the custom jellyfish tracking software, and a first glimpse of my 4th of July jellyfish costume.

The Jellies:

We have actually received two shipments of jellyfish, because, unfortunately, the first batch disintegrated overnight due to water quality. While the unexpected loss was depressing and slightly traumatizing, we did give it another shot after reevaluating and fixing what we thought went wrong the first time. This second shipment of jellies has survived for over 4 days now, and it seems the current jellies are stable, which is great! You can see a GIF of one of the new clytia hemisphaerica below (please note that these jellies are tiny, less than 20 mm in diameter, and therefore are really hard to get on camera).

Tank Setup:

I now have a 3 tank setup as opposed to the original two tank one. With 3 tanks, I now have the opportunity to test what works best for the jellyfish to help avoid as many disintegrations as possible. I can observe the differences found from feeding varying amounts of brine shrimp (how much is too little/too much?), from trying out different protective tank coverings (mesh vs plastic bag), and from following different water changing schedules (gradual change daily? all at once weekly?). I don’t want one seemingly harmless act to cause an extinction-level event in our modest population of jellies, and this 3-tank separation helps with that.

Overall, I’m super excited that the jellies are here and alive, and I can’t wait to watch their behaviors over the next few weeks and to try to make sense of it!

The software:

While I was originally going to use OpenCV and C++ for the tracking software, I decided against it, because I wanted to create a GUI with Windows Forms instead. I would prefer a GUI (Graphical User Interface) so that other fellows, researchers, and hobbyists would be able to use my program without having to learn and alter my code. I am now creating everything via C# .net and use EmguCV (a wrapper for OpenCV for languages like C#). A couple screenshots of my current GUI are included below, and the code behind the GUI has had significant progress (I’d guesstimate that I’m about halfway done).

The Costume:

The 4th of July parade is just around the corner (or maybe it has even passed by the time you all read this), and it’s a Backyard Brains tradition for the fellows to dress up as their projects and walk in the parade. My project is ‘The Secret Life of Jellyfish,’ so it only makes sense that I create a costume that resembles my tiny aquatic preps. With the help of a clear bubble umbrella, some tulle, and a flexible LED strip, I think I’ve succeeded in this endeavor!

To the left is the finished umbrella serving as the bell-shaped body and tentacles of my jellyfish impersonation. It has a strip of LEDs wrapped around the top of the umbrella to light up the costume, so hopefully these LEDs will be bright enough to be noticeable during the day-time 4th of July parade.

I will also have a dress on for the parade made up of similar colors and materials to the costume-jellyfish’s body/tentacles, but for photos of the full costume/dress ensemble, as well as videos of actual live jellyfish doing really cool jellyfish activities, you’ll need to wait for the next post 😉 .


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:

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!

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!

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.