[HN Gopher] Building an EEG with a Children's Toy
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Building an EEG with a Children's Toy
Author : gl44snip
Score : 77 points
Date : 2024-08-14 22:24 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (geofflord.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (geofflord.substack.com)
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| I am reminded of the meme: Thinking quickly, Dave constructs a
| homemade [EEG], using only some string, a squirrel, and a[n EEG].
| That said, breaking out the functionality from the toy is
| neat+useful.
| notpushkin wrote:
| I mean, getting an EEG for ~$20 (current price on eBay) and
| figuring out how to use it is an impressive feat in its own
| right!
| gl44snip wrote:
| This gave me a good laugh! Perhaps a better title would have
| been "Tearing Apart a Toy to Obtain EEG Data". Regardless, I am
| glad you found it interesting.
| summarity wrote:
| O hey, I have also done this before around 10 years ago.
| Initially my project was also based on a hacked Mindflex (it was
| a robot arm). I then reached out to NeuroSky and they just sent
| me a bunch of their higher tier dev kits for free. No idea if
| that's still a thing, but I had really good experiences with
| them. The signals are a lot more useful.
|
| I always found it funny that people playing Mindflex commonly
| believed the game was fake[1]. And it would have made sense - why
| go through the trouble of actually shipping an EEG sensor to
| children? But they did.
|
| [1] Example: https://youtu.be/AJjN4se2yyQ
| tomcam wrote:
| Wait don't leave us hanging. What were your results?
| summarity wrote:
| I was in high school and this was for a science fair. It kind
| of worked, you could more or less reliably move one axis of
| the arm at a time. I directly used the relax/focus metrics
| and relied on a training phase where the participant would
| try to find thoughts/states of mind that would move the
| needle the most. Very basic stuff (but I didn't know better
| at the time).
| gl44snip wrote:
| That's awesome! Did you attach the electrodes to the head or
| somewhere on your arm? I would also be very interested to know
| how you decoded the electrode data.
|
| On another note, I found it pretty surprising that it's
| possible to get even remotely accurate data from the Mindflex.
| As a child, I remember wholeheartedly believing it was real.
| But, only when I won.
| gl44snip wrote:
| I will also need to shoot NeuroSky a message to see if I can
| get my hands on one of their dev kits. This recent venture
| into decoding EEG data was fascinating and I would love to
| see how far I could take it with non-invasive electrodes.
| summarity wrote:
| I also recommend this video as a resource on low cost EEG
| from someone who tried living with it:
| https://youtu.be/c-LyXBCNsrA?si=7xoM1OGTNRbMsO_P (skim
| through)
|
| That goes over several nicer multichannel options. The
| NeuroSky stuff will only get you so far :)
| gl44snip wrote:
| This is great, thanks for sharing. I think I will give a
| multichannel headset a try and attempt to train some
| models that map neural activity to cursor movements.
|
| I came across this article today:
| https://medium.com/@kevinjycui/of-mice-and-mind-creating-
| a-s...
|
| It sounds as if this individual had some success with the
| Emotiv INSIGHT (5 Channel) but the data quality was a
| limiting factor in creating an application usable for
| everyday activity.
| whilenot-dev wrote:
| Good times! I also used the Mindflex hack[0] for an artsy piece
| in 2012. I attached it to an RF module (with a JeeNode[1]) and
| used the "attention" levels to control the playback speed of my
| hacky video player (zero attention -> 0.0x speed, full
| attention -> 2.0x speed). Worked great for the price!
|
| [0]: https://frontiernerds.com/brain-hack (glad it's still
| online)
|
| [1]: https://www.digitalsmarties.net/products/jeenode
| summarity wrote:
| Yes, that was it! I used the same hack in 2012. Fun story: as
| a prize for winning the science fair with my robot arm, I got
| to go to Munich to visit ASDEX Upgrade (fusion experiment). I
| was staying there for a week and just spent each day with a
| different department.
|
| They have a post-lunch lightning talk thing where interested
| people gather in a lecture hall with a cup of coffee to
| listen to a random talk. I was asked to demonstrate my
| project last-minute but did not have time to ship all the
| stuff to where I was. I had the headset though (an upgraded
| NeuroSky model). So I spent the night hacking away at a demo
| project that just involved kicking a virtual football
| (soccer) into a goal.
|
| So at some point in 2012 there was a room full of nuclear
| scientists watching a teenager kick a virtual ball with
| "their mind". I just find that amusing.
| Animats wrote:
| Low-end EEG kits exist.[1] Probably easier to start with that.
|
| My favorite toy in this space was Nekomimi in 2012 - cosplay cat
| ears connected to an EEG sensor.[2] It sensed "resting",
| "active", and "surprised". I saw some girls wearing these at a
| convention. Someone called out the name of one of them, and her
| ears popped up. Only the one, not the others.
|
| It was a good idea, but too bulky. 4 AAA batteries plus huge
| ears. Someone should do that again, more compactly.
|
| [1] https://www.amazon.com/NeuroSky-MindWave-Mobile-Brainwave-
| St...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurowear
| gl44snip wrote:
| The MindWave Mobile seems far more convenient than a dissected
| Mindflex. Thanks for sharing the link--I may need to get one
| myself. Achieving consistent electrode placement was certainly
| a challenge when I was working on this project.
|
| I hadn't come across the Nekomimi yet but it seems as though
| Neurosky has figured out how to manufacture relatively
| inexpensive EEG consumer devices. Further, the Mindwave mobile
| seems to get 8 hours of run time off a single AAA. I would
| suspect a more compact implementation of the Nekomimi is quite
| achievable.
| a1o wrote:
| Whoa the Nekomimi looks super fun:
| https://www.huffpost.com/entry/necomimi-mind-controlled-cat-...
| anotherape wrote:
| Me: wow what a cool cutting edge AI project idea.
|
| Article: yeah just dusting off an old toy I used as a kid
|
| HN: $various relevant stories from 10+ years ago
|
| Me: need to leave cave
|
| Cool project
|
| Looks like autocorrect has turned the learned gentlemans
| perceptrons into perceptions.
| gl44snip wrote:
| It seems as if the Overleaf autocorrect has a mind of its own
| occasionally! Or, that's my perception at least.
| wslh wrote:
| I use the Muse EEG band [1] but with the Mind Monitor third party
| app and tools [2]. This is another case of an official app being
| subpar to the hardware device.
|
| [1]
| https://choosemuse.com/?srsltid=AfmBOopzyEsQF8LcBiGJD4U9fKRR...
|
| [2] https://mind-monitor.com/
| gl44snip wrote:
| Did you have any specific gripes with the Mind Monitor app? The
| visualizations seem nice, but it would be interesting to see a
| feature that allows synchronization with other data sources.
| (e.g. connecting a keyboard to capture both neural activity and
| keystrokes simultaneously) That said, this might not be worth
| the effort. For me, obtaining high-quality data was a
| challenge, which I suspect is a common limitation of non-
| invasive electrodes.
| wslh wrote:
| You can export your data and work with it. Also, there are
| some online tools and docs [1][2]. Also, there are open
| source libs such as [3]. My only "gripe" is knowing enough
| about EEG.
|
| [1] https://mind-monitor.com/Chart.php
|
| [2] https://mind-monitor.com/Macro.php
|
| [3] https://www.npmjs.com/package/muse-js
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