Every now and then the university has open days for prospective students. So to represent the Biocomputing option that students can follow in their third year of studying computer science I set up a few Spikerbox demonstrations. The two days turned out to be quite a lot of fun.
We showed visitors how they can listen and see the neural spikes that innervate muscles to move. We used those spikes to control a stepper motor and then, as the highlight, we used one student to control another student using Backyard Brains’ human-human interface.
It was quite difficult to get volunteers to try all these experiments on themselves but we did get a couple of brave souls who, once they tried the human-human interface, realised we weren’t about to electrocute them! Having an arm that moves on someone else’s demand is actually quite funny – and that is to both the subject and the bystanders!
Dale and Ben demonstrating the human-human interface. https://youtu.be/Hw3I0V_moCw