Hacking Heuristics

SUCTION ELECTRODES

Of course another issue is the fact that people will move, and the electrodes (input or output) will lose their grip and not provide effective stimulation or contact to the skin to sense any sort of bio signal. Without using sticky single use electrodes, I've been looking into how to use air and vacuum to hold the sensors onto the skin. Here is one of these prototypes, attached to a little vacuum pump.

INPUT -> OUTPUT

Here I am using a IRLZ34N Mosfet to change the strength of the electrical impulses depending on the sensed level of touch. Although it works, there isn't enough room to really play with the variation in the impulses.

ELECTRODE PROTOTYPING

Since the idea is still to provide electrical stimulation as the 'translated' biometric data, a part of the research also involves finding the most suitable material, shape, size and sensation for the electrodes that the visitors will place on their bodies. Here are some prototypes with copper sheets, copper tape, and conductive rubber and spondge.

READINGS WITH NEW SENSORS

This is heart rate and breath change readings.. but we are so familiar with seeing these lines representing our biological impulses.. how can we move beyond this and start to understand data in a different way?

SENSING WITH ALAGATOR CLIPS

What I love about these is they come with alagator clips so that you are free to create your own electrodes instead of having to use these single use sticky ones (except in this picture I am actually using the sticky ones for testing).

TINY LITTLE SENSORS

Very simple to use, just attach to your microcontroller and you can read EMG, ECG, EEG from your body.

NEW SENSORS

As part of the research process, I am looking for affordable, flexible , open source sensors -- like this BioAmp EXG Pill from a crowd sourced platform developing new technologies. Check it out here -- https://www.crowdsupply.com/upside-down-labs/bioamp-exg-pill

DIY COPPER SENSORS

The development of these copper sensors instead of having to use sticky single use elecrodes offers more flexibility and accessibility for moving this technology to a public space and public interaction.

INPUT AND OUTPUT

After simply communicating with each other how we usually do, we added electrical stimulation patches to each other, firstly to see if these would interfere with the signals we were reading, and secondly to explore the idea of control - controlling someone elses body, how does that make the other feel?

BRAIN WAVE SHAPE

What fascinated me was seeing that unline other biosignals, which often just produce a single line and some noise, the signals from the electrodes on my prefrontal cortex make this beautiful helix shape! As if illustrating our dna..

INTER-ACTION

Myself and my partner, communicating to each other whilst Marcel (the neuroscientist) looked at the graphs. First we use spoken language, then only body langugage, then only through our eyes and minds.

SIGNALS ON SCREEN

Brain waves - looking at the graph on the top right - those between 0 and 30 hertz illustrate meditative states, those between 60 and 90 are active brain waves, such as when we think and make decisions, try to solve problems.

INTERACTION THROUGH DIGITAL DEVICE

Interacting with content, visual and audio, stories, through the use of a phone. How does this differ to interacting with a physical human?

SENSING INTERACTIONS

Today we recorded our hearts, sweat and brain waves -- 3 different sensors with several high-pass and low pass filters.

TYPES OF INTERACTION

On Monday we will connect ourselves into our data acquisition machine and measure our heart, brain and sweat response while engaging in several types of interaction. The purpose of this is to see how our bodies respond to these interactions, and if a change can be detected using the sensors.

ISOLATED STIMULATOR

Connected to this machine, is also the option of choosing to send an electrical impulse as an output. Taking a look at the parameters - this could be useful to also give the neural network the same parameters to work with.

COPPER POLES AS SENSORS

By using two copper pipes, connected to GND and INPUT + of the DIN cable, we were able to measure several things at the same time: 1. Sweat response 2. Heart Rate 3. Breath

POWER SPECTRUM

In the right hand corner you can see the colours indicating the hertz of the power generated by my muscles. Right now we are using existing sensors with an existing program but in the future we will develop our own.

HACKING THE SYSTEM

So to be able to explore new sensors, I replicated the 8 pin DIN input cable, so that we can plug in our own sensors into the PowerLab box.

CLOSED SYSTEMS

In the lab, they work with these boxes which provide outputs and inuts, and run through a program called PowerLabs. Unfortunately it is very cool, but the system is super closed (you have to use it with the program).

BIOSIGNALS IN THE LAB

In the neuroscience lab, our process beings by discovering what biosignals are readable, and which hold meaning.

FINAL OUTPUT ILLUSTRATION

Taking the form of an octopus, inspired by its decentralised brain.

DATA ACQUISITION FLOW

PITCHING OUR IDEA

On the 1st of June, we pitched our idea and won!

BALANCING ROBOT

This is the 'balancing robot' in the neuroscience department. Here, it alters your perception of balance.