Neurosky Mindwave & Arduino Connected

Urban ReiningerJanuary 28, 2014 4 Comments

Bluetooth Mindwave connection

Following a guide on one of Neurosky’s developer pages, we connected their bluetooth enabled Mindwave Mobile headset (an EEG) to an Arduino that had a bluetooth module connected to it. Also on the breadboard is a LED bar graph that is setup to display the level of “concentration” for the wearer of the synced headset.

Once the bluetooth connection was made and an appropriate Arduino sketch (code) was uploaded, the computer was able to also display the headset’s values via the Arduino USB serial monitor. (displayed on the screen here)

It should be fairly to easily modify this code and create “mind control devices” that are connected to the Arduino (ie: a motor). We should also be able to capture data from the EEG for future experiments and areas of study.

Neurosky’s Mindwave Mobile bluetooth EEG headset and an Arduino with a bluesmirf module.

This site has some inspirational ideas and experiments: https://backyardbrains.com/experiments/

Quick Video:

Feeling a bit of little inspiration from this idea for a battery

Urban ReiningerJanuary 19, 2014

“Harvard University researchers say they’ve developed a new type of battery that could make it economical to store a couple of days of electricity from wind farms and other sources of power. The new battery, which is described in the journal Nature, is based on an organic molecule—called a quinone—that’s found in plants such as rhubarb and can be cheaply synthesized from crude oil. The molecules could reduce, by two-thirds, the cost of energy storage materials in a type of battery called a flow battery, which is particularly well suited to storing large amounts of energy.”

Source: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/523251/new-battery-material-could-help-wind-and-solar-power-go-big/

Un-clogged MakerBot and BlueSmirf prep

Urban ReiningerJanuary 15, 2014

A quick test print after filament

Our MakerBot Replicator Dual needed some help. One of the extruders was clogged. It was the type of clog that could only be fixed by partial disassembly. It seems to be pretty happy now but the filament loading sequence seemed to produce an extrusion that periodically sounded like it was slipping. This test print seems to have worked out fine, so we’ll just keep an eye on it.

BlueSmirf

Bluetooth hardware with pins added

A BlueSmirf is a bluetooth modem that can be integrated in to Arduino based systems. I’ve added some pins that I’ve bent to allow the card to be positioned vertically from a breadboard for easy test and hopefully better range. The bent pins will likely work well if we plan to integrate it in to a headband or other wearable project later on.