BCI Montréal was at the Eureka! Festival, one of the biggest science fairs in North America. This year the festival welcomed 107,898 people… nice! The event took place over three days at the Old Port of Montreal. On Friday, elementary and high school students from Montreal spent the day exploring science booths and taking part in activities designed specifically for them. On Saturday and Sunday, the program was targeted at the general public and at families. Having people from all ages is a true challenge: this means that exhibitors must adapt their level of explanation and still be able to convey their passion for their respective field.
In our case, we quickly found out that kids are not that impressed that we can read brain signals, but when something moves or makes noise it’s a very different story…
The theme of Eureka! 2015 was “Games”.
“The Force” vs “The Science”
Sounds fun? It sure was!
BCI Montréal staged a little galactic story where a Jedi master, player by Melanie, is looking for new Padawans and meets Yannick, a scientist, who shows her how with brain-computer interfaces, or BCIs, anybody can become a Jedi and can control objects with their mind.
One of BCI Montréal’s missions is to inspire young scientists to follow the path of neurotechnology. As the field itself becomes more and more multidisciplinary and asks for skills in neuroscience, electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, computer science and more, it also becomes more accessible, because more people from different backgrounds can play a role in pushing neurotechnology further.
For those who came to see us, here are the devices we showed you and talked about:
- We used the PuzzleBox with the Neurosky headset for the ‘wow’ and ‘fun’ factor, because everybody loves to see that helicopter taking off when they focus enough.
- We used the Emotiv EPOC to show and introduce the electrical brain signals (EEG).
- We used the Muse headband for people for see their own brain activity. Their simple and elegant design makes it very simple for anybody to try.
- We talked about the OpenBCI board because we love their tech and we support their open source and community-driven approach.
For more pictures of the event…
For more videos check : https://youtu.be/tKBQu63Cp8s
For more information about the Eureka! Festival : http://www.festivaleureka.ca/
For more information about BCI Montréal’s activities : http://www.meetup.com/bci-Meetup/
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