Machine Yearning

1. What are you making?
Imagine extending your arm’s reach beyond natural limits, moving your hands with surgical precision, and manipulating space and technology in entirely new ways. I’m designing and building cyborg limbs for the human body. Limbs which can extend, rotate, morph and more, by responding directly to your thoughts and brain signals.

My project, Machine Yearning, investigates how these new affordances reshape our relationship with the built environment, society, and even our own senses. The human brain holds vast untapped potential, far beyond what our natural bodies can express. Through technology and design, I’m creating new ways for our physical capabilities to match our cognitive ones.

2. How are OpenBCI tools being applied?
I am using OpenBCI’s Ultracortex paired with the Cyton+Daisy board. This combination provides the 16 channels needed to demonstrate both sophisticated limb control and the
full capabilities of OpenBCI’s technology – an engaging showcase for what’s possible when
brain-computer interfaces meet innovative design.

The project aims to push the boundaries of physical interaction. Creating an intuitive bridge
between cognition and movement requires iteratively finding the optimal electrode
configurations for fluid, natural control. The Ultracortex’s coverage of both motor cortex
and posterior regions offers unique experimental flexibility.

3. Why is this important?
The project approaches this question through physical prototyping of brain-controlled additional limbs. The choice of physical prototyping over conceptual or virtual design is deliberate – by creating tangible, functioning augmentations, the project moves beyond speculation into a provocative demonstration of possible futures.

This work sits within the critical and speculative design tradition, questioning our assumptions about bodily optimization and human enhancement. Rather than solving a defined problem, it creates a platform for examining deeper questions: How might additional limbs transform our daily interactions? What happens to social customs and personal space when human bodies transcend their traditional forms? When does enhancement become transformation?

4. Who is involved in this project?
This is my Senior Design Capstone project at Parsons School of Design. I will be primarily working on it by myself, but will definitely rely on ongoing feedback from my peers and professors at Parsons as well as my coworkers at OpenBCI.

5. Want to learn more about this project?
I will be posting photos and updates of my project on my website: https://rohanjadal.com/machine-yearning
You can also browse my other projects on my site as well.