{"id":301,"date":"2016-04-01T15:52:49","date_gmt":"2016-04-01T15:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mikewinters.io\/?p=301"},"modified":"2021-07-26T17:35:00","modified_gmt":"2021-07-26T17:35:00","slug":"brain-controlled-robotic-drumming-arm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikewinters.io\/?p=301","title":{"rendered":"Brain-Controlled Robotic Drumming Arm"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As a PhD student in Gil Weinberg’s Robotic Musicianship Group<\/a>, I worked around a lot of robots. When I arrived, Shimon & Friends<\/a> were an established group of robotic musicans that could play, listen, improvise and even dance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In my second year, our group began designing a new robot that would augment a human drummer with a third arm. This idea raised an interesting question: How would a drummer (who is already using both arms ands legs) also control the arm? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We tried computer vision, piezos, head-mounted gyroscopes and EMGs, but the one that was most exciting for me was EEG. With funding from the NSF (IIS EAGER 1550397), we bought a Brain Vision 32-Channel Active Electrode System.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

I was given the challenging job of learning how to use the EEG to control the arm. I had no previous experience with EEG, but I learned by reading, asking questions and collaborating with other researchers and labs on campus. Especially helpful were the people in Melody Moore Jackson’s GT BrainLab<\/a> and the students in my VIP<\/a> group. Over several months, I learned a a lot through hands-on trial and error. By the end of the semester, we could use the Steady-State Visually Evoked Potential<\/a> (SSVEP) to send musical control signals to the arm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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