Empowering Minds With Neuroscience
About
The brain is our soul… our consciousness… it contains all of our hopes, dreams, and desires. It is our most important organ, yet how it works is still a mystery for most people–even though they use it every day! Sure, your brain helps you decide what pants to wear or which muscle to move when walking down a street, but how does it do that? Neuroscientists actually know quite a bit about how the brain functions, but the tools to understand the brain have been relegated to only large university laboratories, inaccessible to the layperson. Backyard Brains is the effort to democratize neuroscience.
As neuroscience Ph.D. students at the University of Michigan, co-founders Tim and Greg experimented with discussing neuroscience with middle school children. They quickly realized that there was no way to demonstrate compelling experiments like the ones from their research lab to the kids they were working with. The equipment was too big and too expensive. So they endeavored to fix that. Founding Backyard Brains (BYB) in 2009, Tim and Greg used off-the-shelf electronics and readily-available products to create kits that would let kids learn about neuroscience at an earlier age. The first Spikerbox was born, a hand-held device able to provide insight into the inner workings of the nervous system and record living “spikes” … the messages of neurons in the brain.
Upcoming Workshops
Backyard Brains’ OpenLab
Explore the brain and body through interactive experiments and technology. This workshop introduces the basics of neuroscience and bioelectronics, teaching you how to capture signals from muscles, the brain, and even plants while developing your own mini-projects.
How to Build Your First Robot
Have you ever imagined controlling a robot but never had the chance to build one? Miloš Rašić, Master of Electrical Engineering with a focus on Robotics and Biotechnology, will guide you through this four-workshop series, showing how to turn an idea into a small functional robot that can be controlled using a laptop, joystick, or ROS system. The workshops are designed for students who are new to the world of robotics.
How to Be More Entrepreneurial
A workshop designed to help you develop an entrepreneurial approach to life and career. You will learn how to identify opportunities, test ideas, and use available resources effectively, with a focus on practical steps you can apply right away.
Hands-On Experiments With Your Own Mind
What if you could feel your brain constructing reality in real time? In this hands-on workshop, you’ll step inside the strange illusions that reveal how consciousness works. Using only simple tools, we’ll trick the brain into believing your nose is growing, show how your body map can be bent and stretched, and explore online experiments that prove we unconsciously sense eye gaze as a real force. By the end, you won’t just understand the science of consciousness — you’ll have experienced it yourself.
Our Workshops
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| Backyard Brains’ OpenLab | October 13, 2025 — 18:00–20:00 |
ARC, Ulica Ideja 2, Ložionica
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| How to Build Your First Robot | October 15, 2025 — 16:00–18:00 |
ARC, Ulica Ideja 2, Ložionica
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| How to Be More Entrepreneurial | October 16, 2025 — 16:00–18:00 |
ARC, Ulica Ideja 2, Ložionica
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| Hands-On Experiments With Your Own Mind | October 22, 2025 — 16:00–18:00 |
ARC, Ulica Ideja 2, Ložionica
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| How Blood Pressure Monitors Work | October 9, 2025 — 16:00–18:00 |
ARC, Ulica Ideja 2, Ložionica
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