Backyard Brains OpenLab Series 3/5: Who’s in Control Here?!

In the third session of the OpenLab cycle (December 10, 15, 17, 18, and 22), we offer you the chance to use your signals to control someone else! This is the day your nerve impulses cross the boundaries of your own body.

Science Through Practice

Get ready for the most entertaining part of the series. You will connect to the Human-to-Human Interface, where one person becomes the “controller” and the other the “executor.” You will map muscle activity so that when you clench your fist, your partner’s arm (against their own will!) performs the same motion. You will feel the physical strength of electrical stimulation and, quite literally, understand how a biological signal can be “hacked” and transferred from one body to another.

What You Will Learn

• How the Backyard Brains Human-to-Human Interface works and how EMG signals are transmitted from one person to another
• How to correctly place electrodes and how the process of mapping someone else’s muscle to your signal is performed
• How nerve impulses become commands that another participant directly executes
• How neurophysiology and technology transform your biological signals into a tool for controlling movement

Why Join?

This workshop offers a truly unique experience: you will see how your neural signals become someone else’s movements, and how biology can be transformed into an entirely new form of communication. If you’re looking for neuroscience that goes beyond theory and becomes an interaction you can genuinely feel, this is a workshop you shouldn’t miss.

About the Instructor

The workshop is led by Aleksa Vasić, M.Sc. in Biology. As a science communicator, Aleksa blends biology, neuroscience, and technology to bring modern scientific discoveries closer to the public. Through practical demonstrations, he shows how the electrical signals that govern our bodies can be observed, measured, and interpreted using simple devices.

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