June 11, 2013 at 19:24How to quickly make a cyborg out of a cockroach
Yesterday fundraising for the curious RoboRoach project from a small startup Backyard Brains has opened on Kickstarter : anyone who would like to use home cockroaches to good use can get an electronic kit from the authors that can be glued to the back of an insect and controlled from their smartphone.
A cyborg cockroach looks something like this:
As you can see from the explanation, the “navigational” capabilities of cockroaches depend on their long antennae, which are similar to physical obstacle locators - in other words, a cockroach bumps into an obstacle with a mustache, decides that there is an obstacle and it the natural instinct dictates to him the need to turn in order to go around it.
Schematically, the physiology of this process is presented in the diagram below:
The creators of the project offer everyone a kit weighing 4.5 grams of a control board, three electrodes and a lithium battery. Having a cockroach, the electrodes should be fixed on its antennae, stick the board to the back of the insect; the battery provides energy for wireless communication and electrical impulses supplied to the antenna for 12 hours. After that, for some time (adaptation will take place) the cockroach can be controlled from a phone running Android or iOS.
The kit itself looks like this:
And the process of operations on a cockroach is shown in the video below:
It is emphasized, however, that RoboRoach is not a toy, but a serious tool for studying the work of the brain. For those who donate $ 150 to the project, the authors, in addition to the electronics kit itself, promise to send another package of ready-made cyborg cockroaches; however, only within the United States - insects do not tolerate flights.
[ Kickstarter ]
A cyborg cockroach looks something like this:
As you can see from the explanation, the “navigational” capabilities of cockroaches depend on their long antennae, which are similar to physical obstacle locators - in other words, a cockroach bumps into an obstacle with a mustache, decides that there is an obstacle and it the natural instinct dictates to him the need to turn in order to go around it.
Schematically, the physiology of this process is presented in the diagram below:
The creators of the project offer everyone a kit weighing 4.5 grams of a control board, three electrodes and a lithium battery. Having a cockroach, the electrodes should be fixed on its antennae, stick the board to the back of the insect; the battery provides energy for wireless communication and electrical impulses supplied to the antenna for 12 hours. After that, for some time (adaptation will take place) the cockroach can be controlled from a phone running Android or iOS.
The kit itself looks like this:
And the process of operations on a cockroach is shown in the video below:
It is emphasized, however, that RoboRoach is not a toy, but a serious tool for studying the work of the brain. For those who donate $ 150 to the project, the authors, in addition to the electronics kit itself, promise to send another package of ready-made cyborg cockroaches; however, only within the United States - insects do not tolerate flights.
[ Kickstarter ]
