[Cyborg] Cyborg/fyborg tails!

Tue Nov 16 05:41:52 UTC 2010

Heya all,

I'm the Thomas Coleman mentioned below, sorry for the delay responding. The
sensors mentioned by Mikolaj are derived from the core technology behind the
Audeo (http://www.theaudeo.com). They input three signals from the surface
of the skin (and power/ground), and output a unipolar digital signal
corresponding to the level of muscle activity. Bigger muscle activity,
bigger byte value. The cool thing is I originally designed them to detect
the extremely low level signals of people no longer able to produce
detectable activity, like locked in ALS patients. This means they can pick
up signals so weak nobody can tell you're even doing anything to trigger
them. It takes some self-training to reliably control your signals like
that, but once you get it you can do all kinds of cool/spooky things
(somewhere out there is a youtube vid of me evilly cruising in a wheelchair
among other things hehe). Anyways, long story short the sensors he was
talking about are more hacker-friendly than furry-specific. They're
reliable, sensitive, RF immune, tiny, and can even use steel as skin
contacts. Sorry I'm kinda proud of my babies :)

~T

On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 2:00 PM, Mikolaj Habryn <dichro at rcpt.to> wrote:

>
> Sorry for vanishing after that tantalizing message :P I'm mid-travel (and
> mostly mid-travail, as well).
>
> I didn't design the sensors; they're being done by one Thomas Coleman, who
> also does EMG stuff professionally. The current prototype is a single
> sensor
> (three-lead) differential amplifier plus microcontroller in a small, sealed
> 8-pin module that outputs serial. I've pointed him at this thread, so
> hopefully he'll have a chance to weigh in with more detail.
>
> m.
>
> On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 5:59 AM, Tomm <tomm.fire at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Nov. 7th works for me.  I have some new hardware
> > to show off from my ultrasound project, might even
> > be able to show it all working (!).
> >
> >     Tom
> >
> > On 10/24/10 11:30 PM, ch_luk at berkeley.edu wrote:
> > > Hi Sarah,
> > >
> > >    Your work is really neat! Would you be willing to show us some of it
> > at
> > > a future cyborg meeting, perhaps next month? We hold monthly-ish
> > > meetings Sunday afternoons starting at 4 pm in the Noisebridge space
> > > (2169 Mission St). Might Nov. 7 or 21 work for you?
> > >
> > >    To the local Bay Area cyborgs, who's free Nov. 7 or Nov. 21? (I'm at
> a
> > > conference Nov. 14.)  It'd be great to have everyone show-and-tell
> their
> > > current work. Automated zebrafish heartbeat sensing, Todd? Eric and I
> > > should have a complete pulse choker prototype for you to try on by
> then.
> > > =)
> > >
> > >    To the remote cyborgs, book your plane tickets and visit! ;) Also,
> > what
> > > makes the EMG sensor you speak of specific for furry-tech, Mikolaj?
> > >
> > >    Sarah, does wanting to add electronic eyelashes or wings count in
> the
> > > adding-limbs-that-humans-don't-normally-have genre?
> > >
> > > Smiles,
> > >    Chung-Hay
> > >
> > >
> > >> I have some EMG stuff queued up to work on too. I met a gentleman at
> > PS:1
> > >> a
> > >> few months ago and we got each other enthusiastic enough that he has
> > >> prototyped up some EMG sensors specifically for furry-tech
> applications
> > (I
> > >> was going to start with articulated pointy ears, but tails were
> > definitely
> > >> on the wistfully desired list :). I'll be funding an initial run of
> > >> sensors
> > >> (probably no more than a dozen or so) when I get back to NYC; would be
> > >> happy
> > >> to send some to Noisebridge for experimentation if they'd be of
> > interest.
> > >>
> > >> m.
> > >>
> > >> On Mon, Oct 25, 2010 at 9:11 AM, Sarah Nordstrom
> > >> <sarahemm at sarahemm.net>wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> I was talking to Rachel (apologies if I've misspelled your name) at
> > >>> Noisebridge a couple days back, and we got talking about tails.  I
> > >>> started
> > >>> working on a tail with gyros and accelerometers in it a couple years
> > >>> back,
> > >>> to assist with balance (my inner ears don't work properly), and have
> > >>> been
> > >>> inspired to start working on that again! :) I said I'd post the links
> I
> > >>> was talking about, so here they are:
> > >>> The howto pages I talked about are at
> > >>> http://www.wolftronix.com/howto.htm
> > >>> and the bionic tail (using EMG data to control a tail) project is at
> > >>> http://www.wolftronix.com/biotail/biotail.htm.
> > >>>
> > >>> Anyone else interested in tails or other types of
> > >>> adding-limbs-that-humans-don't-normally-have? (or even limbs humans
> > *do*
> > >>> normally have?)
> > >>>
> > >>>   - Sarah
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> _______________________________________________
> > >>> Cyborg mailing list
> > >>> Cyborg at lists.noisebridge.net
> > >>> https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/cyborg
> > >>>
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> > >>
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>
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