BMI Workshop at
IEEE SMC 2023
October 1-2, 2023
Waikiki Sheraton, Oahu, Hawaii
Team "Tandem Trust"
Team Tandem Trust awarded 1st place in Programming /Artistic Projects at BR41N.IO Hackathon 2023, technical innovation meets creative exploration in BCI
Team members: Ioana Badiu, Andrei Denis-Alexandru, Teodorescu Ada, Florescu Florin
Team "AQUA PIPE MAZE"
Team AQUA PIPE MAZE used BCI to broaden program reach, inspired by "Where's My Water?". Their first hackathon solidified the team and sparked future goals.
Team members: Leonel V Carrasco, Mariana De Jesús, Blanca Jazmín Hernández Gutiérrez, Daniela G Castillo Cabanillas, Lyon N Canedo Cervantes, Hazzel Fernández Rueda
Team "MIND BOWLING"
Team MIND BOWLING combined BCI, Unicorn-Unity, and Unicorn Speller for an accessible bowling game. Their innovation opens new, exciting doors in gaming.
Team members: Diego Heredia, Héctor Lizárraga, Martín Villagrana, Marina Lizaola, Victor López, Renata Hernández, Ana Laura Collantes.
Team "MUTATINTA"
Team MUTATINTA used Unicorn Hybrid Black and ChatGPT to create adaptive, emotion-sensitive narratives. Their innovation promises new avenues in personalized storytelling and education.
Team members: Santiago Peñúñuri, Gabriel García, Diego Mercado, Siddhartha López, Jairo Barrera, Sabrina Guevara.
Team "CogniChords"
Team CogniCords employs EEG to translate emotions into real-time audio, targeting artists and DJs. Using emotion recognition and audio generation, they achieved results in Valence, Arousal, and Dominance modes.
Team members: Sudharshan Sundaramahalingam, Isaac Tay, Daniel Lim, Liam Donaghy
Team "LoveSync"
LoveSync: an app that unites hearts, one brain at a time.
Team member: Anna Fojkis, Efe As, Meda Kuizinaite, Iwan van Oosterhout
Team "Matrix Makers"
Team Matrix Makers paired Unicorn Hybrid Black EEG with Pepper Robot for a dynamic meditation guide. Real-time brainwave monitoring meets instant feedback, setting the stage for personalized meditation guide.
Team member: Fahed Saghir, Abdelhadi Hireche, Nour El Houda Sayah Ben Aissa
Team "Neural Mavericks"
Team Neural Mavericks used BCI to aid communication with patients in Unresponsive Wakefulness Syndrome. Their ERP pipeline shows promise for new assessment methods.
Team members: Mahimai Raja J, Neha Sara John, Tellache Mohamed Mounir
Team "VECoG"
Feature extraction from chosen ECoG channels to investigate visual discrimination and broadband gamma activity correlations across varying visual stimuli.
Team members: Danai-Georgia Sakelliadou, Taryn Takebayashi, Arianna Alonso Bizzi, Feimei Chen, Armin Soltan, Amila Jayakody Arachchillage, Christopher Lee
Team "ECoG Hand-Pose Classification"
Processing ECoG data from seizure patients to Decode hand poses from ECoG signal data.
Team members: TAN Tianshu, QIU Shicheng, Mhd Walid Al Jallad, Jisso Lee
Join the IEEE community of more than 400,000 technology and engineering professionals united by a common desire to continuously learn, interact, collaborate, and innovate!
BR41N.IO is a brainstorming and collaborative marathon designed to be a learning experience for developers, technologists, engineers, students, artists, and scientists who cram and build brain-computer interface (BCI) applications together in teams.
Anyone can participate who has interests in BMI, BCI, robotics, AR, VR, machine learning, computing, sensors, human-machine interface systems, control, signal processing, big data, haptics, rehabilitation, and similar areas. Even better: it is for FREE.
Participants do not have to be a BMI expert to participate on a team! Interdisciplinary teams with a combination of BMI and non-BMI skills are often successful in building solutions and producing working prototypes.
Do you have a Unicorn Hybrid Black at home or at your University/Institution? Great! Let's put together a team of students and participate with your own Unicorn Hybrid Black at the virtual BR41N.IO Hackathon. Our programming projects are most suitable for you.
Professional teams can also participate to develop applications during the BR41N.IO Designers' Hackathon to demonstrate full potential of some of the sponsored hardware/software.
If you are looking for additional skills from other team members, your project will be included among the BR41N.IO projects below for application. Submit your project to contact@br41n.io.
Be creative, think outside the box. The BR41N.IO Designers' Hackathon is fun and gets you to network and collaborate with other Geeks. The best BR41N.IO projects will be awarded with cash prizes:
There are several predefined projects which you can choose to work on. Below, the projects are described in detail including hard- and software requirements.
The Unicorn Hybrid Black and the Unicorn Suite should be used to join a Programming Project. But, you can use your own hardware and software for the BR41N.IO hackathon. In case you don't have a BCI Headset, we recommend to join an Offline Data Analysis Project.
We will connect you with the team members of your project. Create your own virtual meeting space using Skype, Google Hangouts, Zoom, etc. to start working on your ideas.
While you work on your groundbreaking new BCI applications, we are here to answer all the questions that might come up and support you wherever we can.
You will be invited to present your results virtually via Zoom. Prepare yourself to explain what you did, what the results are and to show a demonstration (live or with a video) to the international audience and jury.
Brain-computer interfaces are realized by 4 different principles:
In the BR41N.IO Hackathon Series, motor imagery and EP based systems
are mostly used to control the applications:
In the case of the motor imagery application, participants have to imagine e.g. left or right hand movement to produce an event-related desynchronization over the sensorimotor cortex. This is basically an amplitude change of the alpha and beta regions of the EEG.
In the case of EPs, the BCI system is showing different flashing icons and the user has to attend to the icon he wants to select. When the icon flashes on the computer screen, than a P300 wave is produced in the brain and the BCI system is able to detect it.
Do you have a Unicorn Hybrid Black, a Unicorn Naked BCI or the Unicorn Education Kit at your university or at your lab? Great! Let's put together 40 students in teams of 5 students and let them participate and compete against other international students at this virtual BR41N.IO Hackathon.
As Unicorn Education Kit owner, you'll qualify as a Hosting Institution for this BR41N.IO Hackathon. This means, you'll get a speaking slot during the hackathon and raise awareness for your university.
Unicorn Education Kit is perfectly designed for professors who teach brain-computer interfaces, biomedical engineering or signal processing.
It comes with 8 Unicorn Hybrid Black devices including full access to the Unicorn Suite software.
Unicorn Hybrid Black is a wearable 8-channel EEG device that measures high-quality EEG signals from your brain.
It is perfectly suitable for creating your own brain-computer interface or neuroscience applications.
Time Zone: CEST, Vienna time
Room: BCI, Waikiki Sheraton, Oahu, Hawaii, USA
9:00 | Welcome Tiago Falk, IEEE SMC Christoph Guger, g.tec medical engineering Jonas Vibell, University of Hawaii, Manoa, USA |
9:05 |
Current and Future Applications of |
10:00 |
How to run a Real-Time BCI Application |
10:30 |
Unicorn Brain Interface Demonstration |
11:00 |
Data Analysis Projects |
11:30 |
Group formation and START BR41N.IO |
12:00 | START OF BR41N.IO HACKING |
21:00 | Frontiers of Brain-Inspired Autonomous Systems Ming Hou, Department of National Defence, Canada |
22:00 |
Self-Supervised Contrastive Learning For EEG-Based Neurological Disorder Detection |
All night hacking at home |
6:00 | START BR41N.IO |
10:00 | NeuroTechX - The International Neurotech Community Mohit Patil, NeuroTechX |
19:00 |
END OF BR41N.IO HACKING |
20:00 | BR41N.IO project presentations |
23:00 |
BR41N.IO Winners Ceremony |
The BCI Award Ceremony 2023
20:00 |
BCI Award 2023 Ceremony: Presentations & winner announcements |
22:00 |
BCI Award 2023 Winners Announcement |
Universities who are proud owners of the Unicorn Education Kit automatically qualify as hosting institution. Official hosting institutions are fully embedded in the BR41N.IO Designers' Hackathons. Boost your institution’s visibility and awareness and benefit from a big audience.
Hosting institutions provide on-site access to EEG devices and brain-computer interface technology that you would need for programming projects. Just let us know at which hosting institition you would like to participate during the BR41N.IO Hackathon.
Department of Cognitive Science & AI
Prof. Maryam Alimardani
Tilburg, Netherlands
g.tec medical engineering GmbH
Dr. Christoph Guger
Schiedlberg, Austria
MeCIS Media Cognition & Interactive Systems
Prof. Luis Emilio Bruni, Niels Erik Raursø
København , Denmark
United Arab Emirates University
Prof. Abdelkader N. Belkacem
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Machine Learning Journal Club
Arianna Di Bernardo, Enrico Sansone
Turin, Italy
Mathematics Faculty & Fine art and Design Faculty
Prof. Cosmin Bonchis & Prof. Camil Mihaescu
Timisoara, Romania
Campus Guadalajara
Javier Mauricio Antelis Ortiz, PhD.
Jalisco, Mexico
NSF AWARE-AI NRT Program and Electrical & Microelectronics Engineering Dept.
Prof. Ferat Sahin
New York, USA
Union Neurotech
Leonardo Ferrisi
New York, USA
*These projects require a Unicorn Hybrid Black, a Unicorn Naked BCI (available at hosting institutions) or use your own BCI system.
Create a shooting game that can be controlled with a brain-computer interface and shoot the targets with your EEG signals.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
You like speeding with your car but it's not safe in reality? Then you can create a racing game in which you can speed as much as you want with your EEG signals.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
Start the adventure and begin the journey to treasure hunting. You can choose the elements in the game with your EEG signals.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
You are invited to create your own gaming project for this hackathon. You have a Unicorn Hybrid Black or any other kind of BCI to create your game.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
Whether you want to play Tennis or Bowling or any sports game virtually, you can use your EEG signals to hit the shot.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
You like playing cards? Then crank it up a notch and play cards using brain computer interfaces. You can choose the items in your game with your EEG signals.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
You can create an educational game in which you can choose the options with your EEG signals.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
The decision making in strategy games can be performed with EEG signals. The strategy games range from chess to war games.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
Puzzle games are fun but why bothering using your fingers. Move the items in your game with your EEG signals.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
Create a Unity based game that can be used for rehabilitation purposes.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Unity Interface, Unity
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#/Unity)
*These projects require a Unicorn Hybrid Black, a Unicorn Naked BCI (available at hosting institutions) or use your own BCI system.
The Unicorn Brain Interface comes with the Unicorn Speller application that is using P300 paradigm to control electronic devices such as lamps, radios or television. Watch the video Unicorn Speller Smart Home.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Speller, domestic electronic devices
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: basic programming skills (Matlab, Simulink)
It is possible to control a 3D printed orthosis using a Unicorn Hybrid Black with motor imagery. It is possible to move an orthosis by thinking about left or right hand motion. Watch the Orthosis Control video.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Speller, bring your own orthosis or use Unity instead
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
Skills: Basic programming skills (Matlab, Simulink), basic graphics programming skills with Unity
Read a book with a brain-computer interface.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Suite
participants: 1 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills
You are invited to create your own programming project for this hackathon. You'll have all the BCI headsets or you bring your own BCI to design and program your own fully functional headset.
soft-/hardware specifications: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Naked BCI, EEG device
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills
If you want to create a Dream Painting, you have to wear a Unicorn Brain Interface while you sleep. When you wake up, you are able to create a picture based on EEG signals.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Speller
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (Matlab, Simulink)
Control the apps on your smartphone with a brain-computer interface.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Suite
participants: 1 group, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills
Stimulate the brain with tDCS to increase or mental performance and measure brain activity with EEG at the same time with the Unicorn Hybrid Black environment.
soft-/hardware specifications: g.tec's Brain Stimulator, your own tDCS device
participants: 1 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (Matlab, Simulink, C#)
Become a superhuman that knows the answers to all the questions by connecting Unicorn Hybrid Black to Chat GPT.
soft-/hardware specifications: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Suite
participants: 2 group, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills
The Unicorn Hybrid Black offers the Unicorn Speller application that allows you to control a robotic ball called Sphero. Watch the video Unicorn Sphero.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Speller, Sphero robot
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (C#)
The team can use fNIRS (functional near-infrared spectroscopy) and EEG simultaneously to control BCI applications.
soft-/hardware: g.Nautilus fNIRS
participants: 1 group, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (Matlab, Simulink)
The Unicorn Hybrid Black comes with the Unicorn Speller which allows you to fly your own drone with the brain only.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Speller, bring your own drone or use Unity instead
participants: 2 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: Basic programming skills (Java)
*no hardware required.
Analyze a motor imagery BCI data-set from a chronic stroke patient in order to optimize pre-processing, feature extraction and classification algorithms. Compare your results with state-of-the-art algorithms.
soft-/hardware: MATLAB or other signal processing platform that is able to read in the MATLAB matrix
participants: 3 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: signal processing skills
Analyze a visual P300 BCI data-set from a healthy person in order to optimize pre-processing, feature extraction and classification algorithms. Compare your results with state-of-the-art algorithms.
soft-/hardware: MATLAB or other signal processing platform that is able to read in the MATLAB matrix
participants: 3 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: signal processing skills
Analyze an ECoG data-set from an epilepsy person watching a video. The ECoG was recorded from regions on the temporal base that is coding colors, black/white, shapes, faces and much more. Try to optimize pre-processing, feature extraction and classification algorithms. Compare your results with state-of-the-art algorithms.
soft-/hardware: MATLAB or other signal processing platform that is able to read in the MATLAB matrix
participants: 3 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: signal processing skills
Analyze a vibro-tactile P300 BCI data-set from a patient with disorders of consciousness in order to optimize pre-processing, feature extraction and classification algorithms. Compare your results with state-of-the-art algorithms.
soft-/hardware: MATLAB or other signal processing platform that is able to read in the MATLAB matrix
participants: 3 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: signal processing skills
Analyze an SSVEP BCI data-set from a healthy person in order to optimize pre-processing, feature extraction and classification algorithms. Compare your results with state-of-the-art algorithms.
soft-/hardware: MATLAB or other signal processing platform that is able to read in the MATLAB matrix
participants: 3 groups, 5-8 people per groupskills: signal processing skills
Analyze a vibro-tactile P300 BCI data-set from a patient with locked-in syndrom in order to optimize pre-processing, feature extraction and classification algorithms. Compare your results with state-of-the-art algorithms.
soft-/hardware: MATLAB or other signal processing platform that is able to read in the MATLAB matrix
participants: 3 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: signal processing skills
Analyze an ECoG BCI data-set from an epilepsy person in order to optimize pre-processing, feature extraction and classification algorithms. Compare your results with state-of-the-art algorithms.
soft-/hardware: MATLAB or other signal processing platform that is able to read in the MATLAB matrix
participants: 3 groups, 5-8 people per group
skills: signal processing skills
*these projects require sewing machines, 3D printers, painting or crafting materials.
Create images according to your brain activity that you measure with the Unicorn Brain Interface.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Hybrid Black, Unicorn Painting
participants: 2 groups, 3-5 people per group
Finding new ways of developing artistic projects using Unicorn BCI.
soft-/hardware: tbd
participants: 10 people
Expand the Unicorn Brain Interface with your own 3D printed parts. Let them move, light, hold things or simply look nice. Watch the video 3D Headset Design.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Naked BCI, 3D software
participants: 2 groups, 3-5 people per group
Skills: Basic CAD
Give the Unicorn Brain Interface a new, fashionable look.
soft-/hardware: Unicorn Naked BCI, sewing machines, fabrics and craftiing material
participants: 2 groups, 3-5 people per group