Bring Up to Speed Progress Report

Brainwave Team: Ryan W. & Andres D. 

We started the project with biofeedback in gaming, hoping that we would create a horror game similar to Nevermind. To start our research, we ordered MindWave, which is a device that records brain wave signals. Then, out of nowhere, we got the news that Helana was no longer going to attend ELRO. That news hit us hard because she was the most knowledgable on coding. However, as one door closes another one opens. Shortly after losing Helana, we gained Sebastian and Esteban.  They joined our group after they found out that their project had already been done. Ever since we've merged teams, it has been much easier to make progress because we work in parallel. While Ryan and I work on exporting brain wave data in order to use that in an application, Esteban and Sebastian have been working on the application itself. Another impactful moment in our group was when Mr. Lin introduced us to Open Vibe. This was the software that we needed in order to obtain raw data and use that raw data to our advantage. We've been stuck for a while, unfortunately, because although we are obtaining numerical data, we do not know how to export the data into a .csv file. To overcome this set back, we've been doing more research on the blocks in Open Vibe. Just yesterday we found a block known as "csv file writer" which we believe may be the answer to our problems. 

Application Team: Esteban C. & Sebastian C. 

We started off working with the mindwave technology. Our goal is to build an app that will be able to incorporate this technology into the app. We started off using Xcode, the application used to build apple apps. As we started working and tweaking the sample app that was provided to us, we hit many roadblocks that were beyond our intellectual scopes. It is beyond our knowledge of coding. We tried to incorporate storyboard into this app but that was impossible for us. We then switched over to an android system. We started off using eclipse but the android developers page recommended using android studio, there own program for running apps. Our current problem is not being able to get android studio to run smoothly. We've tried multiple ways to get the code to run on android studio but this is turning out to be more difficult than what we expected. The current roadblock that we have is not being able to run the code on an android device or an android emulator that comes in android studio. We have watched multiple tutorials and have done extensive research but we cannot come up with the solution to the problem. Every time that we come close, something else fails and brings us right back to square one. Due to this problem, progress lately has been stagnate. We are reading through developer documents in the android developer website to see if there is anyway to troubleshoot this problem.

Progress Report: 1/16/15

App Team: Esteban C. & Sebastian C.

Progress:

Once that we changed into java and used eclipse, we are tinkering with the code and trying to get the app to run. To be able to get this done, we had to download a different program called android studio. Android studio is a format in which you can also write code and it comes with different tools that can be used to develop applications for android devices. Once we downloaded the program, we started to study it and get use to the program. We looked up a few tutorials on the different tools that come with Android Studio and found the emulator that it comes with. Much like xcode, you can run your program on an android device simulator. After some time exploring we finally got the app to work on the emulator.

Problems:

Although we got the emulator to work, in the middle of it running, the program crashed and closed down android studio. Once we opened it again, the emulator refused to work. We keep getting the same error that the emulator is missing a “module”. So now we are doing some troubleshooting on what happened and what this “module” is. We are hoping that we can get the emulator to get working again by next Tuesday. Along with that, we are continuing trying to understand and analyze the code.

Open Vibe: Ryan W. & Andres D.

Progress: This week we encountered multiple problems with the integration of the simulation definition. Defining the simulation requires a script file that tells the function to what to include within it's definition of "simulation". In' theory, I know what I want to do, but it's the actual implementation that troubles us.Through out the week, I have attempted, with not avail to bridge the gap that exists between numerical data and development.

Progress Report 1/8/15

Brain Wave Team: Andres & Ryan

Progress:

This week we focused on building the application. We’ve been trying really hard to figure out how to split the frequencies up into alpha, beta, gamma, etc. but it has been figured out.  In the Acquisition server, there is a tab for driver properties. The properties have a selection for “Power (8 Channel)” which splits the frequencies by utilizing:

Acquisition Server → Temporal Filter → Spectral Analysis → Signal Display

Upon building the visual program, we stumbled across “Matrix Display”. Matrix Display, unlike signal display, gave the numerical values we needed to implement further development. Getting the numbers from the raw data would allow us to export numbers into a file (.CSV) and use the data for further application.

Now that we have the data, we can undergo different experiments, such as testing out different types of music on someone using MindWave. With the data from each test, we hope to find something that stands out (ex: spike) so we can use that as a reference.

We’ve also been writing an email to Emotiv because they have a new device that is very promising and has many more outputs than MindWave. The email looks as such:

Hi, My name is Andres Daza and I'm a high school senior from Eleanor Roosevelt High School in New York City. I'm in a class called Advanced STEM Research and my group is working on biofeedback technology using MindWave. So far, we haven't been satisfied with the device, and believe that your new device, Insight, is very promising and would allow us to further our research. We would really appreciate it if you could send us an evaluation prototype strictly for our research. 

Problem/Solutions:

We still need to find a way to export the file. We hope that by looking through more tutorials, and experimenting more with OpenVibe, we'll successfully find a way to export the file. Every time we play around with OpenVibe, we discover new things. For example, we recently discovered a tool that allows to define stimulation. Say I define stimulation as being an alpha wave with Amplitude>5, which essentially filters out a set trait or quality can be used to write a program.                                    

Application and Coding Team: Sebastian & Esteban

Progress:

Before the break started, we decided to change the platform of where we were going to work on the app. At first we were working on X-Code and using Objective-C. This became a problem since we are not familiar with the language and the language itself became harder to understand. So we have now changed to using Eclipse which uses Java as the language. Java is not only easier to understand but Vasil and Gui have made themselves available for us as well. With this change we are hoping to understand more thoroughly and quickly the application that comes with the MindWave headset.

Problems and Plans:

The only problem that we’ve faced is being able to open the file of the android thinkgear directly on eclipse. We may have fixed this issue by finding a way to bypass the way you open the file. The problem we seem to be facing now is being able to start the application on an android phone. Right now that is what we’re working on and we plan to be able to do it by next Thursday.