Mind-Controlled Drones and Robots #TechBBQ2021

TechBBQ is one of the biggest tech events in the Nordics that exists to support and strengthen the Nordic startup-ecosystem. During this year's event Sherry List and I held a session on "Mind-Controlled Drones and Robots".

New York-based startup Neurosity recently released Crown, a head-based gadget that is capable of reading your brainwaves and head movements. Sherry and I decided to give it a try, and to explore what kind of solution we could build with it. We played around with the idea that it would be possible to control a drone with it, and we quickly figured out how to do it. We shared our learnings on the TechBBQ stage.

Drone receives different commands based on input from the Crown. Takeoff and landing are triggered based on calm detection, and fly commands are based on accelerometer changes. You can see how it works in the following video:

We were not able to fly a drone on the TechBBQ stage due to the drone flying regulations, so for our live demo we used a LEGO Boost robot that started moving once Crown detected calmness.

Presentation slides from our session are available here:

If you would like to learn more about this here are some useful resources:

• Neurosity SDK - https://docs.neurosity.co/docs/overview
• Neurosity GitHub - https://github.com/neurosity/notion-js
• Ryze Tello - https://www.ryzerobotics.com/tello
• Tello Python SDK - https://github.com/dji-sdk/Tello-Python
• Getting started with Azure Static Web Apps - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/learn/paths/azure-static-web-apps
• Brain project - https://github.com/sazimi/brain
• Want to control the sound of an electric guitar just by thinking about it? Neurosity’s got you… - https://thestack.technology/neurosity-alex-castillo-brain-wah

Special thanks goes out to our friend Kim Hedberg for support before and during the event, and for all nice pictures she took!