How would you make neuroscience available in the classroom while making the subject engaging for students? This has been the conundrum for Backyard Brains, and then came the RoboRoach.

Backyard Brains is a neurological education and outreach company that launched on Kickstarter on Monday, and since then the company has gained worldwide support. The company was co-founded by Greg Gage who said that RoboRoach has been in development for a few years now. But before they could bring it to a classroom, Gage and a lab partner from the University of Michigan, Tim Marzullo, had to overcome a few hurdles.

Research shows that 20% of the world’s population will be diagnosed with a neurological disease. Diseases like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s that currently have no cures are top amongst them. This is where RoboRoach fits into the equation: RoboRoach is placing neurotechnology in the hands of young minds to encourage them to find cures for these diseases, and this is by no means offering a cure.

The concept of RoboRoach was born when the pair were finishing their PhD’s in the neural engineering lab. They wanted to take all they had learnt and teach neuroscience in schools in order to show children that a career in neuroscience can start at the early stages in their education. The only the way the pair could bring neuroscience into the classroom in a fun and exciting manner was with RoboRoach. It’s a learning tool that was interactive, inexpensive and not illegal.

Gage said:

They also have neurons that are similar to humans. Not exactly the same, but the essence is the same; they both fire spikes, and so, if you can record those spikes, you’re actually kind of seeing what’s happening in your brain.

According to Gage and Marzullo the RoboRoach is a tool that can assist students in learning more regarding “neural control of behaviour, learning and memory, adaptation and habituation, stimuli selection and the effect of randomness.”

Take a look at the video explaining RoboRoach:

The campaign on Kickstarter is seeking pledges that will assist in the development of more prototypes, hardware and gear that is more affordable, and in time, an app for Android devices.

To date, 150 kits of the RoboRoach have been sold to high schools. The goal that RoboRoach has set itself, according to Gage:

The overarching goal of our company is to bring upon the ‘neuro-revolution,’ which is where people can contribute to science almost like they do in mathematics and astronomy. In computer science, for example, there are tons of amateurs that are contributing to that field because the access to the tools is affordable and cheap. Wouldn’t it be cool, in neuroscience, if we could do the same thing?

[Source: Mashable, YouTube]