A Good Website to Draw Flow Chart Online

https://www.lucidchart.com/

Mine is done:

Check Dropbox "Wireless Brain to Computer Games" file

"Wireless Brain to Computer Games" under "Project" file;

The zip is used for upload all to scribtex once.

The others are for whom uses an TeX editor.

They are equivalent.

I'm able to be in charge of:

The headset introduction so btw finishing the list of materials;

My flash(will be separated into parts of objective, procedure, result and analysis, discuss and conclusion);

Some“Reflection” or “Self-Evaluation” or “Lessons Learnt” under the Discussion.

The acknowledgement(to thank the people helped us) if you also agree to add this after our abstract. 

Useful Points for Project Dissertation

The poster is mainly two parts:

• The email sent by Dr. Ridgway
• The summary of the dissertation guide written by Dr. Al-Nuaimy
• My questions and Waleed's answers

I think you've received the email about the dissertation writing from Dr. Ridgway. I just want to put it here for convenience when we can't find the email.

Template download:(Log in VITAL first)
(Including a guide to write this dissertation)


Words: 2,000~10,000 (Discussion Section can't be too short.)

Further LaTeX drop in help sessions will be held on:

• Wed 29/2 at 2pm to 3pm
• Fri 2/3 at 2pm to 3pm

=======================================================
The following is an short summary from reading the dissertation guide written by Waleed (in the Template rar on VITAL).

Abstract
(100-250 words in 2 or 3 paragraphs.)

The Lists
Including the "table of contents", I think we need the "list of figures" and "list of codes", because we must have many screenshot to show and the codes of course.


Chapters:

• Introduction---P7 in the guide, including telling us the difference between "Aims" and "Objectives", and what should the "Objectives" be (P8).
• Materials and Methods---P9 a materials list in as much details as possible (including the name and version of the software)[Here we may need building a table.]
• Results and Analysis
• Discussion and Conclusions---in Discussion:The overall error can be reduced(P12);P14~P17(worthy to read all): DISCUSSION--- to explain the findings, to describe the extent according to the objectives, self-evaluation,limitations(time experience, equipment, software or the availability of the data), about the economic, social and environmental contexts of our project etc.,Applications, Ethics considerations, further/future work; CONCLUSIONS--- to summarise the discussion, to restate what was achieved and what was learnt, to indicate briefly what remained to be done,(to summarise the main strengths and weaknesses of the project).
• +
• References---P13
• (optional) Appendix

Some useful points from the Guide:


Work on each chapters
 for easy to compile and shortening the time of compiling:

e.g.

So we can build a tex file for per chapter.

Multimedia
Using 100*100 pixels (print size of 14mm) QR codes to embed some multimedia (e.g. our flash)
I think we can copy the code in the html file generated by publishing the flash automatically and paste it to the html panel of the blog posting and make sure there is no problem to run the flash in common computer.(such as the socket, the adobe global setting, the connection to the headset.)
=========================================================


My questions and Waleed's answers
(If you have the same questions, the following will be helpful.)
        1.    Do we need to add "the list of tables" if we only have one or two tables? (I only can imagine one table for our materials list of our project.)
        Yes

2.    (Procedure) We don't have documented procedue and do the project concurrently. Is the procedure subsection necessary?

The procedure is the methodology – what did you do? Divide it into 3 sections and describe the procedure/tasks.

3.    Do we need to write a sentence to thank the people helped us? If yes, at where? (before the abstract?)

You can write an acknowledgement if you like, it normally comes after the abstract.

4.    You mentioned the way to work on each chapter, and showed the way of writing main tex. I wonder what will be the code in the chapter file? e.g. how to write its environment setting(I mean the codes in the front of the tex and at the end of it)? 

No code at all, just the text.

5.   Do we need to write the comments and what is learnt from group cooperation and where?(in: >Disscuss>Self-evaluation?)

Yes, in the Discussion, under “Reflection” or “Self-Evaluation” or “Lessons Learnt”

6.    When to use "footnote" and when to use "citation/reference"? For the reader to understand my code, besides adding comments after every lines, I think some concepts of key word is important for understand the code, so where to write them? In background information? but it seems not so relevent to the whole project... :( Therefore, in this situation, it's time for adding footnote? :P

          Footnotes are an excellent way to add explanatory comments to help someone understand something without breaking the flow of the sentence or paragraph.  The footnote normally contains some explanation, fact, reminder or definition. Citations are different – they are used to tell the reader where you got the information, or to point them to further reading. They are two different things for two different purposes.

          Sometimes, in some types of writing (such as novels/books/magazine articles), the reference is actually put in the footnote on the same page, because the reader might not be an academic reader, and may not want to turn to the back of the publication to check the references, and it’s quicker to put the reference on the same page. This does NOT apply to a technical lab report or dissertation though J

7.    Because I came across many problems as a new programmer on ActionScript3.0, most of time one problem was solved leading to another problem appearing. What's worse, some problems showed I need to change to another method to implement what I expected, which means these previous solution didn't contribute to the final version of my flash. Do I need to mention these problems which seemed no use for final version and how to solve it in details? And I have five version of my flash, need I show them all and explain why the previous four failed, or just show main different code? 

Just the final code and design. In the Discussion section you can allude to some of the types of problems that arose and how you solved them, but not each single problem.

Thanks for Waleed's answers again. :)

I finished the Poster!!!

The title is "WIRELESS BRAIN TO COMPUTER"; can you read it out within 2 seconds? :P

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT stuff

And my Ethics(B) Assignment:
https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/Project/EthicsB-HUANG.pdf?w=2926cbd0
(I think the materials in background statement may useful; and my fiction story may inspire.)

Section 1: Regulatory Considerations
http://www.bis.gov.uk/nmo/enforcement/rohs-home

Is that means we should find some document certification like that:
http://neurosky.com.cn/marketing/%E6%96%87%E6%A1%A3%E8%B5%84%E6%96%99/%E4%BA%A7%E5%93%81/201101272857%20MW001%20SRRC%20certificate.pdf
(I only can find the China's.)

Section 2: Consideration of potential use of product
If we could find the material of the headset, we can talk about their cycling here.

If not, we could talk about the privacy consideration (because most of players don't know how it works, so they may worried about their privacy).

This is an article about the worries from scientists. The article is quite helpful for societal issues.

\bibitem{BtG}
    Emmet Cole, Direct Brain-to-Game Interface Worries Scientists,
\url{http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2007/09/bci_games?currentPage=all}


Section 3: Opportunities for specific design improvements
It need take years to study what will be the exactly side effect of wearing this device for a long time by a large subjects. So we can do nothing to improve it, but to shorten the time of the game programme. :)

Hope we could finish it tomorrow night.

QR code

·         "Consider generating a QR code and placing this on your poster with a link to your blog":

Poster Plan!!

Introduction/Aim : Dan/JJ
Background Info : Dan
The Headset : Moon
The Games : Dan/Moon
Raw Data Usage (Brief) : JJ
Conclusion : Dan/JJ

Keep it short and to the point so that you can expand on it during the questions.

Here's a simple example

It's interactive, hover over the points! : CLICK HERE!

Success!

I have managed to work out the graphing plugin that I was using with Flash to display the data and so we can now display the data nicely! I will work on logging the data tomorrow when I have the headset. Should be as easy as saving the values into an array and then passing that array into my graph drawing function! :)

An Useful Article for Sustainable Development

Direct Brain-to-Game Interface Worries Scientists

Final Idea

We are confident now that the final idea for this project will be more of a research based one. Dan has been working on his concentration game and Moon has been working on her meditation game whilst I have been working on how to log and display all the raw data from the headset in an appropriate manner. The idea now is to log all of this data whilst a user is playing the game, say for 60 seconds, and compare it with when the user is not. Or for example, log the data whilst a user is reading a book and listening to music, and when there are no distractions and they are not having to think.

It will be interesting to see which of the brainwaves are linked to concentration and which are linked to meditation, and I think this now gives the project some merit.

We all meet again on Monday and I hope to have completed the code for logging and displaying the data, so that we can start to record and compare our results, and hopefully see some patterns emerging!

The Indicator Light

Today I suddenly thought of a rechargeable battery that I took with me, and used that battery to try my today's final codes. To my surprise, the indicator light was blue instead of red!!! :D
I never used the headset when the indicator is blue.Hahaha
What I mean is maybe the three batteries in box are low charge for the device...
-_-lll
This post is absolutely unimportant.:P

Progress...

My first flash movie!

Idea for a game

As promised here is the game which demonstrates the idea I have for a game which exploits concentrating with the head set. I want to implement something a lot simpler i.e. no moving left and right and simply and ball which rolls along.

here is the link for you to have a look at:

http://www.kongregate.com/games/player_03/run

Enjoy!

This looks useful...

20 tutorials for making games in flash with all the source files...

Flash Tutorials - Simple Game Creation

"Calm Down! I C U!" Game Problems We Need to Solve

1."Implementation of the Random Position of Small Guys"
We can build an array with 40 elements( `.`40 = 100-60). For instance, if the meditation value=78, 22 small guys will come out at the four edges of the stage, which means 22 of the 40 will act.

The problem is the place of each guy and the length of each guy should be random.

And for improving the game, which one(s) will be red(or other colours) will be random too.

2."When the value changes, those guys should appear or hide from the previous state, instead of the whole redistribution"
Maybe we can solve this problem by giving each guy a certain value. When the mind value reaches n, No.0~n guys are activated. Those guys are different from each other, although they look the same.

so far so much...-_=lll

How about this idea?

===============
See 1:56-3:15; it inspired me. :D I want to try to programme it using meditation value through Flash ActionScript3.0.

Are they funny? :D

If you partners also think it interesting, please think about how to make it and help me on this Friday afternoon!
===========
PS. 
Where 60 from? => We can get the value of meditation from 0 to 100 by the Flash tutorial on official developers' page.

One of the easy way to let your meditation value go high is to close your eyes, but when you close your eyes, you can't see those guys. If you are too excited to see them, your meditation degree will decrease and they will hide...

Another thought

Another idea is to design a application which could maybe display a color which represent your mindstate, for example blue for when a person is meditating and red for when they have high concentration and perhaps a mixture of the color when a person is in between.
We could then maybe futher the application so that instead of a colour it displayed a face which would represent the wearer of the headset's mind state.

Agian this is is just an idea but i think its important that we find a relatively simple idea which we can implement within a resonable time and then spend the remaining time building up its complexity and functionality

Or prehaps if we have a couple of good ideas we can work on more than one application and build them up. There is no reason why we have to be limited to one idea

Some ideas about where we are heading with the project

I have been doing some self learning on using professional as we aggreed and some thoughts and ideas occured to me on where we are heading with the project in terms of getting some thing tangeble as i feel we do not yet have any definite goals as to where we are heading.

Ideas:
- From the tutorial i have been goin thorugh i have discovered there are some relatively simple actions and games we can produce, which the headset can then be used as an interface. For example making a ball bounce, we could use the head set so that the user could make the ball bounce and make relatively simple games from this action like how many bounce can u get in a minute or dependin on how hard you concentrate how high can you bounce the ball. From this we can then work on getting more complicated games, like for example the game "temple run" where instead on a preson we have a ball rolling and then u have to contrate to make the ball bounce over an obstacle or even meditate to go under an obstacle. (I will try and post the game on the blog after this post so you can have a better idea of what i am suggesting)

This is only one suggestion but my main point is that instead of aim for something complex we should try to first aim for something relatively simple to implement and then we can work on progressing it and getting something more complicated. If we carry on to aim for really complicated games we will not getting anything tangeable before the dead line, as we we have not yet achieved anything major. Aswell it will be very good for the report to see progression of our project and to document how we built it up and then simply to see how far we can get with what ever game we decide to create.

Also maybe we could just have a range of mini games.

In short we need to start off simple and build up so more advanced stuff that way we have something to show for ourselves

A Good Site for Tutorial Series of Flash 5 on Games

I found a good site which could be helpful to learn Flash:
Tile Based Games

Adobe Flash 30 Day Trial!

We are all going to download and install flash to our laptops and do some self-study on game creation. We are confident that the previous tutorial enables reading of the raw data from the headset and so we are able to interface it into our own flash game! More updates soon...

Adobe Flash Professional

Getting to grips with flash...

It seems that the best way to interface directly with the NeuroSky headset is to use flash and so we are going to follow this tutorial to learn how it all works. Most of today has been spent working out the best way to get the raw data and downloading the correct software... things are going slow...

Flash Tutorial

Information on brain wave patterns

This post contains info on Wave patterns concerning EEG

From my reading here is some stuff which i wish to highlight:
 There are five main wave patterns that are distinguished. In increasing frequency they are Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta and Gamma waves.

Details on each pattern: 

-Delta is the frequency range up to 4 Hz. It tends to be the highest in amplitude and the slowest waves.
 It is seen normally in adults in slow wave sleep. Mental activity mainly concerns deep sleep.

-Theta is the frequency range from 4 Hz to 7 Hz. Theta is seen normally in young children. It may be seen
 in drowsiness or arousal in older children and adults; it can also be seen in meditation. Mental activity mainly concerns unconsious and deep meditation.

-Alpha is the frequency range from 8 Hz to 12 Hz. It emerges with closing of the eyes and with relaxation,
 and attenuates with eye opening or mental exertion. Mental activity mainly concerns relaxtion and concentration.

-Beta is the frequency range from 12 Hz to about 30 Hz.Beta activity is closely linked to motor behavior and is generally attenuated during active movements. Low amplitude beta with multiple and varying frequencies, however, is often associated with active, busy or anxious thinking and active concentration. It is the dominant rhythm in patients who are alert or anxious or who have their eyes open. Mental activity mainly concerns thinking, attention and problem solving

-Gamma is the frequency range approximately 30–100 Hz. Gamma rhythms are thought to represent binding of different populations of neurons together into a network for the purpose of carrying out a certain cognitive or motor function. This is the least understood of all the other wave forms. Mental activity mainly concerns movement of finger toes and toungue.

Heres a link to someuseful info: http://web-us.com/brainwavesfunction.htm

Alternative methods: MEG

This post contains info on Magnetoencephalography (MEG)

From my reading here is some stuff which i wish to highlight:
This method maps brain activity by measuring the magnetic field which produce by electriccurrents which occur in the brain, as opposed to the voltage fluctuation resulting from this current (EEG). An active neuron creates a potention which generates a current that flows along the neuron, this current produces a magnetic field, which is too small measure. However due to scynchronised activiate and many nuerons all passing this current a large enough results field in produced which can be measured and used to follow the brains activity.

The use of EEGs has some benefits compared to fMRI:
-MEG is far more expenisive, i.e. cost of equipment
- Device a lot more larger thant the headset for the EEG. Far too large for a project such as ours and for the lab.

Heres a link to someuseful info: http://www.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/martinos/research/technologiesMEG.php

Alternative method: fMRI

I have been looking deeper in to some of the alternative methods of BCI as I feel that we will need to exlain the methods and the reasons why we are going with our chosen method of implementation (EEG) when writing our dissertation, so i have done a bit of research and reading in to some of the underlying background material so that the blog will contain the thory and back ground of our project aswell as the just the progression of the project so that we have all relevant info in one place

This post contains info on fMRI.

From my reading here is some stuff which i wish to highlight:
With this method brain activity in measured by detecting changes associated with blood flow. The scan produces a map of the nueral activity of the brain (or spinal chord).

The use of EEGs has some benefits compared to fMRI:
-Rarely used for BCI as it depends on the movement of fluids inside the body tissues and so it is a much slower  form of measuring the brains activity
- Hardware costs are significantly lower
- More mobile
- Higher temporal resolution, on the order of milliseconds, rather than seconds
- More tolerant of subject movement
- EEG is silent, which allows for better study of the responses to auditory stimuli
- Does not aggravate claustrophobia

Heres a link to someuseful info: http://science.howstuffworks.com/fmri.htm

Trying this Mindwave Headset first time

Results of Today's Lab:

1.     I got the right to install software on No.39 Lab Computer, and the software on CD have been installed and run successfully.

2.     I haven't found an absolute way to control the result of my concentration. (Maybe I should try more.) So our first idea, the helicopter game, may be very hard to control.

3.     The sensitive of blinding is not satisfied; no matter I blind as usual or much more obviously, sometimes it detected, sometimes it didn't...

4.     It seems consume more power than what its specification says "one AAA battery lasts for 10hrs".

5.     The developer software downloaded from the website couldn't be installed. (Maybe because I downloaded them from Chinese-page version. (English-page version need to sign-in, fill up information and waiting for their email, but Chinese one needn't...-_-lazy...))

6.     Because the above item, I can't get the original data and still don't know how to introduce the source to MATLAB.

My plan to solve above problems:

1.     Try more, and lend a chargeable battery from my classmate...-_-lll

2.     I'll try to install those related software on my laptop this weekend; if it still failed, I'll ask the official waiter online.

3.     Only if we get the original data, maybe we can know why the blinding detection doesn't work well.

4.     Read the official pages for developers.

I'll keep update the blog when I get the solutions.

============================================

Tips for you two who didn't come today:

1.     Four weeks has run a quarter. If we determine to programme that helicopter game, it's time to find its open source and understand it now.

2.     You can also try to install the software for developers, so that we can get used to the software interface to speed up our operations on Monday.

3.     Reading background information is really hard and slow for me, so I searched them and read them in Chinese. Please record the useful sentences and their references on this blog for our report. I will do it too. For these days, we can collect some for introduction section.

That's all, maybe...haha

Have a good weekend~