The secrets to most of the mind’s mysteries may still elude us, but we’ve made a tremendous amount of progress in reading signals produced by the brain. We may not understand exactly what is going on, but we can see the result and utilize it. And now you can start exploring biosciences and experimenting with brain-computer interfaces on a budget thanks to Ildar Rakhmatulin’s ardEEG shield for the Arduino Uno R4 WiFi board.

The ardEEG is an eight-channel shield with support for electroencephalograph (EEG), electromyograph (EMG), and electrocardiograph (ECG) sensor input. Those all measure biopotential, but at different levels generally suited to different areas of the body. EMG is most often used for specific muscles (detect flexing!), ECG is for the heart (detect elevated heart rates!), and EEG is for the brain (detect certain thought patterns!). Instead of an expensive dedicated device for each, you can measure any of them with this single affordable shield.

The shield fits onto an Arduino UNO R4 WiFi board and provides connections to electrodes. For safety reasons, power must only come from a 5V battery!

Once connected with the Arduino sketch uploaded, users can easily record and visualize readings. This is just raw data, so it is simple to filter, manipulate, and visualize in whatever way makes the most sense for a project. If you want to control something with your mind, for example, you’d just look for the corresponding reading to exceed a threshold.

The ardEEG is now available through Elecrow for $240, though the design is open-source should you want to build it yourself. The possibilities are almost endless and this looks like another big win for citizens scientists!