And a full house of NW Noggin volunteers, including Grace Hoinowski, Brittany Wouden, Chelsey Anderson, Sarah Neveux, Angela Morrelli, Angela Johnson, and Max Neideigh from WSU Vancouver, and Sarah Loftus, Lauren Wilgus, Amanda Yancy, Julian Rodriguez, Aldair Rodriguez, Alex Voigt, Allie Clark, Austin Howard, and Sam DeLuche from PSU…
We staffed a long table from 9am to 5pm, with room for many displays and activities. Sam DeLuche, a former NW Noggin instructor at Portland’s public Madison High School, enthusiastically challenged an endless stream of visitors with the Mindflex Duel, a game that uses a player’s brain activity to move a ball across a track…
An EEG electrode detects frontal lobe activity, subtracts noise from a reference electrode attached to the ear, and transmits the signal wirelessly to the game’s base station. The goal is to figure out what sort of thoughts work best to force that ball to your opponent’s side…
This was a popular activity! Kids of all ages found their focus, learned about the electrical nature of information flow in neurons, and were extremely motivated to pay attention…and beat Sam! 🙂
Brittany Wouden and Angela Morrelli from the Creative Media and Digital Culture program at WSU Vancouver brought their ever evolving, and very popular brain app, which expertly tracks faces and superimposes a cerebrum…
The computer literally “caught” faces all day, as visitors streamed by, getting many to pause and marvel at the complex neural networks behind their foreheads. Brittany, Angela, and their WSU Vancouver team (including Steven Palermini) are working on linking detection of various facial expressions to displays of which brain networks are active during different cognitive and emotional states…
Art was also a powerful draw, as Grace Hoinowski, Julian Rodriguez, Aldair Rodriguez, Bill Griesar and Jeff Leake encouraged the OMSI Brain Fair attendees to create colorful and creative pipe cleaner neurons, complete with dendrites, cell bodies, and axons…
Some included double stranded pipe cleaner DNA in the nucleus! We linked these vibrant neurons into larger and more distributed neural networks through the day…
We sat next to the Oregon National Primate Research Center table, staffed by their irrepressible Outreach Coordinator Diana Gordon, who regularly welcomes our NW Noggin participants (from K-12 through undergrad) to tour their research facilities, and hear from scientists conducting critical work on multiple sclerosis, adolescent brain development, alcohol dependence, and fertility…
We made her a pipe cleaner neuron, which she seemed to like… 🙂
We also offered visitors the opportunity to hold and examine real human and animal brains! Sarah Neveux, Lauren Wilgus, Sarah Loftus, Amanda Yancey, Chelsey Anderson, Grace Hoinowski, Aldair Rodriguez, and Austin Howard pointed out important structures, and answered many questions about the brain and behavior…
A great day of neuroscience and art outreach in the Portland/Vancouver community. Thanks to our awesome volunteer participants, and to Kate Stout and Bobby Heagerty of the OHSU Brain Institute…
