Spacing Out Your Brain
This Friday citizens from around the world will have an exclusive opportunity to join NASA OpenGov, Google Plus (“G+”) and Make Magazine’s “Maker Camp” as we explore the NASA Johnson Space Center Neurosciences Lab. This virtual field trip will be hosted on the G+ Hangout platform which uses a multi-user interactive webcam to bring the experience of a behind-the-scenes tour of NASA to high school aged kids around the country. The unique event will take place on August 3rd at 12 noon PDT and promises to be a great resource for interested high school students to spark their interest in NASA and creating space technology. The event is open to all to view and interact, and attracts the “maker” in all of us!
What to Expect
The Neurosciences Lab at NASA Johnson Space Center offers a rare
glimpse of NASA makers in action and focuses on a major interest area
for makers globally: human stimulus and response. This aim is also a
major interest area for human spaceflight, since mitigating the effects
of microgravity is a field that is continuously making
mini-breakthroughs which have a strong link to technologies we use on
Earth (for motion sickness, pilot response, etc.). The Neurosciences
facility consists of several “enclosures” within which test subjects are
subjected to a multitude of tests that measure their response to various
stimuli. While the hardware is designed for space research, the maker
community will be surprised to learn that this cutting edge research
utilizes inexpensive and common objects found outside of the lab - some
of which is reminiscent of the devices described in Make: Volume 29,
“Hack Your Bod”.
During the field trip participants will interact with NASA maker and Neuroscientist Matthew Fiedler who will explain how he makes, adapts and uses the technologies in the lab daily. Astronaut Ron Garan, who has been a subject for several studies, will also be co-hosting in person and sharing his perspective. You’ll also virtually meet the Principal Investigator of many of the devices, Dr. Scott Wood. In order to showcase the connection between NASA & Earth and to encourage campers to build their own solutions to complex problems, amateur makers who have made similar technologies will be given an opportunity to share and demonstrate their work, along with Q & A from the live chat from viewers like you!
You don’t have to be in high school to participate - just have some curiosity and eagerness to learn something new! We invite you to log in and take part in the event on Aug 3rd at 3 EDT! The link to the hangout will be posted on Make’s Google+ page prior to the start.