Help me go to NYC Neuromodulation
Donation protected
Hi! I'm Nathan Whitmore, AKA /u/ohsnapitsnathan . I design open-source, DIY brain stimulators (OpenStim and BrainKit ) and I moderate Reddit's brain stimulator forum. I'm raising money to go to the New York Neuromodulation conference this January and talk about open-source brain stimulators and the DIY community!
WHY: While I currently work in a research lab (studying how the brain controls attention), I'm really a tDCS DIYer at heart—I built my first tDCS unit two years ago, when I was in college, and started working on OpenStim a few months later. What these experiences made me aware of is that there's a large and growing communication gap between people who research tDCS, and the vast majority of those who actually use it. That's bad for everyone, because it means that what we research and what we actually care about start to diverge.
At the conference, I plan to present a poster on BrainKit, my current project to develop an open-source, very-low-cost combination brain stimulator and scanner (check out the prototype here! ). My hope is that the opportunity to discuss and share with other tDCS researchers and desingers will directly improve the capabilities of tDCS devices available to the DIY community and provide opportunities for better leveraging research and collaborating with researchers. Of course, I'll also report back to the tDCS community on all the research presented there!
WHY I'M ASKING FOR HELP
Conferences are expensive. REALLY expensive. To put the cost in perspective, the early registration fee ($450)* is more than twice the total development costs for the OpenStim and BrainKit projects combined! And unfortunately, that's not a realistic amount of money for me to spend.
I'm passionate about tDCS devices that can be built on a shoestring budget precisely because I believe that money shouldn't be a limit to achieving the potential of tDCS in enhancing the brain and treating disease. I would appreciate any help you could give me in sharing this vision and tehcnology with the world.
Thank you,
Nathan
*(Wait a minute, you say! Who are you asking for $473?! It's because this website and the payment processor get a cut.)
WHY: While I currently work in a research lab (studying how the brain controls attention), I'm really a tDCS DIYer at heart—I built my first tDCS unit two years ago, when I was in college, and started working on OpenStim a few months later. What these experiences made me aware of is that there's a large and growing communication gap between people who research tDCS, and the vast majority of those who actually use it. That's bad for everyone, because it means that what we research and what we actually care about start to diverge.
At the conference, I plan to present a poster on BrainKit, my current project to develop an open-source, very-low-cost combination brain stimulator and scanner (check out the prototype here! ). My hope is that the opportunity to discuss and share with other tDCS researchers and desingers will directly improve the capabilities of tDCS devices available to the DIY community and provide opportunities for better leveraging research and collaborating with researchers. Of course, I'll also report back to the tDCS community on all the research presented there!
WHY I'M ASKING FOR HELP
Conferences are expensive. REALLY expensive. To put the cost in perspective, the early registration fee ($450)* is more than twice the total development costs for the OpenStim and BrainKit projects combined! And unfortunately, that's not a realistic amount of money for me to spend.
I'm passionate about tDCS devices that can be built on a shoestring budget precisely because I believe that money shouldn't be a limit to achieving the potential of tDCS in enhancing the brain and treating disease. I would appreciate any help you could give me in sharing this vision and tehcnology with the world.
Thank you,
Nathan
*(Wait a minute, you say! Who are you asking for $473?! It's because this website and the payment processor get a cut.)
Organizer
Nathan Whitmore
Organizer
Baltimore, MD