BIOSIGNALS - windows to our body

drohne
Girls and Technology 2016
Can we make our thoughts visible? Can we hear our muscles working? Questions like these were addressed by teenage girls between 12 and 14 years who participated in the BIOSIGNALS project during summer holidays 2016.
 
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Assisted by staff members and students the participants enthusiastically mounted electrodes, turned their lunch into bioelectrical voltage generators, registered eye movements, and analyzed heart rates and reaction times. During the three project days the girls proactively experienced a variety of biomedical signal registration and analysis techniques which are used by physicians for clinical diagnosis and employed by scientists for basic research. Registration of cardiac activity (ECG), cerebral activity (EEG), or muscular activity (EMG) are well-known examples.

Starting with a brief introduction into basic biological and technical facts, the girls conducted experiments and measurements by themselves, thus getting a tantalizing glimpse into the fascinating field of biomedical information technology. Questions like “Who is the fastest and most accurate fighter against her virtual opponent in the electronic fencing simulation” were examined at least as attentively as the mathematical and technical basics of computer tomography and magnetic resonance imaging technologies.
 
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Programm

BIOSIGNALS project 2016

Staff members of the Chair of Signal Processing (Prof. Dr.-Ing. Andreas Knopp):
Dipl.-Ing. Josef Dochtermann (logistics, IT systems)
Wolfgang Hanzl (logistics)
Wolfgang Weber (experimental setup, bioelectricity)
Prof. Dr.-Ing. Werner Wolf (driving simulator)

Direction and presentation:
PD Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Staude

The BIOSIGNALS project is part of the annual “Girls and Technology” summer school of the Bavarian universities and research institutions for girls aged between 10 and 16 years. The summer school is organized by the Girls in Science and Technology agency, an institution of the Women’s representative of the Technische Universitaet Muenchen.