Part of The definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009
Medical and bio – The open source hardware projects are medical or biological. While this category only has a few I expect this to be the largest category in 5 years or less. Open sourcing medical equipment around the world seems like the most logical step in the evolution of open source hardware, check out some of the first projects!
Brain machine
Hack your brain! Get comfortable, put on the glasses and headphones, close your eyes (the LEDs are bright!), and flick the power switch. Enjoy the hallucinations as you drift into deep meditation, ponder your inner world, and then come out after the 14-minute program feeling fabulous. Sound and Light Machines (SLMs) produce sound and light pulses at brain wave frequencies, which help people sleep, wake up, meditate, or experience whatever state of consciousness the machine is programmed for.
Price: $34.99
Visit the project page
Buy one @ Maker Shed
Peripheral nerve stimulator
The jfish project seeks to encourage the use and development of free anaesthetic monitoring technologies. Our goal is to produce free and open technology to provide safe and reliable anaesthetic monitoring anywhere in the world the need exists. Stage 2 of the jfish project is complete, with the research, design and construction of a free hardware/open source peripheral nerve stimulator (PNS).
Price: $
Visit the project page
Open ECG
The openECGproject is an online community conceived around a simple, but challenging and worthy goal – to develop an open source hardware and software solution for electrocardiography.
Price: Various
Visit the project page
OpenEEG
Many people are interested in what is called neurofeedback or EEG biofeedback training, a generic mental training method which makes the trainee consciously aware of the general activity in the brain. This method shows great potential for improving many mental capabilities and exploring consciousness. Other people want to do experiments with brain-computer interfaces or just want to have a look at their brain at work. Unfortunately, commercial EEG devices are generally too expensive to become a hobbyist tool or toy.
Price: Various
Visit the project page
Open Prosthetics
The Open Prosthetics Project is producing useful innovations in the field of prosthetics and freely sharing the designs. This project is an open source collaboration between users, designers and funders with the goal of making our creations available for anyone to use and build upon. Our hope is to use this and our complementary sites to create a
Price: Donate
Visit the project page
Twittering heart meter
The open source hardware project allows you to twitter your heart rate, the video is a little odd, but that’s what it seems to be doing.
Price: See site
Visit the project page
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