"You don't have to be a Buddhist monk to meditate, or a Sleeping Beauty to sleep well. Achieve these altered states of consciousness, and others, with this simple microcontroller device"
-Mitch Altman, MAKE: Volume 10, http://makezine.com/
The Brain Machine was designed by Mitch Altman of Cornfield Electronics (http://cornfieldelectronics.com/) following the wild success of his previous invention, the TV-B-Gone (http://tvbgone.com/).
http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2007/05/hack_your_brain_make_vide.html
It is a perfect example of the power of open source hardware & software. He took the Adafruit MiniPOV kit (http://www.ladyada.net/make/minipov3/, designed with CadSoft EAGLE):
and hacked it to create something entirely new and wonderful:
The brain machine is just one of the many kits Mitch has designed for Make Faires and his hackerspace workshops:
https://www.tvbgone.com/cfe_mfaire.php
Here’s how it works as described in the MAKE Volume 10 article [PDF]:
http://downloads.oreilly.com/make/wp_brainmachine.pdf
Just like the TV-B-Gone, Mitch evolved the kit into a retail product which he calls Trip Glasses:
Of course, it always fun & rewarding to make your own:
http://www.makershed.com/ProductDetails.asp?ProductCode=MSBM
My multi-talented coworker, Bonnie King (above), built the kit over the weekend and her brain machine caused quite a sensation in office on Monday!
Stay calm & solder on!
Drew