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Controlling Robots with Your Brain · EU-Startups Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 0: You are now listening to the EU Startups Podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to this episode of The EU Startup's podcast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: as always I'm your host and editor, Dave Sanongarcia.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This is a bit of special episode.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: We're adding few extra videos To our A-Five X conference series that we filmed in Singapore last week.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: If you've been keeping up to date with founders and innovators And investors who were present at the conference As well, there is an addition to the conference which is the Singapore Defense Tech Hackathon.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: We've decided to have two additional short episodes with the winners of the two main categories of the hackathon.
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: Today I chat with Wayne Lin.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: He's a member of the Neuromek team Which won the forty-eight hour challenge and around five thousand euros.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Wayne And i were able to chat over what neuromech Is trying to do brain interface to control rovers and unmanned vehicles.
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: We were able to chat about the defense tech applications, what the process of the invention was like And where he sees a company moving forward now that they've won.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: So I hope you're looking forwards to it.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Hello Wayne!
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Thank You for joining me here on The You Starves Podcast.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: It's A Pleasure To Have You.
• 1:27
  Speaker 0: Yeah, it is great to be here.
• 1:28
  Speaker 0: thank-you so much David
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Of course, as probably the viewers of this video already know.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: This is forming part of our A-Five X series.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: that we did just last week from our time in Singapore.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Unfortunately We had to leave before the winners were announced for The Singapore Defense Tech hackathon But this is our attempt to kind of get you guys In the spotlight and have a quick chat over your company what the event was like And What You Look To Do.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: So with that in mind, maybe you can give everyone here just a quick rundown as to who you are and what your company is.
• 2:04
  Speaker 0: All right yeah thank you so much for the opportunity.
• 2:08
  Speaker 0: my name is Wayne.
• 2:09
  Speaker 0: I'm actually currently a final year student at National University of Singapore but i was on team which eventually won two day track for the Singapore Defense Tech Hackathon.
• 2:23
  Speaker 0: The team's called Neuromech.
• 2:27
  Speaker 0: quick introduction for what the team is and sort of our product was.
• 2:32
  Speaker 0: We basically came up with, in very layman terms a brain-controlled rover that this kind just like it's a proof concept being able to use sort of the brain human interface To control things like your ground vehicles Your drones and rovers and whatnot, maybe even to the marine side as well.
• 3:00
  Speaker 0: So really what we did during the hackathon was in two days of the hackathons.
• 3:07
  Speaker 0: we built a simple demonstration over an army used rover with camera attached And this rover basically feeds that camera feed into computer where someone wearing an EEG headset that is detecting sort of like the brainwaves, electrical signals coming out from different parts of your head and basically converting them into commands for the robot to move in different directions.
• 3:40
  Speaker 0: So we were able to demonstrate during the hackathon.
• 3:44
  Speaker 0: overall I think it's just agreed this was something new has a lot of different applications, especially when you think about the military applications and then outside of military as well in either social or commercial use too.
• 4:01
  Speaker 0: So yeah that's really I feel like what got people excited.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: And did this idea already kind of an existence before the hackathon?
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Or is it something you guys came up with just right there on the spot?
• 4:16
  Speaker 0: So it was sort of a combination of everyone's different strengths and specific skill sets.
• 4:23
  Speaker 0: We have one specific specialist, someone who has done his research in neuroscience And also is currently working on the same technology The brain-computer interface.
• 4:39
  Speaker 0: He got its own startup as well Jackie Tan.
• 4:45
  Speaker 0: it was him and some of his friends that he knew from previous hackathons, so formatting together.
• 4:53
  Speaker 0: And then further on to reach out a few other teammates.
• 4:58
  Speaker 0: So eventually there were five member teams.
• 5:02
  Speaker 0: We had a few discussions about ideas we wanted to explore.
• 5:06
  Speaker 0: We always knew maybe one or two weeks before the hackathon sort of like bring, compare interface the EEG headset to do something with that specific applications were unknown.
• 5:22
  Speaker 0: So That was when we really started reaching out more people.
• 5:28
  Speaker 0: so get interviews and get insights on what are some areas.
• 5:33
  Speaker 0: then We can possibly put this technology to use.
• 5:37
  Speaker 0: Yeah
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: But then I imagine you kind of had to kick it into high gear, right?
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Because two days is really not that much and i can imagine You could spend Two days just talking about ideas And uh.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: You know where you might want To go.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: at what point did you decide?
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: okay this Is it?
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: and now we have to get going.
• 5:56
  Speaker 0: yeah so um We actually Had a few members on our team.
• 6:01
  Speaker 0: We had someone working in the army Right Now uh Army regular Him and this one other person.
• 6:09
  Speaker 0: they're basically in charge of just reaching out to people.
• 6:11
  Speaker 0: so we put a lot of emphasis on Just getting as many contacts as possible.
• 6:17
  Speaker 0: In the early phases, maybe like To the afternoon ish or first day which was Friday morning too after noonish right?
• 6:27
  Speaker 0: And then Really just getting as Many People On The Call As Possible asking them about oh Like This Specific Drill How do you do it?
• 6:37
  Speaker 0: Um, how many people are involved.
• 6:39
  Speaker 0: How can we help you guys improve on your processes and cut down the manpower that's
• 6:44
  Speaker 0: required?".
• 6:45
  Speaker 0: And yeah... It was a lot of back-to-back calls and um quite efficiently I think We got uh good amount of assembling around like ten to fifteen.
• 6:57
  Speaker 0: i'm not sure how much we ended up having but it was Quite A bit Of feedback in The range of perspectives from People In The Army Yeah.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: And what was the final product?
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Because two days can't possibly be enough time to make this, so What is it exactly you presented?
• 7:14
  Speaker 0: yeah So eventually we settle on the idea of Urban in urban settings when people are trying to clear rooms.
• 7:25
  Speaker 0: For example if during a war right they will have to set a team To clear out whole building And they kind of have to go level by level, unit-by-unit breaking down your store and sort just breaching in.
• 7:39
  Speaker 0: More often than not the first person or two persons that enter a room if enemy combatants are inside their rooms will get injured If not killed in action.
• 7:51
  Speaker 0: So this is something we decided to target on.
• 7:57
  Speaker 0: Essentially what came up with was basically steer into the room, and it's controlled by people on the ground who are with a drone as they're moving room-by-room.
• 8:11
  Speaker 0: So you give more control to those people in real time.
• 8:18
  Speaker 0: And why that helps them is because of how things are done now?
• 8:23
  Speaker 0: Yes there do use drones for clear rooms but camera feed and information gets routed remote operator first before that information sort of conveyed by mouth to the people on the ground in which time like it would take too long for Information, right?
• 8:39
  Speaker 0: Like things can be things could have changed in a matter Of seconds inside the room and they wouldn't know.
• 8:45
  Speaker 0: so we're sort of giving back control more to the People On The Ground.
• 8:49
  Speaker 0: And how We demonstrated during the hackathon was Sort of a Beagle.
• 8:53
  Speaker 0: actually I Can show you Right now i have It here with me if that's okay, but yeah really quickly.
• 9:01
  Speaker 0: This was something very simple we came up with and it was just like a ground vehicle sort of simulated drone controlled by Raspberry Pi, small onboard computer and mounted camera as well.
• 9:20
  Speaker 0: We basically showed everybody in our presentation what the drone was looking or able to see and how like we had someone, life trying to control that drone with nothing but his headset.
• 9:40
  Speaker 0: And it worked!
• 9:41
  Speaker 0: It was moving around in the presentation.
• 9:44
  Speaker 0: I think ultimately just proves a concept.
• 9:47
  Speaker 0: this is something can definitely be done for good accuracy That they could apply military use.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Can I see that again?
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Could you just bring me up on why?
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the better look at them.
• 10:00
  Speaker 0: Definitely, definitely yeah.
• 10:01
  Speaker 0: so some parts are missing now.
• 10:04
  Speaker 0: and
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: The wheels where?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: what are those
• 10:08
  Speaker 0: all right?
• 10:08
  Speaker 0: So these are specific kinds of wheels called mechanism wheels.
• 10:14
  Speaker 0: apart from Ground vehicles, I think a lot of robotics vehicles will use these.
• 10:19
  Speaker 0: They are basically wheels that sort.
• 10:22
  Speaker 0: they allow the vehicles to move in translational movements like for example if it wants to Move right normal vehicles you kind have to turn their wheels To let them turn with this wheel.
• 10:33
  Speaker 0: so we can kinda just move Like this sort of like correct walking.
• 10:36
  Speaker 0: Yeah
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: Okay interesting.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: and So you're telling me about this.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: technology sounds very interesting It's very exciting but Why not just have a controller?
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: What is the advantage of being, you know... ...a brain-computer interface.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: why not just having control and leave it at that?
• 10:56
  Speaker 0: Yes definitely yeah.
• 10:58
  Speaker 0: so we want to have the operators keep their hands on your gun at all times because they're sort of close to danger And they don't have no clue when someone just comes out and starts engaging them, right?
• 11:14
  Speaker 0: So we want the soldiers even to basically sort of have their hands on a gun at all times.
• 11:19
  Speaker 0: And they can see the camera feet from the drone either form those half glasses that project screens or tablet.
• 11:30
  Speaker 0: Okay, okay.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Well and I think this is gonna be my final question here but iIthink it's probably the most exciting one.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: It was eight thousand Singaporean dollars right?
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Which I did a quick conversion that's around five thousand five hundred euros.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: What's the idea to use those funds for?
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: do you want to establish as more of an official startup or what are You looking to do now?
• 11:58
  Speaker 0: so um... Very exciting thing about this hackathon is that there's the further collaboration That could be made with the Defense Venture Lab, which was just recently set up by Prof Gary Tan.
• 12:20
  Speaker 0: We're still looking to see how we can cement this further partnership.
• 12:27
  Speaker 0: But if there is the means and there's money, connections available we can pursue this as a definitely essay project that could be used in military use.
• 12:40
  Speaker 0: And I think next... In future prospects to come it really starts trying integrate technology into more and more use cases seeing where value gets delivered most.
• 12:57
  Speaker 0: Yeah.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, all right well thank you very much, Wayne.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: it's been pleasure to have you.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: You're actually the first guest I've ever had To actually Have like a physical thing to show so that was nice
• 13:09
  Speaker 0: Thank-you That's awesome.
• 13:10
  Speaker 0: yeah, yeah a hardware engineer this is my bread and butter but yes All
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: right we'll thank you Very much Wayne
• 13:17
  Speaker 0: Yeah!
• 13:17
  Speaker 0: Thank you so much
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Bye.