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Backyard Brains has launched a Kickstarter campaign to support RoboRoach -- its endeavour to bring remote-controlled cockroaches to the public.

The launch is somewhat of a double-edged sword. Yes, cyborgs are great. Yes, it's great to get kids excited about science. But at what cost? To the cost of thousands of cockroaches that will no doubt be snipped and cut in all the wrong places by those supporting the "NeuroRevolution", as Backyard Brains calls it. Of course, there will be dedicated biohackers among them keen to get practical experience. But it's also a serious potential upgrade for those kids that love to burn ants with a magnifying glass in summer -- and an ethics-free lesson in mind control for the pursuit of entertainment.


Antennae are snipped off and stuffed with electrodes

The premise is interesting, and was covered by Wired.co.uk last December when artist Brittany Ransom used the kit to allow the public to control a cockroach's movements via Twitter --

#TweetRoachLeft or #TweetRoachRight would instruct tortured @TweetRoach to follow the manic whims of the Twitterverse. It was apparently meant to be a social commentary, asking the question "How much does it take before we are all desensitised to overstimulation?" as we continue to grow more interconnected and "cyborgian". We're not sure the team ever found out, or if the cockroach survived said overstimulation.

The system works by sending small electrical pulses down the cockroach's antenna to stimulate neurons that control its navigation. Ordinarily, the cockroach uses its antenna to avoid obstructions, changing course every time it bumps into an object or wall. In the case of RoboRoach, however, those antennae are snipped off and stuffed with electrodes -- or, "antenna stimulating wires", as the demo video above calls them -- so that it can be connected up with the nerves. These are then connected to a battery-equipped PCB backpack. The backpack pairs with your mobile phone via Bluetooth, and a handy app (it's supported on iPhone 4s and above, iPod 5th generation and up, the iPad mini, iPad 4th Generation and above and Motorola Droid Razr M, for now) allows you to steer the critter left or right with a finger swipe.


Backyard Brains gives a brief mention to the "short surgery" that's necessary to build your cyborg, but the above video explains in more detail. It's the "some time" element they're talking about when they claim, "all you need is an insect, some time, and a mobile device that support Bluetooth LE". You also need a steady hand and a little knowledge of cockroach anatomy.

Backyard Brains

To give a rough idea, the insect is first anaesthetised by being plunged in ice water. Then, because they're covered in a seriously inconvenient (for the purposes of this experiment) waxy substance (it keeps them hydrated and is what makes the little suckers so slippery) the scientist must sand down its pronotum (a plate-like cover on the insect's thorax). The connector, with its three electrodes, is then superglued onto the pronotum. One wing is pinned aside with silly putty, and a needle used to pierce the exoskeleton at the thorax for one of the wires to be fed through.

This is superglued in place, before the cockroach is plunged back into the ice water to prevent any recovery, after which the antenna are almost completely snipped off and the electrodes glued into the hollow that's left. Hot glue is used to "temporarily place" the backpack on once the cockroach is recovered and alert (by some time the next day).


Essentially, getting this kit of the cockroach is going to be quite the operation. Even if it were successfully removed, the cockroach would presumably be given a death sentence, with no long antenna to feel out its surroundings. The fact that the backpack is touted as being reusable instils images of backpacks being peeled off the diseased after they've been orientated into oncoming traffic -- if still intact.

However, after speaking to Backyard Brains cofounder Timothy Marzullo, it seems the equipment is only designed for temporary use. "We always emphasise in our public demos that we do not kill the cockroaches," he told Wired.co.uk. "The RoboRoaches are typically only used for a week and then retired to make more cockroaches until they effectively die of old age (two to three years for a cockroach). We also emphasise the backpack is only on for a couple minutes. We emphasise the cockroach eventually adapts to the stimulation and ignores it."

In principle, it's a great way to get kids interested in neuroscience and biology, and that's Backyard Brain's hope. "Since this technology has previously only been accessible at advanced research labs, we feel people are intrigued by the democratisation of such technology," says Marzullo. The company asserts, "this product is not a toy", and promises buyers will learn about neural control of behaviour, adaptation, learning and memory. There's even a "randomness" lesson, whereby you set the app controller to random and see if the cockroach can adapt to the onslaught. It's Backyard Brain's intent that the Kickstarter fund help it create educational materials and lower the cost of the kit. It will allow them to bulk buy gear to lower the end sale price. Perks include a RoboRoach kit for $100 (£64) pledges, 12 "well behaved and well trained" live cockroaches (US only) for $150 (£96) pledges and a classroom kit for $500 (£321) pledges so teachers can share the knowledge.

It could be used to teach, but it could also be used to make cockroaches jump out windows

Now it's not that we're against what Backyard Brains is trying to do. Training future neuroscientists and "creating opportunities for students of all ages to engage in hands on, inquiry based learning" is a noble goal. Neural interfaces can have some incredible results -- notably Brain2Gate, has enabled those with serious brain stem damage to use a chip implant to control robotic limbs. The goal here was to reinstate individual autonomy, however, not to control others. It just seems that if your lesson is in mind control and surgery, there should be a few ethical guidelines and, better yet, it should be conducted in a setting of some kind where someone more knowledgeable can guide you through those ethics.

The project is born from a hackerspace, spaces that are opening up the sciences to countless people that might otherwise have been unable to attend research institutions. However, since RoboRoach appears to be squarely positioned at teaching the next generation, it seems an academic setting where there are some controls would be more appropriate for this kind of experiment. Marzullo argues that the experiment in and of itself makes a person think more about the ethics behind it -- but that of course, is entirely dependant on the individual and their own outlook. "In truth, we find we bring more public awareness for respecting the cockroach as a creature. Students have told us they no longer look at the cockroach as a pest, but now as a benefit to education and improving our understanding the brain... Remote Control of animal behaviour begins important ethical conversations (what animals are OK to use? What are not? Is the use of animals for education a justifiable use?), and people are typically intrigued by how it even works at all." Surely, however, those ethical conversations should begin before the electrodes are super glued in position?


Of course, clinical experiments don't always seem so humane either. In February a study was published demonstrating how researchers at the Waseda University in Tokyo developed a robotic rat purely to attack living lab rats to make them depressed. Depressed rats are used to test antidepressants for humans, so the end goal was a noble one. But the researchers were still experimenting repeatedly on lab rats to find out the best method for making them seriously depressed.

Anyone with a RoboRoach kit doesn't have such a distinct and obvious goal. It could be used to teach, but it could also be used to make cockroaches jump out windows.

In the Kickstarter video there is no mention of what happens to the cockroaches afterwards. We know they're a hardy bunch, but it would still be nice to get an update and better yet, a list of dos and don'ts for those shaky-handed aspiring ten-year-old neuroscientists splicing apart cockroach bits.