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Microvolt · a hands-on course in neuroengineering

Hear a neuron before you read about one.

A self-paced curriculum for a biomedical engineering student who wants to go deep on the brain: brain-computer interfaces, neural recording and stimulation, and the devices built from them. You build first and understand second, because the theory lands harder when it explains something you have already watched happen on your own bench.

DothenNoticethenExplainthenFormalizethenConnect

Every lesson runs in that order; why.

  • Touch it first. You will touch the thing before you are asked to understand it. Every explainer opens by pointing at something you have already seen.
  • Skim past or go deeper. You can always breeze past, and you can always go deeper. Deep dives are collapsed, and each one tells you how many minutes it costs.
  • No hype. Real numbers, real safety rules, and "we don't know" said out loud where it is true.

Start here

Two pages, then a project
Read first · 8 min

The six territories of neuroengineering

"Brain waves" is one small corner. Here is the whole field and the careers each part leads to.

Read slowly · 10 min

The safety charter

Two rules you will never break, and the reasoning behind each. The seriousness with which you treat this is itself a credential.

Then · 6 min

Set up a bench

From zero dollars to a real instrument, in tiers. Buy the smallest one that lets you start this week.

Then pick one first project

All of Phase 1
Project

Project A: The SpikerBox

Hear action potentials from a cockroach leg on a speaker, with an amplifier you built for about twenty-five dollars in chips. The hello-world of neural engineering.

One afternoonAbout $25 in chips, $110 with the bench toolsTier 1Project

Project B: One channel of you

Alpha EEG from one instrumentation amplifier, a driven-right-leg circuit, and gold cup electrodes. Close your eyes and a bump appears at 10 Hz. Open them and it vanishes.

Two eveningsAbout $65 more after Project A, $170 from an empty benchTier 1Project

Project C: Muscle to motion

Forearm EMG drives a servo, a game, or a cursor. The fastest reliable "control something with your nervous system" you can build.

One eveningAbout $5 more after Project B, $90 from an empty benchTier 1Project

Project D: Eyes as a joystick

Electrooculography. Two electrodes beside the eyes, a near-DC amplifier, and a cursor that follows your gaze. Weirdly simple, and the first step of an assistive speller.

One eveningNothing new, reusing Project B parts; $85 from an empty benchTier 1

The phases

All phases

Not a timeline. Each phase has several projects to choose between, the theory that attaches to what you built, and a "ready when" check that is about what you can do, not how long it took. Skip ahead whenever you like; every page tells you what it assumes.

Phase 0OrientationPhase 1First contactPhase 2Build the instrumentPhase 3Read intentPhase 4The brain behind the signalPhase 5Build for a personPhase 6Beyond the scalp

Threads that run the whole way

All threads

Research, clinic, portfolio, math, reading, community, and career. These are not phases. They start in the first month and never stop.

Thread

The research ladder

Volunteer, then paid, then named on a poster, then co-author. It takes two years, so it starts in the first month. The emails that get replies, the offer that gets you in, and the programs that pay for summers.

Two years, starting nowThread

The clinic

Sleep technologist, EEG technologist, intraoperative neuromonitoring. Shadowing the epilepsy unit, an awake DBS implantation, a cochlear implant activation, a stroke rehab gym. The wings only count if you have stood in a hospital.

Ongoing from year oneThread

Portfolio and writing

Build logs, characterization reports, reproduction write-ups, one-page memos, a poster, a personal site. Engineers who can write a clear page get promoted, and a resume cannot show judgment where a write-up can.

An hour a week, foreverThread

The math track

Linear algebra, then signals and systems, then probability and Bayesian estimation, then control, then enough electromagnetism to reason about dipoles in conductors. In that order, each attached to the phase that needs it.

Alongside the phasesThread

The reading track

Kandel a chapter a week as the backbone, then the texts for each spine, the papers to read per phase, and the journals to skim monthly. One paper a week for four years is two hundred papers.

An hour or two a weekThread

Community

NeurotechX and its student club (found one if the campus lacks it), BMES and IEEE EMBS, the BCI Society, the OpenBCI forum, Neuromatch's network, BioUtah. Where the people are, and why showing up works.

An evening a month

How the site works

  • Deep dives on demand. Optional depth sits in collapsed sections with its time cost on the label, so a page reads short and opens long.
  • An outline on every page. The sidebar jumps to any lesson, any phase, or your next step, and a project page prints cleanly for the bench.
  • Dotted terms. Hover or tap for a one-sentence definition. Every definition comes from one glossary.
  • Recall prompts. Answer one and it enters a review queue that resurfaces it days later. Spaced retrieval is one of the best-evidenced study techniques there is.
  • Exhibits, not points. Progress is the list of plots, numbers, and build logs you have produced. It lives on this device and you can export it; an optional account carries it between computers.
  • Simulators for everything. An EEG simulator, an amplifier playground, a neuron, a head model, a cochlear implant, and more, so the theory works before you own a single electrode. And a live plotter for when you do.