- Hey, I'm Grace, and this is
Digi-Key's Another Geek Moment,
Summer Break Addition.
I'd like to thank our friends at
Nordeast Makers in Minniapolis
for letting us use their maker space
for our projects.
Today I'm going to talk to you about the
Myoware muscle sensor kit,
contributed by Brent on Sparkfund.
This project tutorial is also available
on the Maker.IO web page,
which, if you're unfamiliar,
is Digi-Key's web page for
project tutorials.
Also availabe is this kit,
on Digi-Key's web page.
Being a bio-medical engineering
student, it's easy to become fascinated
in electronics that are integrated
with the human body
and that's exactly what this kit does.
Included in the kit are electrodes
that collect an EMG type signal
which is Electrocardiomyogry
Myo
(laughs)
elec
- (electronic voice) Electromyography
- Electromyography, there we go.
Included in this kit are electrodes
that collect an EMG type signal,
Electromyography if you're unfamiliar
Which collects the electrical impulses
in your muscles,
as well as a cable shield,
three electrode cable,
a power shield where you can put batteries,
your proto shield,
and an LED shield with a Lithium battery
on the bottom.
Obviously with your Myoware muscle sensor
as well, with the three electrodes again.
Putting this board together was very easy.
The only soldering involved was just
to put the headers on each of the boards.
I used the most basic,
because I was more interested in
how the electrodes worked
as well as this LED display
which I'll get to show you.
As you can see, just the headers
on my Myoware muscle sensor,
which obviously has to go into
your design.
And I ended up just using my LED.
So, I will put the
um, LED shield into
the Myoware muscle sensor,
matching up the r ... the raw shield
and ground on the far side of it.
Snapping it into place.
And then at this point, it's actually
ready to use, but real quick,
in the kit is included some,
these headers obviously I have a lot
of extra because I didn't use
all of my boards.
Extra electrode snaps.
This is how you connect your electrode to skin.
It has a gel in here that helps with
the signal.
Um, so I can connect those now
before I use them.
Just snap them into place.
And now I'm ready to put it on
and show you how it works.
So if you're interested in exploring
this project more than I did,
you can make this project more
featured by ordering different parts
from Digi-Key that you're interested in
exploring, and then by understanding
how the kit works itself, you can
integrate other parts into it,
if you're interested.
And, yeah, I guess I could use
another test subject.
So, Noah, why don't you come on over.
So I'll be putting um,
the Myoware
muscle sensor, using the electrode snaps,
on his forearm, and he'll flex for you
to show you the LED display.
Um, more bars
signify
a stronger impulse
in your muscles.
Flex for a long time, you should see it
stay fairly high until he relaxes,
but if you do one quick flex you'll have
your, um, impulse shoot up and then
it should shoot back down with the
signal in your arm.
If you don't know stuff about that
I would definitely recommend looking into it.
It's pretty fascinating.
These are very sticky, so your hair may come,
arm hair may come off with that.
But there's this gel
that's kind of cool,
that's necessary on all electrodes.
It doesn't stick on your arm, I promise.
And on this, you have a mid muscle electrode
an end muscle electrode,
and a reference muscle electrode.
And this is exactly for that,
on a muscle to reference,
not the one that you're flexing.
There's information for that on the tutorial
on Maker.IO as well if you're confused,
um, but it's just like any other
standard electrodes used in the
medical field today.
So, put this on your forearm.
On a reference muscle.
This actually came preprogrammed,
but the code itself is availabe
at the end of the tutorial.
So, I'll turn it on.
Now you're relaxed,
so if you would flex
it shoots up
yeah
- That's cool
- And if you, yeah, they were,
I had my family try it on after I
and some of them shot it all the way
up and held it there for a while
so you can kind of play with that.
I might not have it placed perfectly,
um, hence, not being able to reach the top.
- Reach the top?
- It might have to go a little higher,
- Maybe I'm just weak.
- (both laugh) Maybe but.
Thanks for watching.