My name is
Begonya Ozmen and I am a rising senior majoring in Bioengineering. This year I
was an exchange student from Spain, and I had a great academic and life
experience in Mason. However, I still wanted to learn first-hand how scientific
research is carried out, so I decided to apply for URSP. Indeed, the OSCAR
program has helped me broaden my knowledge in my field and gain experience in
doing research in a lab for the first time.
In my case, I
have always admired how progressively scientists have developed prosthetics to
help amputees to recover the functionality of a lost limb. However, it is
unfortunate that there are some people that cannot afford this sophisticated
and expensive machinery. In my project, I designed a classification learner in
order to control a prosthetic hand by moving the eyes. To do so, I used a
compact Electroencephalogram (EEG) (the one I am wearing in the photo) that is
much more affordable than other EEG systems. The classifier is able to
distinguish when the person looks to the right, to the left, up, down and when
they blink. Furthermore, the
classifier from this research project will provide information to program a
Brain Computer Interface for prosthetic arm control. The result would be a BCI based on Electrooculogram, as effective as
the ones in the current market, but using less expensive materials, so that the
final total cost would be much more affordable. On a weekly basis, I record
different experiments with the EEG headband, and after filtering and processing
the data, I try to look for patterns in the electrical signals. After figuring
out what were the suitable moves, I built the classifier and test it to get the
highest accuracy.
I see this project very
related to what I want to do in the future, which is researching in more
affordable and accurate prosthetic limbs and assistive devices.
This summer
I experienced what doing research means in all ways. I had bad times and I would
feel very frustrated whenever I spent more than 3 days trying to fix an error
in my code or spent a week figuring out the software, but I also had good times
when I would get super excited because I was finally able to identify clear
patterns in the electrical signals. Therefore, if there is one thing I learnt
this summer is that the only way we can improve our skills is trying again and
again, and failing again and again. At the end, you learn that research is an
incremental process that takes time and effort and it is normal to not get
results at the first attempt. However, the satisfactory feeling of seeing your
goals achieved is incomparable.
