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Livin' large in Leuven: IMEC-backed children's book reminds of sense of wonder |
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Oct 19, 2007 at 03:19 PM |
An illustrated children's book about an intrepid buccaneering bunny-girl was not what I expected to receive among the presentations, press releases, and other materials for IMEC's annual press review event.
Meep Pirate (Mie Piraat in the original Flemish-Dutch) represents a part of the Belgian research center's outreach program, where it hopes to introduce--and entice---young kids into the world of technological gizmos.
Meep, targeted at the 4- to 7-year old crowd, tells the tale of the title character, her friends Badger and Hedgehog, and their imaginary piratical adventures. Along the way such tech tools as a telescope (talk about old school!), a laptop (using what appears to be live video over Internet), and night-vision goggles (not the first thing that comes to mind when thinking about gadgets for the young) make their way into the charmingly told and illustrated story. There's also a bit of good ol' engineering in the mix, when Meep and her pals use the "mast" from their pirate "ship" to "bridge" the pond that surrounds their "vessel."
The book, written by Brigitte Minder and illustrated by Jan De Kinder, is the second one in a series about "technology and the senses" from IMEC and the Roger Van Overstraeten (RVO) Society. The late Dr. Van Overstraeten's name is synonymous with IMEC, as he founded the center and served as its managing director. He loved to teach and share his passion for science and technology with the youth, so it's no surprise that the group bearing his name continues his mission of education and information sharing.
The book reminded me not to ignore my own sense of wonder at the scientific and technological work going on at places like IMEC. While taking nothing away from the challenges of continued CMOS scaling, 3-D packaging, or the advances in compound semiconductor, carbon nanotube or nanowire work at the center and its affiliates, my brief moment of wide-eyed innocent discovery came with the demos of wireless sensors for healthcare apps, from IMEC and the Holst Centre's Human++ program.
As one IMECer wore a wireless "autonomous" EEG brain monitoring system wrapped around his forehead, presenter Bert Gyselinckx (he of one of those lovable Dutch last names and slightly David Beckham-ish looks) described how the first-of-its-kind system used "body heat dissipated naturally" for power. That's right, no batteries, just power generated thermoelectrically from the human skin. Bert then set up the projector to show the EEG monitoring graphs of the brain's alpha waves, describing what the different frequency scans meant.
Although Bert admitted the current somewhat bulky prototype was "not in the exact form factor one would like to have," he pointed out that the 2 milliwatts generated by "brain radiation" was more than enough to power the system (which needs about 800 milliwatts), so efforts are under way to miniaturize the device, including micromachining approaches to reduce the size of the thermal scavenging components.
The eventual applications for the wireless EEG include everything one might expect from a wired, nonautonomous electroencephalograph---with the difference being the monumental implications for the patient's quality of life and ability to carry on more or less normally in their daily affairs. One could envisage a next-gen wearable wireless EEG as part of a comprehensive healthcare network, linking patients and providers in a real-time monitoring scheme, with preset alarms triggered when the brain goes out of whack or implantable drugs or devices ready to put things back into whack when necessary.
That's the kind of not-so-futuristic micro/nanoelectronically enabled biomedical technology that makes me smile with childlike wonder---like Meep did when she donned the night-vision goggles.
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