brainfix-platform

The brainfix platform is the basis for a number of braingames.

I got inspired to create the platform when my daughter was recovering from a severe concussion at CognitiveFX in Provo, Utah. They do wonders there! But as we needed to fly out to the US for her to recover, we need something at home. The Brainfix platform is intended as a starting point for the recreation of some of the tools they used during recovery.

The platform is based upon ESP32, as it has wifi on-board and can be expanded using standard Arduino extensions and code.

The idea is to create a platform that generates useable measurements that cannot be traced to a person, but does allow for progress tracking and scientific analysis. In order to do so, each build using the platform is equipped with an RC522 rfid reader, so that the user can easiy identify him/herself by holding a rfid tag over the sensor. This way the user only has to provide data once.

The setup must not be technical or more complicated than enabling a smart lightbulb. So on first setup it uses wifimanager to create an openingpage to connect the system to the local wifi network. Once that is done, the system should present a simple web page to select the game and if needed alter parameters.

In order to prevent the user to type in an IP address, we can use mDNS as explained here. However, this also entails that we need to change the name of the system after installation to allow for multiple installations to be used on the same network.

It looks like the ESP32-FSwebserver has allof this on board. All files for the webpage can be uploaded to the ESP.

Data generation

In order to measure progress and prevent the need for complicated hardware to store performances, the data must be pushed to a cloud server. In order to prevent that the data can be traced back to a person, personal identifying data is not stored.

The data is sent in JSON format. The following fields should at least be in there:

{
  "$schema": "https://brainfix.somedomain.org/schemas/brainfix/v1/main.json#"
  "device": "<uuid>",
  "setup":  "<uuid>",
  "user":   "<uuid>",
  "setup":  "<uuid>",
  "data":   {
    "game":             "<uuid>",
    "duration":         <seconds, int>, //Duration of the game
    "game_data":        {
      "$schema": "https://brainfix.somedomain.org/schemas/brainfix/v1/<game>.json#",
      ...
    }
  }, 
}

The device UUID must be entered in the code in order to identify on which device the measurement is taken. This allows to easily filter on device in case a device seems to provide inaccurate data. The default UUID c6214a0d-007a-4c7d-ba50-c37e2d95ba42 is entered in the code on github and filtered out on ingress to prevent people from using the default code and pollute the data. A unique UUID can be generated for example on uuidgenerator.

Setups and Games

For the time being, the following setups are envisioned:

Name	Description	UUID
Metronome	A metronome that chimes at 54 BPM for neuromotoric exercises	eadc9731-deb3-4097-8e6d-bf47fe649d3a
Leaderboard	A game for playing the Dynavision like games	a75b20da-01fa-4ac2-9686-ff8ab010a3d3
Cognition	A setup to measure card sorting accuracy combined with tasks	24bcbba0-1c46-4673-9bc5-32416a5c91a2