RoboRoach: innovation and ethics

Photo copyright Backyard Brains

On 22 March 2013 my post was about Biobots - cyborg cockroaches fitted with a wireless control system and used to find victims of disasters such as earthquakes. I mentioned in that post that my students discussed ideas for further uses of such a biobot.

One use now available - which did not come up in that discussion - is implanting a wireless control on a cockroach in order to teach children about neural microstimulation.

This is the RoboRoach, developed by Backyard Brains, and described on their website as "... the world's first commercially available cyborg. With our RoboRoach you can briefly wirelessly control the left/right movement of a cockroach by microstimulation of the antenna nerves. The RoboRoach is a great way to learn about neural microstimulation, learning, and electronics."

The RoboRoach is available as a kit which children can order to implant the device themselves, and carry out the microstimulation experiment. It is available for $99.99 each, and is marketed to children and school classes.

Website of Backyard Brains: https://backyardbrains.com/

Information about RoboRoach: https://www.backyardbrains.com/products/roboroach

The innovation is quite interesting, and it generated a discussion in my classes about further innovations using similar technology. The website contains a lot of information about the control device itself and about the "surgery" necessary to implant the device. The latter is also explained on a video, also on the website. These sources are great material for process description, both written and spoken.

Video with surgery instructions: http://wiki.backyardbrains.com/RoboRoach_Surgery

But another aspect of the RoboRoach is that of the ethical concerns it raises. Some of these concerns are dealt with on the website, as comments about criticism. The criticisms noted and responded to are:

• This is simply a toy, not a scientific instrument
•  Modifying a living creature to make a toy is wrong
• The RoboRoach is pseudoscience
• This enables and encourages kids to harm animals

Ethical considerations:

http://wiki.backyardbrains.com/Ethical_Issues_Regarding_Using_Invertebrates_in_Education

My students found these ethical questions to be one of the most interesting aspects of this innovation. The groups I used this with were Electronics/Business, Biomedical Engineering and Robotics Engineering groups.

Although no one thought it was unethical to harm roaches (we do that anyway, don't we?), my students thought this could perhaps eventually lead to experiments using other animals, for example cats or dogs. Many felt it is okay for such experiments to be conducted in school under the supervision of a teacher, but that making this device available for children to experiment at home could lead to less educational uses. My students had a lively debate about where such experimentation would end, and whether we should create guidelines for eventual uses or stop it now.

I found the material about this innovation to be extremely useful for:

• Process Description - of the device and of the surgery to implant the device
• Discussion of impact of the engineering innovation
• Ethics discussion on the uses of the device
• Debate about the pros and cons of experimentation with invertebrates

For further material, there is an article about the RoboRoach in Popular Science:
http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-12/how-build-your-own-cockroach-cyborg