Hello Octopus 16: 60-Second BCI Hackathon Starter & AI-Ready Workbench

Building a real-time 16-channel brain-computer interface application no longer requires days of driver setup, serial parsing, or DSP boilerplate. With Hello Octopus 16 (hello_world_octopus_16), developers and hackathon teams can clone the starter repository, stream live 24-bit wireless EEG (or run the built-in 250 Hz simulator), and ship a working BCI application in under 60 seconds.

Built around our 26 mm coin-sized, 16-channel dry-electrode Octopus-16 sensor, the starter kit runs directly in the browser over Web Bluetooth with zero gel, zero ear clips, and zero backend required.

Live 60 fps 16-Channel Workbench Out of the Box

Opening index.html launches the Hello Octopus 16 — BCI Hackathon Workbench, a complete zero-dependency browser dashboard powered by pieeg.js:

16-Channel Real-Time Oscilloscope: Smooth 60 fps HTML5 Canvas rendering backed by a zero-GC ring buffer across both TI ADS131M08 24-bit ADCs (CH1–CH8 and CH9–CH16), complete with Hampel spike rejection, 1–40 Hz Butterworth bandpass filtering, and selectable 50/60 Hz notch filtering.
26 mm Hexagonal 18-Pin Pogo Array Map: True physical millimeter geometry visualization for all 16 signal pins plus AINREF and GND, switching between live Contact RMS (2–150 µV Good / Railed / Flat) verification and a spatial Alpha Heatmap with optional Surface Laplacian filtering.
FFT Power Spectral Density & Band Powers: Precomputed 256-point Hanning Cooley-Tukey FFT (0–50 Hz) with live Delta, Theta, Alpha, Beta, and Gamma band power bars and dominant peak tracking.
Live BCI Neuro-Controller Sandbox: An interactive Alpha Charge Orb, eye-blink trigger detector, and clean-EEG artifact gate designed as a ready-to-hack loop for neurofeedback and arcade games.
Built-In 250 Hz Simulator & CSV Recorder: Code and test before touching hardware (or while a teammate wears the board) with interactive keyboard triggers (Space = Eye Blink, A = Alpha Wave Boost, C = Jaw Clench) and one-click CSV recording.

Pre-Wired for AI Coding Agents

The repository includes ground-truth context files (AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md, and .cursorrules) so GitHub Copilot, Claude Code, Cursor, and Windsurf already know the exact BLE UUIDs, 51-byte packet structure, 18-pin hexagonal geometry, and 60 fps zero-lag rendering rules.

Developers can also jump straight into five copy-paste prompt tracks in PROMPTS.md:

60 fps BCI Arcade Game (bci-game.html): Alpha mind shield, blink laser, and jaw-clench slow-motion controls.
Neurofeedback Synthesizer (neuro-synth.html): 30-second baseline calibration wizard paired with a Z-score WebAudio binaural ambient pad.
16-Pin Spatial Heatmap (spatial-lab.html): High-density 2D hexagonal interpolation and Current Source Density (Surface Laplacian) explorer.
SSVEP / P300 Speller (ssvep-lab.html): Precision 10/12/15 Hz visual flicker targets and labeled epoch CSV recorder with 244.14 Hz LEDC clock compensation.
React / Three.js Hook (useOctopus16.ts): Zero-lag 250 Hz ref stream paired with throttled 15 Hz React UI state updates.

Clone & Run in 30 Seconds

git clone https://github.com/pieeg-club/hello_world_octopus_16.git
cd hello_world_octopus_16
npm start

Open http://localhost:3000 in Chrome or Edge to pair with Octopus-16-XXXX over Bluetooth, or open http://localhost:3000/?sim=1 to launch the 250 Hz simulator immediately.

For Python and machine learning workflows (SciPy, MNE, PyTorch, or LabStreamingLayer), the repository also ships with python_quickstart.py using bleak and numpy for auto-discovery BLE streaming, terminal visualization, and multi-channel CSV logging.

Safety note: Octopus 16 is a non-medical research device. Always power Octopus 16 from a 5 V battery power bank while worn on the head, never from mains power or a wall-plugged laptop.