The openEMSstim, a hardware board based on an Arduino Nano that modulates the amplitude of Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS) signals. These muscle stimulation signals can be used for games, interactive art, etc. The approach is based on medical rehabilitation hardware and openEMSstim makes it approachable for researchers to use it safely. The project aims at providing a comprehensible and open-source starting point to experiment with muscle stimulation and learn how to keep it safe. openEMSstim provides not only hardware but also the software that communicates with the board and controls it (for Unity3d, Python, Processing, Android and Node.Js). This board is controllable via Bluetooth and compatible with any BLE device (such as your smartphone) or controllable via USB.

Project is fully accessible at: https://github.com/PedroLopes/openEMSstim

The openEMSstim has been created in collaboration between Pedro Lopes (at Hasso Plattner Institute / University of Potsdam) and Max Pffeifer Leibnitz University in Hannover (responsible for the original version). The openEMSstim has been used in the ACM UIST'16 conference by 20 teams of students that used it to create innovative prototypes.

The openEMSstim is also a project that aims at informing people on how to build such devices. Rather than building devices by hacking existing devices or building dangerous circuits from scratch, we intentionally designed it in a way that it recycles existing medical stimulators, which are safe to use. This way, the openEMSstim is actually just a big (wireless and cool) potentiometer that adjusts the intensity of the medical devices stimuli. The project keeps on growing and aims at finding new form-factors, smaller PCB, simpler hardware components, wifi integration, etc.