Hi. I'm Elia and I'm studying at the Computational
Neuroscience and Cognitive Robotics course
here at the University of Birmingham.
My course is about as name says – Computational
Neuroscience – so study mathematical models
to understand the brain and describe the brain
functioning, and of Cognitive Robotics – so
try to research in robotics and train ourselves
in like researching robotics, keeping in mind
how the human brain works in order to try
to find a parallel between these two disciplines.
What's special about my course is that I think
it’s one of a kind in the UK in the sense
that you can’t study the same things anywhere
else, like you have lot of choice between
courses from the Robotic Master and from the
Master in Neuroscience and Psychology.
The course is structured having both lectures
and work in the lab. So in the lecture we
basically have provided with the tools to
start working in the lab in the practical
sense, and being a multidisciplinary course
we also have a lot of seminars that we can
attend within the Psychology department and
the Computer Science department. We also have
like lot of group work with assignments and
the group work is really important for us
to support each other, being quite intense
course.
In the course we have access to a lot of facilities,
and working in the lab we have access to the
equipment of the lab. So for example, for
me I'm working in this lab and in this lab
we work with haptics and we’re working,
for example, by using some kind of robot which
are particular kind of robot called haptic
devices. So in this lab particularly we can
work, and I can work, using a delta device,
a phantom device which are haptic devices
that are able to deliver a force field back
to the user and are really used also in gaming
and visual reality.
We also have opportunity to work with these
which are oculus rift glasses. By putting
this on, participant can actually be transported
to a virtual reality - virtual reality worlds.
These are totally immersive glasses. We can
actually deliver stimuli – sensory stimuli
in this virtual world so that participant
can react to the stimuli and we can record
their behaviour and interpret the behaviour
and their perception.
My advice to write a personal statement or
complete an application for the University
of Birmingham, and in particular for this
course, is to be basically honest and say
what you really can do without trying to show-off,
because it’s a quite tough course. So it’s
really important that you are prepared and
you provide what you really can do before
starting it. And also show how motivated you
are in undertaking this course.
