Is your brain being altered due to our increasing reliance on search engines, social networking sites and other digital technologies? This is the question which Professor Billy O’Connor will pose in this lecture. Using a basic understanding of brain structure (neurology) Professor Billy O’Connor will explain the concept of ‘brain plasticity’- the ability of the brain to constantly rewire itself - and will show how all learning changes the shape of the brain, allowing specific areas in the brain to grow or change. Furthermore, by using enriched physical learning web environments to accelerate this brain growth Professor O‘Connor will demonstrate how the new ‘cybertherapies’ are being used to help patients suffering from addiction and post traumatic stress disorder back to health.  According to Professor O’Connor this new resource has the potential to dramatically improve mental health including new opportunities to learn healthy habits to lift our mood and enhance our brains longevity.

Professor William T. O’Connor is Foundation Chair, Head of Teaching and Research In Physiology at University of Limerick.

Conor Murphy from Caped Kola Studios will deliver a talk on ‘Social-Networking and Virtual Worlds for Children’.

Robert Fitzsimons from the Dublin hackerspace - TOG - will hold a Soldering Workshop during #3Dcamp11. The soldering activity will be €2 per person for the same LED badge as Robert had at MindField.

Robert has delivered this workshop at TOG a number of times and once at 091Labs (the Galway hackerspace).

Ronan Skehill from Cauwill will deliver an informal talk on Location Based Services (LBS). Topics covered will include: What is LBS, what is it good for? Why is LBS so important and why people want to use LBS.

Frederic Herrera from the IADT will talk about his plans to create a national cluster of all 3D-related activities (prototyping, applied research, services, products involving both research groups and SMEs/MNCs). Activities will span content development, management, and business models.

We’re delighted that Stephen Howell, Computer Science Lecturer at I.T. Tallaght, will present a talk / workshop entitled ‘Kinect Hackables’ at this year’s event. You can get an idea of what to expect by watching the following -

Scratch and Kinect from Stephen Howell on Vimeo.

In this talk Miriam Lohan will “give a brief outline of research and thoughts on the design of an online work-bartering network, followed by a workshop to sketch how we represent ourselves and trade online. Games to be played to see how we evaluate ourselves and others, build trust and negotiate deals. Participation will guide iterations of the design, with people playing for real as the ideal outcome. The workshop will be informal and hopefully a lot of fun, with feedback from participants on a strictly voluntary basis.”

Jeffrey Roe will talk about “The use of inertial measurement units (IMUs) for tracking an objects in the outdoors. These systems use a range of high end sensors such as accelerometers, gyroscopes and GPS. The talk will explain the theory of operation of these devices and provided a review of current IMU’s designed for the hobbyist market. The talk will close with a sample implementation of the use of this technology the speaker has created using the Arduino microcontroller.”

We’re delighted to announce that John Paul Giancarlo from Brown Bag Films will talk at 3Dcamp about how the Oscar nominated studio is dealing with the demand for stereo 3D shows.