Five days · Live online
Experimental
Science Bootcamp
We explain the mysteries of technology, so you can focus on the mysteries of science. Learn by building. Earn a certificate. Join the network.
We explain the mysteries of technology, so you can focus on the mysteries of science. Learn by building. Earn a certificate. Join the network.
Modern experimental science relies on sensors, acquisition systems, computers, and increasingly on machine learning. Most researchers learn to use these tools, but not how they work. This course changes that.
Sensors, acquisition systems, analysis pipelines — you use them daily but the black boxes slow you down when things break or when you need something custom.
Custom hardware, real-time processing, machine learning for your data — the skills your supervisor doesn't have time to teach and no course has covered properly.
Originally designed for neuroscience. Now open to researchers in any experimental discipline. The tools and principles taught here drive progress across all of science.
Each day you open a new set of black boxes, electronics, computers, networks, vision, AI. By the end of the week nothing is hidden. Every layer understood.
Build circuits for sensing the environment and controlling movement, the same principles behind any acquisition system. Understand how physical signals become electrical signals and how they drive physical action.
Understand how logic gates and memory registers are assembled into a programmable processor. Write code in C at the register level, no libraries, no abstraction. Learn why timing matters in experimental hardware.
Set up a Linux computer from scratch and understand how an operating system manages processes, files, and hardware. Write a communication protocol between your robot and your computer, the same architecture behind most modern experimental pipelines.
Understand how a camera converts light into a digital image and how that image can be processed to extract meaningful information. Apply background subtraction, thresholding, and image moments to detect and track objects in real time.
Understand how a deep neural network learns from data, what training does, what a loss function measures, and how a trained model makes predictions. Train your own classifier from scratch and deploy it on your robot in real time.
After this course, you will debug faster, design better, and ask questions you couldn't ask before. Not because you became an engineer, because you understand the foundations.
Every year the course is supported by an outstanding group of Teaching Assistants selected from research institutes around the world.
Every participant who completes the course and submits a final project receives an official certificate. But the best projects go further, they are featured on our website and shared directly with our global network of research institutes, labs, and companies.
This is not just a certificate. It is a way to be seen by the right people.
Over 2,000 researchers in 60+ countries have taken No Black Boxes courses. Completing the ESB connects you to this worldwide community of scientists who understand their tools.
One registration. Everything included — kit, lectures, live sessions, and certificate on completion. Shipped anywhere in the world.
Includes worldwide shipping of the NB3 kit, all lectures, full attendance, and course certificate.
£650 for the first participant (including one kit), then £350 per additional participant sharing the same kit. Maximum 3 students per kit.
Express your interest below and we will contact you when applications open for the next edition of the Experimental Science Bootcamp.