Yes, you read that correctly. There's a commercially available kit that transforms an ordinary cockroach into a smartphone-controlled cyborg. The RoboRoach, created by educational neuroscience company Backyard Brains, puts the power of neural engineering literally in the palm of your hand—and on the back of an unfortunate insect.

How to Build Your Own Cyborg Insect

The process is surprisingly hands-on. After purchasing the kit (which costs around $100), you receive a tiny circuit board backpack weighing just 4.4 grams, electrodes, and detailed instructions for the "surgery." You'll need to catch your own cockroach, though—preferably a large tropical species like a Madagascar hissing cockroach or discoid roach.

The implantation involves anesthetizing the roach with ice water, carefully sanding a small spot on its shell, supergluing the circuit board backpack onto its thorax, and threading wire electrodes into the roach's antenna sockets. The electrodes connect directly to the antenna nerves, which cockroaches use for navigation and sensing obstacles.

The Science Behind Remote-Controlled Bugs

The technology mirrors real medical devices used in humans. When you tap "left" or "right" on the smartphone app, it sends a Bluetooth signal to the backpack, which delivers brief electrical pulses to the corresponding antenna nerve. The roach's brain interprets this as bumping into a wall on that side, causing it to turn away—effectively steering it in the opposite direction.

This same principle of neural microstimulation powers cochlear implants that restore hearing and deep-brain stimulation therapies for Parkinson's disease. Backyard Brains designed the RoboRoach as an educational tool to make neuroscience tangible for students.

Controversy and Limitations

Unsurprisingly, animal rights groups like PETA have protested the product, arguing it trivializes animal experimentation. The company counters that insects lack the brain structures associated with suffering in mammals, and that understanding neural interfaces requires hands-on experience.

The "control" is also far from perfect. The roaches quickly habituate to the stimulation—within minutes, they start ignoring the signals as their nervous system adapts. You're not so much piloting a living drone as briefly influencing a creature that has its own agenda. The effect works best immediately after implantation and diminishes rapidly with repeated use.

Despite its limitations, the RoboRoach represents a genuinely novel intersection of biology, technology, and education. It's part science experiment, part ethical thought exercise, and entirely weird. The kit remains available through Backyard Brains' website and scientific retailers as of 2025, continuing to spark both fascination and debate about where the line between education and exploitation should be drawn.

Related Tags