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Meet the Designer Behind Neuralink’s Surgical Robot


Afshin Mehin has helped design some of the most futuristic neurotech devices.

We had a small role to play, which was to psychologically transform their first-generation robot, which was exposed steel—you could argue it looked pretty ominous—to something that was a little bit more approachable and ready for clinical trials. We worked with Neuralink’s engineering team to try and design facias—covers or cladding—for the outside of the robot, to start to give it a bit more of a visual language that was simple, approachable, and something that you can imagine people not being intimidated by. We started with the part of the robot that has the needle and is doing the actual insertion of the neural threads [which record brain activity], because it’s the most sensitive constraint, and we kind of worked backwards from there.

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