Controlling Robots with Your Brain – SDTH Winner (48hr Challenge) Wayne Lin, NeuroMech

This is a special two-part addition, building on the back of the A5X conference series we published last week. Since the EU-Startups team could only stay for part of the event, we missed the Singapore Defence Tech Hackathon (SDTH) in person - so we're bringing it to you in a slightly different format. Instead of our usual deep-dive conversations, we sat down with the winners to hear how they built their projects and where they're heading next. The hackathon brought together teams assessed by a panel of senior leaders from the Singapore Armed Forces, Singapore's defence science and technology community, and industry. 39 teams competed in the two-day challenge, with NeuroMech taking the top prize of S$8,000 (~€5,500). In this episode, we speak with Wayne Lin of NeuroMech. Their project tackled a challenge that sounds straight out of science fiction: controlling an unmanned ground vehicle without using your hands. What makes the story remarkable is that the whole thing was built and demonstrated in just 48 hours. Wayne walks us through the two-day build, the problem NeuroMech is trying to solve for defence operators, and what his prototype actually allowed an operator to do. He also opens up about the hardest technical problem behind making a brain-computer interface reliable under hackathon pressure, and whether winning changed how he sees NeuroMech as a potential company rather than just a hackathon project. Key Points: - Hands-free control of unmanned ground vehicles could change how operators manage systems in situations where their hands and attention are needed elsewhere - Brain-computer interfaces are notoriously difficult to make reliable, and rapid prototyping under hackathon pressure exposes those weaknesses fast - A working prototype is only the first step — the real question is whether a hackathon project can become a viable company - Prize funding is being used to push NeuroMech beyond a demo and toward a serious product