Fruit Fly-athon
166,000 neurons. 125 million connections. One day to see what they can do.
Fruit Fly-athon is a one-day hackathon for creating games, research tools, simulations, robots, visualizations, and experimental applications powered by the mapped nervous system of a real fruit fly.
The Source
Google Research, HHMI Janelia, and collaborators recently released the complete connectome of an adult male fruit fly.
A connectome is essentially a circuit diagram of the nervous system. It maps how more than 166,000 neurons connect through 125 million synapses, from sensory inputs such as sight and smell to outputs controlling movement and behaviour.
The Format
A small, open-ended, and experimental buildathon.
There are no fixed problem statements. Your project can be playful, technically ambitious, scientifically useful, or all three.
Your input → Fruit-fly brain mapping → Your output
Connect it to a game or robot. Turn neural activity into music or visuals. Build tools to explore how signals move through the brain. Run controlled experiments by activating or removing specific neurons. Investigate whether biological neural architecture can offer useful ideas for AI and robotics.
Important distinction: Researchers did not upload a living fly’s consciousness or create a fully functional digital fly. They mapped its physical neural connections, which can be used to build connectome-based controllers.
Bring your laptop, curiosity, and any hardware you want to experiment with.
📅 September 20, 2026
⏰ 10 AM to 6 PM
📍 2586Labs, Bengaluru