Beginner Track
Designed for participants who are new to MRI or want a stronger foundation in a specific technical area.
- Lectures and guided tutorials
- Hands-on practical exercises
- Core concepts, tools, and essential skills
Seminars & Hackathon
portableMRI NerdFest-2
A hands-on event to help people design, build, and improve portable MRI hardware while connecting engineers, researchers, mentors, and students.
Registration is now closed, as the event has reached its maximum capacity. Thank you for your interest, and we hope to see you next year!
Visions
Hardware training
- Train people to design and build MRI hardware, not just theories.
- Brainstorm strategies for portable MRI challenges.
Access & impact
- Promote portable MRI for resource-limited and/or point-of-care settings.
- Enhance MRI accessibility by lowering barriers worldwide.
Global community
- Build a global community of engineers and researchers who share the same vision.
We offer
- Expert seminars, training, workshops, and poster exhibitions.
- Mentorship from world-class experts and hardware specialists.
- Lab access, equipment, tools, and workspace for your team.
Your role
- Learn
- Form or join a team
- Contribute to a working MRI scanner
Themes
Building together, solving a big picture. Each team focuses on a critical subsystem. Together, all combine to form a complete portable MRI.
How Does It Work?
portableMRI NerdFest-2 is built around eight technical themes, each representing a key subsystem of an open-source portable MRI system. Participants join a theme, work in small teams, and contribute toward a final integrated demonstration.
1
Choose a theme
Participants state their preferred technical themes. Assignments prioritize first choices, then second choices, while keeping team sizes balanced.
2
Join a track
Each theme has Beginner and Advanced tracks, matched to participants' background, confidence, and prior MRI or engineering experience.
3
Build in teams
Each track may contain multiple teams of about five participants. Teams stay within their theme throughout the event.
4
Integrate the system
Teams develop, test, and validate their subsystem so it can connect with the other themes for the Day 4 system demonstration.
Advanced Track
Designed for participants with relevant knowledge or experience who want to work directly on harder engineering problems.
- Subsystem design, optimization, construction, and testing
- Open-source improvements and new technical ideas
- Close collaboration with mentors and integration teams
5Members per team
2Categories (Beginners and Experienced)
200Participants (4 days)
300Day 1 attendees
15Mentors
15Facilitators
Build, simulate, share
Software and research tools for portable MRI
Explore the complete NerdFest toolkit for scientific computing, circuit and mechanical design, magnet and coil development, pulse sequences, spin simulation, and MRI system control.
Software
GNU Octave
Numerical computing and scientific programming with a familiar matrix-based language and built-in visualization tools.
Visit octave.org
Software
QucsStudio
Electronic circuit and RF simulation for designing, analyzing, and testing circuits before hardware implementation.
Visit qucsstudio.de
Software
Onshape
Cloud-based 3D CAD for collaborative mechanical design, assemblies, and component development.
Visit onshape.com
Software
Python
A versatile programming language with a broad scientific ecosystem for analysis, simulation, automation, and prototyping.
Visit python.org
Software
FastHenry2
Electromagnetic modeling and inductance extraction for three-dimensional conductive structures.
Visit FastFieldSolvers
Software
Spintuition
Interactive MRI spin-dynamics simulation and visualization for education, learning, and interpretation.
Visit spintuition.org
Research tool
MagTetris
Models permanent-magnet arrays and calculates magnetic fields and forces for portable MRI magnet design.
View on GitHub
Research tool
CoilGen
Turns target magnetic fields and three-dimensional support surfaces into optimized MRI gradient and shim coil layouts.
Visit coilgen.org
Research tool
Pulseq
Designs and programs hardware-independent MRI pulse sequences using an open sequence file format.
Visit pulseq.github.io
Research tool
MaRCoS
An open MRI control system for pulse-sequence execution, signal acquisition, and low-field scanner development.
View on GitHub