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This page contains some of my favorite creations that I am not (too) embarrassed to share on the internet. (I am slowly updating my projects over the years..you can find more about me here)

A Customizable Sensate Surface for Music Control
We developed a novel music control sensate surface, which enables integration between any musical instruments with a versatile, customizable, and essentially cost-effective user interface. This sensate surface is based on conductive inkjet printing technology which allows capacitive sensor electrodes and connections between electronics components to be printed onto a large roll of flexible substrate that is unrestricted in length. The high dynamic range capacitive sensing electrodes can not only infer touch, but near-range, non-contact gestural nuance in a music performance. With this sensate surface, users can “cut” out their desired shapes, “paste” the number of inputs, and customize their controller interface, which can then send signals wirelessly to effects or software synthesizers. Our preliminary design and concept was published at NIME 2012.  [publication] [video] [more]

Leveraging Conductive Inkjet Technology to Build a Scalable and Versatile Surface for Ubiquitous Sensing -This floor sensing system was my project at Microsoft Research Cambridge. I worked with Dr. Steve Hodges and Prof. Joseph Paradiso on developing a versatile, scalable and cost-effective sensate surface based on flexible printed electronics.  The system is based on a new conductive inkjet technology, which allows capacitive sensor electrodes and different types of RF antennas to be cheaply printed onto a roll of flexible substrate that may be many meters long. By deploying this surface on (or under) a floor it is possible to detect the presence and whereabouts of users through both passive and active capacitive coupling schemes. We have also incorporated GSM and NFC electromagnetic radiation sensing and piezoelectric pressure and vibration detection.
We report on a number of experiments which evaluate sensing performance based on a 2.5m x 0.3m hardware testbed. Our first pilot study was published in Ubicomp 2011, Beijing. [publication] [slides]

Dense, Low-Power Environmental Monitoring for Smart Energy Profiling- We are working with Schneider Electric to deploying a dense, low-power wireless sensor network aimed at environmental monitoring for smart energy profiling. This distributed sensor system (~100 sensor nodes) measures temperature, humidity, and 3D airflow, and transmits this information through a wireless Zigbee protocol. These sensing units are currently deployed in the lower atrium of E14, MIT Media Lab. The data is being used to inform CFD models of airflow in buildings, explore and retrieve valuable information regarding the efficiency of commercial building HVAC systems, energy efficiency of different building materials, and lighting choices in novel architectural designs. Nan-Wei Gong, Laura Ware, Ashley Turza, David Way and Joe Paradiso with: Phil London, Gary Ware, Brett Leida and Tim Ren (Schneider Electric); Leon Glicksman and Steve Ray (MIT Building Technologies). Our work was accepted as a lecture paper at IEEE SENSORS conference 2012.

SPINNER –  I worked with Dr. Mathew Laibowitz on his PhD thesis – SPINNER and developed several applications and user studies on this platform. Here’s my presentation at CMCVR 2010 –  [pdf]. The SPINNER project is a first-of-its-kind research platform designed to investigate the world of ubiquitous video devices in order to confront inherent problems and create new media applications. This system takes a novel approach to the creation of user-generated, documentary video by augmenting a network of video cameras integrated into the environment with on-body sensing. The distributed video camera network can record the entire life of anyone within its coverage range and it will be shown that it, almost instantly, records more audio and video than can be viewed without prohibitive human resource cost. This drives the need to develop a mechanism to automatically understand the raw audio-visual information in order to create a cohesive video output that is understandable, informative, and/or enjoyable to its human audience.
[project website] | [publications] 

NONO Badge – I developed this  badge during my MS program as a platform for studying the privacy concern and control for users in a pervasive sensor network. The badge can talk to the Ubiquitous Sensor Portals through IRDA, one of the infrared protocol and Zigbee radio, a low-cost, low- power, wireless mesh networking standard. Through sending a unique ID, the badge can be used for tagging sensor data in order to claim ownership for further editing. Also, it can send out an opting in or opting out signal to control the ubiquitous awareness portals. With this device, users can have on-site control of their privacy and the immediate feedback of the privacy levels in different scenarios. [publications]

MusicGrip is a real-time writing instrument for music control and education. The sensors can capture the subtle dynamics of the user’s grip while writing or drawing and map this to musical control  sonic outputs. My project discusses this conversion of the common motor motion of handwriting into an innovative form of music expression. We seek to create an instrument that can be used to integrate the composing aspect of music with painting and writing, creating a new art form from the resultant aural and visual representation of the collaborative performing process. [pdf] [video]

Au(Si)-filled β-Ga₂O₃ nanotubes as wide range high temperature nanothermometers – Back in my Materials Sciences days, I worked with Prof. Lih J. Chen on developing nano-scaled sensors and the dynamics of low-dimensional nano-materials. My master thesis was published and selected as the cover of Applied Physics Letters.  Here’s the abstract of our paper: Au(Si)-filled β-Ga2O3 nanotubes were fabricated by an effective one-step chemical vapor deposition method. The Au(Si) interior was introduced by capillarity. Linear thermal expansion of Au(Si) with a coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) as high as 1.5×10−4(1/K) within single crystal Ga2O3 shell up to 800° C was observed by in situ transmission electron microscopy. The high CTE is correlated to partial melting of Au(Si). As Ga2O3 possesses excellent thermal and chemical stability, the structure can be used as a wide range high-temperature nanothermometer within localized regions of nanosystems. [link]

High-Sensitivity Solid-State Pb(Core)/ZnO(Shell) Nanothermometers Fabricated by a Facile Galvanic Displacement Method – I worked with Dr. Chiu-Yen Wang on nano-thermometers during my master’s program. She worked on creating nano structures with galvanic displacement methods which requires only test tubs in room temperature to fabricate. This work is about a fast and convenient method to fabricate Pb(core)/ZnO(shell) nanostructures and their application for high-sensitivity thermal sensing. The Pb/ZnO nanocables were spontaneously reduced to nanostructures grown on zinc substrate at room temperature. The sensitivity of the temperature is as high as 50 nm per 100 K. The work was published in Advanced Materials. [pdf]