Projects

This project is exploring ways of using air gesture technologies, audio and haptic to facilitate exploration of STEM concepts by blind and low vision learners. Efforts will establish the efficacy of this approach, as well as best practices for creating air gesture interfaces that support exploration of a virtual reality space such as a simulated atom, wind tunnel or electrical system- all without the use of vision.

Modern sensor technology is beginning to allow for cost-effective deployment of air gesture interfaces in the vehicle. Unlike the current standard of direct touch, air gesture interfaces do not require that the driver takes their eyes off the road, especially when coupled with properly applied auditory or tactile feedback. While emerging systems like Apple Carplay and Android Auto support limited speech commands, the majority of tasks still require visually targeted touch interaction, which poses a safety hazard to drivers.

How can we use mixed reality technology to make the computer-aided design and creation of 3D objects more efficient for engineers and product designers?

The algorithmic detection of subcultural or niche taste trends is of growing importance in targeted advertising. This demonstration presents research using online music analysis tools from Spotify, Musicbrainz, and Rovi coupled with aggregated music listening behavior from Facebook users to detect individual tastes and emerging taste trends amongst social groups. This research is presented alongside historical signifiers of music taste such as fashion, music collections, and subcultural knowledge.

Like traditional media, social media in China is subject to censorship. However, in limited cases, activists have employed homophones of censored keywords to avoid detection by keyword matching algorithms. In this paper, we show that it is possible to scale this idea up in ways that make it difficult to defend against. Specifically, we present a non-deterministic algorithm for generating homophones that create large numbers of false positives for sensors, making it difficult to locate banned conversations.

Networking and peer inspiration from alumni of your program/school is important when making decisions about the next steps in your career. However, schools lose touch with alumni once they graduate and find it difficult to keep a track of where they are. Networking platforms such as Linkedin are helpful but do not provide a big picture of your alumni network. AlmaBase is a Linkedin extension, that shows a visualization of career trajectories of alumni from your program, for you to find the "right" alumni to network with and get inspired.

“Aly in Wonderland” is a VR prototype designed for Microsoft-Acer and Vive. Inspired by Lewis Carroll's beloved Alice in Wonderland, players enter into a VR fantasy world to chase the March Hare through impossible spaces in order to retrieve the ruby jewel that the Queen of Hearts has lost from her crown. Players will be able to experience VR elements such as “growing” and “shrinking” within the game, as well as interacting with other virtual objects relevant to the narrative.

Early development of children is a critical issue for young parents. However, symptoms of abnormality may occur in a subtle manner, and parents often fail to recognize them or seek help at an early stage. This is often because they lack certain knowledge or professional guidance. CDC distributed brochures to promote knowledge of children early development. However, this form of the publication contains a large volume of information and is hard to popularize. Furthermore, even though parents' role in solving this problem is significant, they could not do it alone.

No matter what age we are, we have likely forgotten to turn off the stove or oven, iron, heater or even water. Forgetfulness can lead to serious events that may result in costly damage to the home or even injury or death. Older adults are more prone to such forgetfulness. When an older adult forgets to turn off a hazardous appliance, it is often attributed to losing mental capacity and may lead to loss of self-confidence, embarrassment, and judgment from others.

Information visualization can augment human cognition in many ways, and has proved useful in professional application areas such as scientific visualization and business management. But what are the potentials of information visualization in everyday life? Using ambient visualization techniques, the opportunity to co-exist with an embodiment of data in the same physical space, and analyze such a metaphor in relation to the space around us could potentially lead to a greater learning environment.

This project, the winner of the 2020 EmPOWER Air Data Challenge from the US EPA creates an online tool for exploring relationships between coal power plant emissions, wind currents, and local health impacts. 

Educational policy at the state-level plays a critical role in increasing access to Computer Science (CS) in an equitable way through increasing the adoption of CS by public schools. In order to reach all students with computer science access and opportunities, we need to understand what is preventing students, teachers, schools, districts, and states from adopting CS education. Once we understand these barriers, we can better design and implement policy and curricula to provide computer science for all.

TRANSMEDIA STORYSCAPE The story of The Ghost Club is bigger than just a feature film ‚ it inhabits a complex world with a deep history and mythology that engages its audience members, inviting them into the Ghost Club storyscape. The concept of the Club, its team members, and the reality and rules of this world are introduced through a variety of non-traditional media channels, web series, social networks, online games, augmented reality mobile applications, and more.

This study utilizes HMD-based VR to immerse participants in the fully autonomous car, which remove conventional steering wheels and pedals, to prompt their intuitive reactions upon the driving behaviors, as well as collects and analyzes their interaction intents, patterns, and ideal interfaces. The study contributes to HMI design of autonomous vehicles by providing insights about feasible approaches to obtain passenger perception of driving behavior. With this information, fully autonomous cars can adjust driving tactics and operations accordingly to improve trustworthiness, which is crucial