A portfolio of work and inspiration for position applications
Note: I uploaded the scripts for some of my projects, but the executables as well as full project file dump can be found on my website in their respectable sections (Project 2 & 3). Unfortunately I cannot share any code to the drone project, however I can get a video upon request (if you'd like). Thank you in advance for taking the time to read through :)

Work / Project Examples

1. Virtual Archeology (A 360 Interactive Video Virtual Reality Application)
   This was an individual study project, I was given a total of 4 weeks to design, plan, and implement my application. This project was a dedicated effort, being both my first time working with Unity and Virtual Reality. I wanted to get as much as I could out of the project, so instead of focusing on just one idea, I took three (On top of that I also designed a lot of my own assets). I created an app that basically gave users a taste of what sort of things archeologists do in their line of work. I was intrigued by the common misconseption people had with the work archeologists do, mainly due to how media perceives them, as such I did some research and looked over notes from my archeology class.
   The first section of my app contained the ability to control the time and weather through head movements, depending on the movement of the user, you could make it snow or change it from day to night, each time controlling the time and viewing a timelapse of stonehenge from 3000 years ago to now.
   The second section of the app had users go on an expedition to dig up the past, to do this I used networking to connect the phone to a wii remote so that the user could handle different tools and learn the actual movements (such tools included digging with a trowel, brushing the delicate areas away with a brush, and washing the remaining dirt away with a sprayer). This section was definitely the most challenging, but also the most rewarding and the section I learned the most.
   The last section I again used head movements and focused more on gaze input, basically it took users on a tour through a historical area where they would occassionally be taken aside by the virtual assistant who would ask the user if they would like to learn more about the particular area and (if the user nods) the assistant will continue the tour while explaining the significance of the area being toured. Being an application developed during my time in Human-Computer Interaction II class, it involved a lot of ideation and sketching before the coding could actually be done. With this project I also gained a lot of experience in pitching, prototyping and taking and giving critical peer feedback.

2. Kinect Networking Application (Motion Capturing Applications with Networking)
   With this individual study project, I learned to work with motion capturing using a Kinect 2.0. I was given a lot more linency with this project as opposed to other projects done in Human-Computer Interaction II, I thus decided that including networking in some way would be an interesting challenge. The only restriction with this project was that it had to be Hygge themed in some way, I decided that an interactive room atmosphere device would be fitting. Having multiple devices communicating with eachother in the room (or even around the house) was an interesting idea which had me learning how to capture user movements calculating what action should be taken and reflecting that across all devices. I had a lot of fun coming up with the different actions (including 2 person actions) and working with many different devices (including tvs, computers, phones, and tablets)

3. Self-Drone Flight Application
   This last application was a group effort which included me and three others. Contrary to the name might suggest, most of our difficulties actually came with clients. Since our clients never seemed to interact with eachother, they always seemed to have contradicting feedback. Unfortunately for us that meant once we fixed our project to accommodate one client, we always ended up pressing undo to accommodate the other client. As you might imagine we didnt make much progress over the first couple of months. Fortunately we began working on a few things behind the scenes, knowing both clients didn't actually know what they wanted. Thus by the end of the project term, we blew them away with what we had accomplished, relying on what we had imagined our final system might look like and adding the best takeaways of both clients' feedback. It was definitely a long and difficult 6 month term, but was an amazing experience that really challenged us in client interaction and ensuring that our team pulled through and was there for eachother during the stressful times.

Inspiration

1. While working on my virtual reality project, there were several very enticing works that inspired me in a technical perspective. The idea of bringing objects from the real world into the virtual one is definitely my most favorite. While I was trying to come up with different ways and possibilities for users to grasp tools in the real world and have it corespond in the virtual world, I came across the use of wii remotes. I was quite excited to learn that wii remotes could successfully be paired with devices purely through bluetooth, and can relay their movements to the devices even without an infared sensor. I researched more and more into how I could make this work for my project and finally I found it, someone who had actually been able to display a virtual wii remote in 3d space according to the position of the real one. I basicly reversed engineered the mechanics and was able to network it into my virtual reality application, applying actions that would be calculated by the program (like when a person is successfully making digging movements) and a skins that fit with my tools. Since then I've been inspired develop ideas for pet projects that would be able to use these tools for future applications, I hope I might be able to find a solution that would allow users with any form of controller to be able to interact with a virtual world object (this leads me to my next inspiration)

2. Having come up with various ideas for using tools in the real world to interact with the virtual one, I came across several immerging technologies that can intelligently detect hands for motion tracking. Hands are far more accessable tools than bluetooth controllers and can far more diverse in movement applications (more possibilities for actions). Though the technology is not quite there yet for personal use, it further inspired me to hold onto a few ideas that, though may not be possible now, could lead to several helpful and possibly life changing apps that I would love to develop.

Focus

I love to diversify as much as I can, when the options are open to me, I've turned away from settling in with things I'm used to and went for more unique and challenging roles and projects. That being said, the best time I had was working with relatively new and on the rise technologies, like robots and virtual reality. If I was given the time and resources the build/learn anything I wanted during the course of the internship I would love to focus myself on virtual reality and augmented reality. I had a blast developing my virtual reality for my HRI course and definitely learned the most over the course of that one month than I did in any of my other 4 month long courses the year previous. I know there is so much more to learn and develop for in that area, and to get the resources and experienced help working along side me, I can imagine just how much more I could learn and improve on during my time in the internship. I would definitiely like to spend my time working in the designing area, getting to put my ideas out there, and experiementing on the mechanics of how it would work. Making things more interactive and designed for the customer in mind is definitely a strongsuit of mine and I would love to be a part of the interaction planning and implementing phases of projects, even possibly meeting with and working directly with the clients and working along side software engineers. Of course, I love surprises and would be excited to work within any phase of the project.