PROJECTS
A curated suite of projects spanning tech, art, writing, and pedagogy.
Real-Time Operating System
📅 Februrary 2024 — March 2024 | 👥 Lexi Batrachenko
C | Embedded Systems | Firmware
Built real-time OS. Utilized Rate-Monotonic Scheduling, Immediate Priority Ceiling Protocol, memory protection, and mutexing for organization of multiple threads in compliance with real-life timing constraints.
Why? Being able to architect and debug low level systems code is one of the most satisfying feelings in the world. I'm particularly fascinated by firmware/sensors/tangible UX as the junction where the real world meets the digital.
Public Mobility Robot for Honda Research Institute
📅 January 2024 — Present
Design Research | Literature Review | Storyboarding | Microsoft Azure | GPT API | Prompt Engineering | Python | Voice Assistants
Lead the design research committee and human-robot intelligence team in building a public guide robot prototype for Honda. Spearhead needs-finding, literature review, and storyboarding processes and present work to stakeholders. Architect LLM-powered voice assistant for context-aware navigation vocal interface.
Why? I love needs-finding! I also find it very fun to storyboard for technical projects, because it's kind of just like drawing sci-fi comics, but the robot is actually real. Thinking about how to leverage LLMs to facilitate a vocal interface has also been a fun UX challenge.
Multiplayer Online AI Explainability Study
📅 May 2023 — Present
Python | Flask | SQLAlchemy | Databases | Websockets | JS | HTML/CSS | Multi-player Games
GitHub Repo (single-player study iteration) | Paper (pre-user study)
Code primarily backend/databases/multiplayer interactions for online user study on teaching users robot policies via demonstrations. Consult on study design. Spent Summer 2023 programming the backend for a single user iteration of the study.
Why? AI interpretability/explainability is super important, and being able to design a user study based on legacy code has definitely given me insight into how to understand, and then design large systems.
Personal Site
📅 March 2024
HTML/CSS | Bootstrap | JS | Two.js | Technical Writing
This site, lovingly hacked together with raw HTML/CSS/JS, a dash of Bootstrap, and some Two.js. Background graphic is modified from Jono Brandel's gradient demo, and accent font is Tyler Finck's Knewave. All illustrations by yours truly <3
Why? I needed a portfolio and an excuse to learn frontend better! Definitely enlightening to work primarily with just HTML and CSS, but I missed templating, so I will probably get around to refactoring the codebase with React and Jekyll later.
Syllable
📅 January 2023 — May 2023 | 👥 Molly Niehaus
Figma | Design Research | Digital Prototyping
Designed and prototyped a language learning app that focuses on the unmet need of novel sound production and discrimination.
Why? I enjoyed thinking about the role of technology in learning through this class - questioning whether or not technology is an appropriate intervention, and to what degree. Also, being able to interview people about their experience with language learning was such a touching process, as a lot of our conversation topics veered into discussions of culture, family, and alienation.
Wish You Were Here
📅 November 2021 — December 2021
Python | VSketch | Data Visualization | Markov Chains | Generative Art | Plotters
Set of 12 generative love letter postcards, a data visualization of the first twelve months of my relationship with my girlfriend. Exhibited April 2023 in the Frame Gallery in What the Historians Would Not Say, an art show centered on the queer Asian American experience.
Why? "One day Halsted noticed that his wife's hands were chapped and red when she came back from surgery. And so he invented rubber gloves. For her. It is one of the great love stories in medicine. The difference between inspired medicine and uninspired medicine is love. When I met Ana, I knew: I loved her to the point of invention.” - Sarah Ruhl, The Clean House and Other Plays
SoftWare/CookWare
📅 January 2024 — Present
Arduino | C++ | Soft Technologies | Zines | Colored Pencil
Received a Frank-Ratchye Further Fund grant to research, draw, and build a short zine on food with embedded soft electronics, probing the network between cooking, consumption, technology, community, and softness.
Why? Lately, I've been interested in food as a metonym for cultures at large, and interrogating what we understand as "technology" v.s. "craft". Further documentation forthcoming!
Heat and Motion Sensitive Music Glove
📅 October 2023 | 👥 Charlotte Lamm, Chloe Sun, Yasemin Rees, Grace Kolosek
Arduino | C++ | RF/Wireless Communications | Max MSP
Built the tech stack for the glove, including soldering glove circuit (voltage-divided thermistor, 3-axis accelerometer, NRF24L01 RF transceiver), engineering RF communication and data packaging, programming both send/receive microcontrollers, hooking up Arduino to Max over serial, and building an endpoint in Max so my teammate could construct a responsive synth patch. Collaborated with team during ideation process in order to situate glove in speculative future, motivating and then executing technical project which then grounded extensive branding.
Why? Was extremely neat to build an electronic "instrument" and collaborate in an interdisciplinary team, especially since the resulting futuristic branding really added meaning and charm to the physical prototype.
Bruising Push Button
📅 September 2023 | 👥 Charlotte Lamm, Chloe Sun, Yasemin Rees, Grace Kolosek
Arduino | C++ | Physical Fabrication
Built the tech stack for the push button, crafting custom pressure-sensitive soft sensor with vellostat and conductive fabric, and engineering relay circuit for power-intensive heat pad. Collaborated to devise project narrative, and consulted on button fabrication techniques and materials.
Why? Honestly loved getting a little weird with it! They need to make more technology that's soft and squishy and includes fake tattoo skin.
Heartbeat Friend
📅 Februrary 2023 | 👥 Lauren Kung
Arduino | C++ | Sewing | Physical Fabrication
Stuffed animal with embedded intelligence built in 24 hours for TartanHacks 2023. Senses hug (flex sensor) and purrs (MP3 module, SD card reader) and beats heart (servo encased in foam) in response.
Why? Our little heartbeat friend was way more emotionally compelling than I thought it'd be! We originally planned for him to be a children's hospital helper, with long ears with temperature sensors that kids could put under their armpits if they were too scared to use a standard thermometer. We also hooked up an IR heartbeat sensor that we imagined would drive the stuffed animal's heartbeat, but we didn't have time to figure out the filtering in time for the final demo.
Blind-Accessible Digital Scale
📅 November 2021 — December 2021 | 👥 Julia Hou, John Hewitt
Arduino | C++ | Design Research | Physical Fabrication | Laser Cutting
Designed and built “talking scale” for our client, Justin. Interviewed Justin, talking through his needs and desires, and honed in on a specific need (weighing deer jerky) that we could help with. Outfitted Arduino-powered scale with braille labels, tactile scale bed border, and spoken interface.
Why? It was such an eye-opening experience to be able to collaborate with a blind person and get to understand the ins and outs of their life trying to work with products and the built environment that aren't designed for them. Definitely learned so much about what goes into accessible design, and what abled people take for granted.
Good Morning Poetry Alarm
📅 October 2021
Arduino | C++ | Physical Fabrication | Laser Cutting
Designed and fabricated device that senses the sound of an alarm and prints from a corpus of poetry to incentivize waking up.
Why? I knew I wanted to make something that motivated me to wake up, rather than punishing me for not waking up. I also loved the idea of holding little fragments of poetry in my hands first thing in the morning - real, physical artifacts, rather than words living on a screen.
Contemporary and Marginalized Poetics Workshop
📅 August 2023 — Present | 👥 Divyasri Krishnan
Creative Writing | Pedagogy | Course Design
Teach original course on marginalized poetics to dozens of students over two semesters. Foster one-on-one relationships and sense of community, encouraging creative growth in students. Craft semester-long narrative out of selected readings and assignment prompts.
Why? Creating and teaching this course has been super rewarding because I spend a lot of time facilitating not only students' creative maturity, but also personal introspection. I also just enjoy writing and reading poetry for fun, and would love to explore publishing one day.
Blogging
📅 Ongoing
Creative Writing
Blog about assorted life updates, media, project ideas, etc. on Substack. Notably, this essay on eggs won a 2022 Adamson Award for non-fiction. (The site is currently only viewable by request - however, I'm not that picky about access, so if I recognize your name I'll probably let you in!)
Why? Sometimes my thoughts don't feel finished or fully real until they're sitting on the page. Blogging over a long period of time also supplies a charming and only occasionally cringeworthy path down memory lane!!
Documentation for Physical Computing Cards
Engineering Through Music and Fashion Program
📅 June 2022 — August 2022
Arduino | Pedagogy | Course Design
Assist with teaching and course design for summer program on engineering through music and fashion, in collaboration with the Center that CARES.
Why? Being able to synthesize student interests with course objectives and modify the trajectory of the class as we went was a neat teaching experience! Learned the importance of losing my ego and being open to ideas just not landing and that being totally okay.
Wobbling Opulence
📅 November 2023 | 👥 Charlotte Lamm, Chloe Sun, Yasemin Rees, Grace Kolosek
Costume, Hair & Makeup, and Prop Design
Final Docmuentation | Final Video
Speculative Jell-O future articulated through a series of photographs and a music video. Collaborated with team to design costumes, hair & makeup, and dishes in alignment with a campy, gelatinous riff on the Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving dinner. Shoutouts to Chloe especially for doing an absolutely insane job with the video editing and direction of photography :)
Why? Charlotte was like, "What if we did a project on Jell-O?" And then we did a project on Jell-O.
Visual Design
📅 Ongoing
Photoshop | Procreate | Clip Studio Paint
A collection of some of my graphic designs, notably, various shirt designs, as well as a suite of branding for Scotch'n'Soda Theatre's Fall 2020 original student play, Behind Closed Doors (logo by Ellis Jones!)
Why? I've always had fun figuring out how to communicate visually in a way that's both effective and playful.
Sketches & Illustration
📅 Ongoing
Procreate | Clip Studio Paint | Graphite | Charcoal | Marker | Linocut | Copper Plate Etching | Watercolor | Pen | Colored Pencil
Assorted sketches and illustrations from over the years.
Why? I've been drawing ever since I was a kid; I feel like it's something of a superpower to be able to realize your mind's eye on the page.
