gesture enabled speaker

I was embedded in Google ATAP for two months as the Harman X Project Lead, tasked with creating the Gesture-enabled audio device with visible feedback, shown at Google I/O 2016.

Ivan Poupyrev, Head of Soli at Google ATAP, initiated several possible collaborations/demos to be potentially shown at Google I/O, given that they could pass through the team’s first gate and be personally approved by Ivan. As a result of the initial experience prototype I created that leveraged simulated “Soli gesture signals” piped into an Intel Edison running C++ code I created to control light an sound on a hacked JBL speaker, the project was given the green light.

For the following two months my contributions included:

• Creating software (Open Frameworks) to test potential interaction design methods (gestures, visual feedback, auditory feedback, etc.)

• Extending the backend I created on the Intel Edison for the initial Experience Prototype (keeping the same software architecture) to incorporate the full feature set

• Contribution to interaction design (i.e., what gestures, what use cases)

• Assisting with the prototyping and iteration of training machine learning models for radar-based gestures, including material placement, and hand movements

• Design feedback on industrial design, including grill patterns, material choice, color choice, etc.