This is my Engineering Day.

Today, Friday April 26, 2019, ideas university wide came alive. From Virtual Reality (VR) Technology for balance training to American Sign Language (ASL) Image Analysis to Electric Wheelchair controlled via a headgear, this was one of the proudest moments that I have had, not only for myself but also for my fellow students. This day made all of the research, work, blood, sweat, tears, sleepless nights, and stressful moments all worth it.

The Capstone Project

I am proud to say that even if my team did not win the competition, we have done our best to present and implement our final design of the project. This project is called Sway: A Multimodal Biofeedback System for Dance Training.

The Team and Sway

To simplify, Sway consists of three different components which help dancers, and in the future, any athletes in any sports requiring balance and proper form, achieve their ultimate form to prevent any injuries to the body. The first element of sway is the foot plantar pressure mat which collects the pressure from the plantar of the foot and displays a distribution map on the Graphical User Interface (GUI). In addition to the pressure mapping, a vibrotactile belt was designed to help keep proper posture by motors vibrating in four different areas. And lastly, a pose detection camera which uses machine learning completes the project. The pose detection camera offers the visual feedback that can help dancers with joint alignment and positioning of their limbs.

I was responsible for creating the hardware for the pressure mat as well as coding the micro controllers for both the mat and vibrotactile belt. To summarize this, I have to create a mat system is which pressure (which can be change in resistance, voltage, or current) can be collected as an analog signal and then converted into a matrix of digital integers. With the belt, I had to program the micro controller to receive the angle of tilt and according to the experimental threshold, the motor or motors attach to the belt will vibrate according to the tilt of the user.

You know when some say that they put their blood, sweat, and tears towards their work? I can honestly say that this is the case for me. Why? Let me start with tears. Tears started with research, then it moved on to second guessing my ability to create something from nothing, then there was the frustration of a non-working prototype and lastly, the non-stop noise interference coming from power lines and of course, some unknown source. Sweat - due to the project involving dance training and a problematic signal delay, I have done countless yoga and ballet static poses and endured having to keep the position for a long time. Finally, blood. There really wasn't any blood but I did get an injury. I dislocated my knee one weekend while working on the project in the lab.

Nevertheless, I grew as engineer during this process. I learned a whole lot about idea collaboration, innovation, communication, conflict resolution, teamwork, and time management. A well deserved shout out to my partners, Sabrina and Kundana. I would not have done it without them and they are the best teammates anyone could have asked for.

P.S. Don't hesitate to contact me for the detailed information on the project.

The Celebration That Came After

The Biomedical Engineer Graduates of 2019

This beautiful group of people created a lifetime of memories with me. I wish them all the best and I wish them all luck in their future endeavours.