Impactful Projects
PANICAM
Designed for the realities of life in an urban setting, PaniCam is a wearable device hidden on the back of one's collar which helps the wearer safely journey home at night. Using a modular design that can be fitted to any jacket-like item of clothing, PaniCam contains a camera, a Piezo speaker and an alarm light system (neo-pixel light strips), helping the wearer feel secure by capturing video footage of a potential assailant, while emitting light and sound in order to scare the assailant away. PaniCam is contained within the collar of the wearer's jacket, and is activated as soon as the wearer feels like she or he is in a potentially dangerous situation. To activate this system, the user just needs to lift their collar, a subtle motion, which activates the camera and records the potential assailant and environment behind the wearer. Should the assailant make a move, the wearer can activate an audible and visual alarm via a small capacitive touch button located on the front tip of their collar. Discrete and subtle, PaniCam is a new, wearable solution to combat the dangerous realties of walking alone at night.
Learn how to make your own PaniCam and watch the product in action here!
Berkeley faculty nominated PaniCam to appear Made at Berkeley’s 2019 edition.
LINKCUP
The red Solo cup is a hallmark of American parties and our team wanted to find a way to use this symbolic item as way to communicate with friends at a party in a non-verbal way.
Many times, we have felt trapped in uncomfortable situations at parties, wishing our friends would save us. Other times, we have met incredible people or have had great conversations and again, wished our friends would join us.
For these situations, we designed the LinkCup, a pair of Bluetooth enabled cups, which communicate visual and vibratory signals to each other. All the user needs to do is long press the button on their cup to trigger a silent, vibrating motor in their friend’s cup signaling they need help. Alternatively, to invite a friend to join a conversation, a short press on the LinkCup will illuminate LEDs on their friend’s cup, signaling an invitation.
Part of the reason we’ve built this was to enable people to comfortably exit an uncomfortable situation while using an existing party object. Rather than pull out their phones to text their friends in these situations, party goers can now use the LinkCup to communicate to their network of friends at the party with the touch of a button.
HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF MUSIC
Sam Meyer and I developed, designed, and built an interactive orchestra pit titled, "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Music". The “Chamber” is constructed as a floor mat shaped like an orchestra pit and is divided into five sections: strings, brass, bass, percussion, and woodwinds. Each section is a pressure-sensitive switch and the total size of the mat is 8’ x 6’. Standing in any one area would play that section's part of the Harry Potter theme song, "Harry's Wondrous World". If enough people stand on the mat, the entire orchestra would play the theme song in unison.
The orchestra pit in action can be found here and further details regarding the the engineering can be found here.