balbo_luigi
These are the final moments of our studies at the energy lab. Throughout these last few months, we have been able to work with different types of equipment, exploring many unique fields of science and technology.
Since I haven't been updating my weblog in the last few weeks, I am going to offer an extensive collection of pictures of what we have been involved with recently.
The following pictures offer a small insight on the work we have been doing in the last months.
Leap Motion sensor
The leap motion controller uses two IR sensors to track the motion of both the hands of the user. We used this device to control apps and devices such as Safari, Google Earth, various Leap games and different music programs. The leap controller is a phenomenal demonstration of how humans can build seamless physical interfaces to control and create in the digital world.
Room Acoustics Project
This project involves the study of the quality of room acoustics in different buildings of our school. With a dedicated program (Fuzz Measure), a omnidirectional microphone and a pair of speakers, I recorded the decay time of a loud sine wave sound and analyzed its frequency response. In a future entry, I will post a pdf describing the nature of the project.
Intro to electrical engineering
During the rainy days of late april, we explored the domain of electrical engineering and digital signal processing. Dr Bill introduced us to three different types of oscilloscopes: Analog (on the right) , LED (in the middle) and digital (analog discovery kit on the left). The Analog discovery kit was also able to synthesize different waveforms in addition to its integrated digital oscilloscope.
Apple and MacWorld.
On thursday afternoon, Bill and I had the pleasure to present at the Rapid Fire session at MacWorld. I showcased my EEG to MIDI project, describing the methods, the gear and the purpose of my research. Rapid Fire consists of different presentations that are rigorously exposed under 5 minutes. This year, a big LED screen was installed at the back of the speakers, displaying the 5 minute countdown. Once the time limit is elapsed, the speaker is forced to stop his presentation. At this year's session, speakers from all over the country shared advice, information and knowledge about many different topics, ranging from mobile productivity to humor and technology. During my brief presentation, I displayed from my computer the software that I used to generate waveforms with EEG technology.
The Talk was a great success, with a large number of people in the audience spectating the show. I had the opportunity to meet a professor from Berklee University who was working on similar projects in the field of music production and technology, and who turned out to come from the same place where I was born, in Italy. The atmosphere at MacWorld was magical and inspiring; the vastness of the expos and the large number of people coming in and out of Moscone north was overwhelming. This great opportunity for sharing knowledge, passion and formidable idea created a tangible feeling of excitement in all of us, Hpa students.
Friday was perhaps the day to look forward to the most on our calendar. After an early wake and a quick breafast, we drove to the Apple campus in the nearby city of Cupertino. This time, we found ourselves in front of the famous Infinite Loop 1 building, an elegant glass structure that hosts the executive headquarters of the company. The neat design and layout of the campus clearly depicted the philosophy of Apple products, a functional, pristine looking place where brilliants minds meet everyday. We had the pleasure to present our projects to a small audience of software engineers, educational representatives and organizers in a fantastic conference facility. At the end of the round of presentations, we had the opportunity to shop at the company store, where we bought exclusive merchandise (yay!!!).
On saturday, we rounded up our MacWorld experience with our Future Tech presentation. Bo, Hannah, Kenji, Leila, Erina and I presented our Energy Lab projects in a 20 minute per project format, showcasing media, hardware and software used in our projects. Fortunately, Hannah used the projector to display to the audience the hundreds of photo depicting us working on our projects. I was the last person to present, therefore concluding the conference. After a quick, engaging speech, I decided to show to the audience a video of a live demonstration of my project. The feedback of the public was fantastic; a final, loud round of applause concluded our session, therefore our MacWorld expedition. We did it. We went to Mel's and celebrated the end of our journey with a dozen of milkshakes.
This second yearly journey to MacWorld, for me, was an ulterior opportunity to learn, grow and become inspired by bright ideas. Even more then last year, the excitement of visiting these influential events has been fervent and never ending.
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