Motherboard Walls
Our final contribution to the lab space was a three-month endeavor. It started after Aubrey and I built a motherboard collage to hang above my desk. Scott Hudson liked it so much, he asked us to produce several more for his lab (where a lot of electronics fabrication occurs). This kicked off a month-long motherboard buying extravaganza. By December, I had amassed about 150 lbs worth.

Chandelier
In a continuing quest to personalize our lab space, Aubrey and I set out to make things more homely with, well, a homemade light fixture. We found a nice chandelier on freecycle and spray painted over the brass with a sleek matte black. We took the covers and paper mached over the clear glass in two layers - first white, then red (dyed) on the bottom.

Ambient Globes
In an effort to decorate our lab space, Aubrey and I set out to create a fun ambient display. Each globe has a different lighting scheme and intended function. Red/Green for volume of unread emails, red/blue for outdoor temperature, and blue/yellow for time of day.

Virtual Marionette
Over the Spring 2006 semester, I worked with Lee Thompson and Andrew Chizhik to built a virtual marionette. There were two custom components in our system: the physical marionette controller and the software to animate the virtual puppet. Ultimately, the setup could be used for a collaborative, remote, virtual puppet show. Several users, each with their own controller, could direct a cast of puppets.

NewsGlobe
A RSS-powered, geo-located news reader. Many news sources prefix their stories with the location where the report was issued, for example "HONK KONG" or "LONDON." This is parsed out of the RSS feed and compared to a database of cities and countries. Once a match is found, latitude and longitude data is used to plot the story's location on the globe.

Abstract Physical Interfaces
I wanted to create a virtual puppet. The twist was that the creature did not move like a human, or perhaps not like anything on Earth. I wanted users to feel like a baby learning to walk for the first time.

Fun With Charges
The goal was to develop a simulation of "tiny things" for an exhibit at the New York Hall of Science. This was chosen because of the difficulty in building physical experiments that retain the properties of small objects, but allow user interaction (things like molecules or DNA). These obstacles were removed using a sophisticated, interactive projection system.

Ceramics
I started ceramics in high school and took it up again in university. I no longer have access to a studio, so for now, the hobby is on hold.

Motherboard Wall Project
I had wanted to fill a huge void on my wall, above my computer, for some time. I hunted around for some geeky posters, like one showing the structure of the internet or the java classes, but they were either impossible to get or expensive. A few months earlier, I had seen a large prototype motherboard mounted on a wall at my university, which looked really neat. I figured I could duplicate the look and make a really unique art piece for my room.

Trebuchet Project
The chainmail hauberk was finished, but my desire for medieval projects was not. During the beginning of summer 2002, I started researching about medieval siege engines. Siege engines were used to pulverize castle walls into rubble. One of the most popular and effective designs was the trebuchet.

Chainmail Project
Following an interest in medieval Europe, I decided to start work on a chainmail shirt. I chose chainmail over other types of armor because of its relative simplicity. It didn't require special tools or skills, just lots of time. The primary unit of chainmail is a single ring. After reading a little online, I figured out how to make them.

Meteor Run
I set out to make my first truly graphical C++ program. I wanted to use SDL, as it had good graphics routines and wasn't too difficult to get started with. A week or two of tinkering yielded a robust sprite class, and this program, which I think is pretty cool.

"Laptop-In-Car" (LIC)
A project undertaken to boost my electrical engineering understanding during free time (during charges) at Curtis during 2001 summer. The project is to build an adapter that allows me to run my old PowerBook 140 (built 1991) in my car off the car battery. The cars battery ranges from 11-15V while the laptop requires 7.5V.

AP Biology Ameba RPG
I needed some extra credit in AP Biology, so when there was an opportunity to make a game (e.g. board game) that taught students biology, I jumped on my computer and started coding. I luckily recycled much of the engine from Sandak, but ended up adding a number of new features. It's not really a full project, but represented quite a time investment by completion.

Sandak Text Adventure RPG
Sandak was a text based role playing game I am worked on in high school. The game engine was pretty much feature complete, but over half the maps were never finished and the story, although developed, was never added to the game. It seemed sad to abandon it with only easy stuff remaining, but my interest waned as the challenge evaporated.