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WallTap

Control your room and computer with a sensor so intuitive, you can use it in your sleep!

Sean Zhu

https://szhu.github.io/itp-blog/files/2020-09-pcomp/week-13/1_project_3/process/IMG_9117.opt.mp4

Description

Control your room and computer with a sensor so intuitive, you can use it in your sleep!

WallTap is a wired capacitive touch sensor that is easily mountable on any wall, or any other fixed surface. It has a huge surface area gives the user a very easy-to-reach control that can be programmed to do anything they want, and is something that they can activate without looking at a display — or at anything at all!

The current prototype must be attached to a computer and all touch actions must be initiated from the computer. The eventual goal would be for the device to be able flip switches, and to communicate with smart home devices. But even with the current limitations, WallTap has completely changed my bedtime experience, allowing me to control my music and turn off my “lights” without getting up, or worse, starting at a brightly-lit display.

WallTap has a secondary goal. The modern concept of smart home devices has become entangled with the concepts of luxurious pricing, wireless connectivity, and online accounts. With WallTap we attempt to buck these trends by creating “dumb smart home device” that is just as functional, without concerns of price, interference, or privacy.

IMNY-UT.103.001
Quick Introduction to Physical Computing
Tool\Service,Accessible
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BankHeist

Pulling off a “Bank Heist” remotely by signing in real-time

Jason Tse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OJlWO6G2lc

Description

BankHeist is a network interface that makes remote signing possible. Imagine you are in a situation that requires you to sign a physical document overseas, possibly for banking or legal purposes, but your tight schedule or cost of travel restricts you from leaving your current location. Especially during a pandemic, it becomes impossible to travel abroad to finish such a task in a safe fashion.

This is where BankHeist comes into play. By gathering the signer and the receiver in the same secure virtual signing room, utilizing Socket.io and Crypto.js, the digital signature/strokes on the signer end will be transferred to the receiver's end. Once the receiver's computer receives the signature data, it will be translated into serial commands which then drives the AxiDraw machine over a USB connection, to essentially turn the digital signals into a physical signature on a piece of paper. When the signing session is being conducted, the receiver and signer will be connected with a video conference call (e.g. Zoom) to prove their physical presents while the signature is being sent over the internet. Not only it eliminates the physical distance restriction, but it also adds an extra layer of security to the entire signature process. It is far more secure than digital signature solutions available in the market, for instance, “DocuSign”, where users can easily replicate a signature, or sign for another person if they have access to the signer's computer.

ITPG-GT.2808.001
Understanding Networks
Tool\\\\Service,Privacy/Security
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Text2Video

Text2Video is a software tool that converts text to video for a more engaging learning experience.

Zack Lee

https://vimeo.com/489223504

Description

Text2Video is a software tool that converts text to video for a more engaging learning experience.

I started this project because during this semester, I have been given many reading assignments and I felt frustration in reading long text. For me, it was very time and energy consuming to learn something through reading. So I imagined, “What if there was a tool that turns text into something more engaging such as a video, wouldn't it improve my learning experience?”

I did some research and found a number of articles and studies supporting that videos can be more effective in learning than text for many people including the following data:

– The human brain can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.

– Viewers retain 95% of a video’s message compared to 10% when reading text.

– 65% of people consider themselves to be visual learners.

I created a prototype web application that takes text as an input and generates a video as an output.

I plan to further work on the project targeting young college students who are aged between 18 to 23 because they tend to prefer learning through videos over books based on the survey I found.

The technologies I used for the project are HTML, CSS, Javascript, Node.js, CCapture.js, ffmpegserver.js, Amazon Polly, Python, Flask, gevent, spaCy, and Pixabay API.

Application link: https://text-to-video.herokuapp.com/

Demo Video: https://vimeo.com/489223504

Github repository: https://github.com/cuinjune/text2video

ITPG-GT.2988.001, ITPG-GT.2075.001, ITPG-GT.2778.00001
Hello, Computer: Unconventional Uses of Voice Technology , Imagination and Distributed Learning (Online), Reading and Writing Electronic Text (Online)
Education,Tool\Service