Reverse Choreography

Responsibilities:

Reverse Choreography is a personal project I started during COVID-19 quarantine which combined my passion for engineering with my passion for dance. The original design had 2 components- a software and hardware side. The software detects the movement of limbs and calculates certain values or notes to play. The hardware side consists of an LED cube that lights up depending on the notes played. Putting both together they could produce "music" and a mini light show based on body movement. Since it was built at home with little physical resources, it was more of a proof of concept.

 

However, from 2021-2022, I was able to pitch and lead this project as a project manager through USC Makers to build a more fleshed out version. The final product was made through a team of 12, and involves more visual effects than hardware lights through a program called TouchDesigner. The motion detection code was also upgraded, and instead of producing music, an ML model was trained to produce Spotify playlist recommendations off the movement instead.

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Responsibilities:

• Developing C++ code with OpenPose library in Microsoft VSCode to detect body movement and motion tracking.

• Linking and calculating values based on motion tracking deltas to correspond with playing certain notes/frequencies on a synthesizer.

• Using serial communications to send the same values to an 8x8x8 LED cube that lights up based on values and notes.

• Created miniature 4x4x4 LED Cube as a proof of concept for the 8x8x8 design.

• Assembly and creation of the 8x8x8 LED Cube including building/soldering the circuit and a theoretical PCB design in Eagle.

• Writing the firmware for the LED cubes via bare-metal Arduino programming in C language.

• Managed a multidisciplinary engineering team of 12 to produce "Reverse Choreography" and present project at annual Maker's showcase to industry partners, university faculty, and public audience.