This page contains a sample of fun projects I have contributed to over the course of my time as a roboticist. Hope you can also see the “fun” in it.

An Eye-gaze Controlled Wheelchair

Something I quickly learned from reading into electronic wheelchairs is that not all users can handle a wheelchair with a standard joystick. Many people with disability do not always possess the cognitive or motor capacity required for safe control. As a result, I helped put together a non-invasive, eye-gaze controlled wheelchair as a hands-free solution.

With only a user-facing camera (e.g., the laptop’s webcam), a person in the wheelchair can have their eye gaze direction estimated and then converted into appropriate motor signals.

EasyBreathe

Elevated stress levels are a common and often untreated medical condition experienced by millions of people worldwide — particularly true for students taking exams. During one of my undergraduate projects on Mobile Healthcare & Machine Learning, my group and I tackled this problem. We developed EasyBreathe, a mobile application that could detect acute stress levels in university students and apply therapeutic methods for stress reduction.

I was responsible for developing the machine learning component to recognize elevated stress levels. Fortunately, we had a lot of data available thanks to the perpetual state of students taking exams…

HealthBud

Offering expert medical rehabilitation to elderly patients on a routine basis is a growing challenge for modern healthcare. This is particularly true in the face of an aging population. In another undergraduate project, my group and I introduced HealthBud as a possible solution to this challenge. HealthBud is an autonomous NAO humanoid robot that assists elderly patients with their rehabilitation program.

Rehabilitation and social companion bots hold great promise for the future of healthcare.