Nirzaree Vadgama https://embodied.mpi-inf.mpg.de/ | Nirzaree.wordpress.com

Research & Technical Projects Master Thesis April ’14-Ongoing

Embodied Interaction, MMCI Saarbrücken Dr. Jürgen Steimle

The work is at the intersection of Personal Fabrication

and deformable interfaces. We are developing sensor designs that can be printed and can sense

deformations like bending in one and two

dimensions. We leverage conductive inkjet printing for developing the sensor designs and aim towards

designing the most minimal patterns for deformation sensing. (to be published)

Proximity based wireless communication applications Jan 2014 EMECS-Thon Competition, University of Kaiserslautern

We developed wireless voting system through Bluetooth as an application

case for instant feedback systems based on proximity. Along with that we developed a framework for sensors in home scenarios to communicate

with remote users through a web interface and mobile application. The project was part of a 48 hour hackathon conducted at the University

of Kaiserslautern. Our team won the “Best Internet of Things Application”

award. A video of the demo can be found here.

Capacitive Sensing Board for activity recognition Oct ’13 – April ‘14 Embedded Intelligence, DFKI Kaiserslautern Dr. Jingyuan Cheng

Developed a circuit board for a 4 channel capacitive sensing circuit. The work was part of a project on wearable sensors for activity recognition. The particular board was designed for wearing as a wristband or neckband.

Intelligent gaming interface for children with learning disabilities July ‘10- April ‘11 Bachelor Thesis, National Institute of Technology, Surat Prof. Anand Darji

We designed and implemented a gaming interface for children with dyscalculia (a kind of learning disability related to

mathematics) for learning of mathematics through questions

embedded in games. The idea was to design games to motivate the kids for solving different mathematical tasks which might be

mundane to them through plain paper media. The type of the game to be played next would be decided based on different

parameters including the EEG feedback recorded while game

playing. We collected EEG data of control subjects for different tasks

including various calculation tasks (addition, subtraction, multiplication, division) along with simply memory retrieval tasks.

We wanted to know how different people did simple mathematical tasks, by computing each time or via memory

retrieval. Depending on the way a person performed them, we

aimed to inculcate relevant feedback mechanism for improving their skills. A not too updated project site here

Implementation of Gossip algorithm for time synchronization May 2010-July 2010

Indian Institute of Science (IISc.),Bangalore, India Prof. Rajesh Sundaresan

As a summer research intern, the work included implementation of gossip

algorithm for achieving a higher order of time synchronization among wireless sensor nodes. The network of sensor nodes was to be deployed for intruder

detection and tracking. With time lapse, sensor nodes tend to lose time synchronization with each other due to crystal defects and other environmental

factors and subsequently need correction. The hardware platform included PIR sensors for sensing motion, telosB nodes for

processing and wireless communication. The operating system on the nodes was

TinyOS, and the programming language nesC.

Swarm Robotics competition Sep ‘09-Jan ‘10

Techfest 2010, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

We participated in an International Swarm Robotics

competition held during Techfest 2010 at IIT, Bombay. The task was building two autonomous robots that can navigate

through an 8x8 grid, search for white blocks kept randomly on some of the junctions and deposit them at defined locations

cooperatively.

We decided to make the bots as minimalist as possible, in terms of design. For pick & place mechanism, we carved a slot

on the chassis itself for the box to fit, eliminating need of any motor driven. Line sensing & proximity sensing was done by

Infrared sensors. SunSPOT was used for wireless

communication. Our team was among the national finalists for the event.

A demo of the bots running in the arena and doing the tasks can be found here.

Transmission Nov ‘08- Jan ‘09

Techfest 2009, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

We built a radio direction finder in the range of 144-146 MHz range, and participated in competition named Transmission, held during Techfest

in 2009 at IIT, Bombay.

It was a kind of fox finding competition (transmitter hunt). There were 3

transmitters kept at different locations emitting Morse code at different carrier frequencies. The location of the next transmitter was to be found

by decoding the Morse code being transmitted by the previous transmitter. We made a receiver and a yagi antenna.

Our team was among the 7 final teams out of 40 short listed teams.

Robotic testbeds December 2009-January 2010

Indian Institute of Science (IISc.), Bangalore, India Prof. Debasish Ghose

As a research intern, the work involved integrating hardware

platforms for testing of GSO (Glow-worm Swarm Optimization) algorithms. The work was done at Guidance Control and Decision

Systems Laboratory (GCDSL) within Aerospace Department, Indian Institute of Science Bangalore.

GramHAAT - An E-commerce Interface for Village Producers July 2008-March 2009

Microsoft Imagine Cup 2008

Project gramHAAT (gram – ‘village’ & haat-‘market’ in Hindi) aimed at providing efficient communication

between rural producers and end urban customers, eliminating long chain of intermediate entities.

Our project (Team: FORCE INDIA) was selected for the

preliminary rounds in the software design and national round in Design for Development Award categories.

Maidens Reincarnations, all-terrain vehicle design competition Oct 2007

Autofest 2007, National Institute of Technology Surat

This project at the beginning of undergraduate studies was our first step towards building a movable machine. The competition

involved making a manually controlled all-terrain vehicle. The terrain that the machine must run through included mud,

water, bridge, marbles, heap of tiles pieces, pits and elevations.

Our machine was made with tin sheets and ran on dc motors.

Our team stood 3rd out of 137 participating teams.

Interaction Design

Some conceptual designs for communication infrastructure in different scenarios, based on proximity. (from left) (i)Example of an instant feedback system, (ii) example of a network which provides aid in shopping in a scenario

consisting of several retailers selling similar products

Outreach

Workshop for school children “Introduction to Arduino + Problem Solving” April 28-29 2012

We conducted a two days’ workshop for school children for an introduction to prototyping through basic electronics and Arduino

platform.

We started with discussions of current technologies followed by sessions on basic electronics and developing interactive prototypes with different

sensors and displays. The final session included discussing ideas for

future technologies. Sketches of those ideas including details of the developed prototypes can be found here.

First Lego League Competition Nov ’11 – Jan ‘12

S.N. Kansagra School, Rajkot

Mentored school students for First Lego League (FLL), a competition held in collaboration between FIRST and LEGO group, aiming to interest school

students in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Our team got the 2nd prize in the country, in the category of ‘Best Design’.

Essays & Travelogues

[Links to complete posts at the respective titles]

Let’s switch our jobs

The essay describes an idea of multiplexing jobs

from time to time. Motivation behind it is that we tend to experience a very little fraction of life

through our regular jobs which we might

continue for our entire careers. The proposal is of a mechanism for switching work to allow us to

do something different, maybe even at a different location to gain a new perspective

towards our work, discard any pride or eccentricities that might have been accumulated

through a monotone schedule, to revel the

diversity around and thus experience life in more dimensions.

Neuroscience

A compilation of interesting research in the area of neuroscience lot of which

we came across during summer schools and guest talks attended while working on Bachelor thesis. The schools were focused on systems & computational

neuroscience and had talks & sessions from various researchers working in those areas.

30c3 Hamburg

A post about the organization and interesting talks at the 30th annual meet of Chaos clubs at Hamburg,

Germany. Chaos Clubs are hackerspaces located across Europe and they held an annual congress with lectures

and assembly sessions on different areas of science and

technology.

Vigyan Ashram, Pune

Visit to a different kind of school named Vigyan Ashram located in the outskirts of Pune, India. The school

emphasizes on learning of different skills as part of the academics. A place for holistic education where students

work on different areas such as farming, food

processing along with technical training and also gain entrepreneurship experience by catering to the

problems within the locality through the skills they learn at school.

Toy Lab, IUCAA, Pune Visited a group that works on making toys out of backyard materials for understanding

different concepts of science. They make short how-to videos in different regional languages for teaching the toy making process. They work with lots of schools in different parts of the country.

Venice

A memoir about the different glassblowing techniques we saw in Venice.

Printing Expo, Strasbourg

An account of the demonstrations during Gutenberg ’14, a printing exhibition held at Strasbourg, the place where the

first movable type printing press was developed. The

event involved hands-on sessions & demonstrations of different printing techniques from lithography to modern

digital printing techniques.

DIY/Hobby projects

Interactive Wall piece

I have always liked the idea of an Interactive wall. This project

was a tiny implementation of the concept. With some foil + foam along with LEDs, built an interactive wallpiece that light

up the area that you touch.

Helping Hand

Built a third hand to help hold pcbs while soldering. It is made using coolant

hose pipes and is highly flexible.

Laptop Cooling stands

Made some cooling stands for laptop with

woodworking. With each new design, the goal was to make it simple in design, light weight and

easy to carry.

Acrylic displays With engraving on acrylic made some edge lit displays.

Temperature Sensor

Developed a mini weather monitoring unit for home, using Arduino + LM35 Temperature sensor IC.

Arts

Classical training in vocal singing in Hindustani Music for 5 years. Received gold medal at the end of Upantya Visharad

(5th year of training) for highest distinction in vocal singing. Junior artist for light music at the All India Radio.