Jordan Horwich

YALE — Myo Home is an open-source project developed with Imran Jameel that provides a natural user interface for controlling smart home devices. Existing smart home devices require taking out your phone to turn on or off the lights. Our goal was to design an interface that was as effortless and intuitive to use as a light switch. Using the Thalmic Myo, we created an interface that requires only small hand and arm gestures to use. For some interactions we used gestures for control, such as turning the lights on or off with hand gestures. In other interactions we used physical interface skeuomorphism, such as controlling the volume of music by mimicking turning a volume knob.

RUTGERS — Tripping Wookie is an open-source project developed with Brian Sheedy that provides a natural user interface using only your device's built in camera. Technologies like the Microsoft Kinect, Leap Motion, and Thalmic Myo are rapidly increasing the adoption of natural user interfaces. However, their proprietary and expensive hardware will prevent their widespread adoption. Front facing cameras are already included in most laptops and phones. With Tripping Wookie's object tracking and gesture recognition we were able to play 2048 and browse maps with natural hand gestures.

RPI — Sign Sight was an experiment in efficient detection of traffic signs for cars. Traditional traffic sign detection requires processing the entire image. Sign Sight relies on the retroreflective property of street signs and a strobe light placed near the camera to highlight areas of high sign probability. This enables more reliable detection of previously unseen signs and makes common sign detection more efficient.