Research

Interactive Product Design at Georgia Tech

As a Master of Industrial Design student at Georgia Tech, I am a member of the CodeCraft Group and work on the RadioCrafters project. I serve as a facilitator for workshops and help middle school students create interactive models using Microbits and traditional craft materials.

I was also a mentor at the Interactive Product Design Lab, where I supported lab operations and advised students on creating interactive products for their studio classes.

Design History and Theory Research

Senior Honors Thesis – November 2021

“Design Practice in Support of Capitalism: Industrial Design and Cold War Consumer Politics”

Designs produced in the United States and other countries are influenced by international factors, such as economics, trade, and politics. American capitalism operates on the basis of consumer spending, which can promote innovation and design initiative in industry.

I decided to study international design trends by returning to Cold War history. The United States emerged post-WWII as the design and manufacturing leader of consumer goods with their mid-century modern styles and methods of innovation. American foreign policy experts decided to show these excellent examples of American design at United States international exhibitions all over the world to promote capitalism over communism.

I pursued this topic as a Senior Honors Thesis that I defended in Fall 2021. See this post for my academic journey on this topic.

Honors College Graduation Banquet, May 2022

Publication and News

The thesis as published by the University of Houston libraries:
https://hdl.handle.net/10657/10505

The thesis was awarded Outstanding Senior Honors Thesis by the Honors College at the University of Houston. This article shared by the UH College of Architecture and Design provides a brief overview:
https://coadstories.uh.edu/industrial-design-student-wins-2022-outstanding-thesis-award/

3D-Printed Prosthesis Design

University of Houston Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) 2021

I participated in the SURF program in summer 2021 to conduct design research on hand prosthetics. I worked with my research mentor Professor Jeff Feng to create functional fingers for a hand amputee patient living in Houston as part of an ongoing project.

3D-Printed Hand Prosthesis Design – Undergraduate Research day Poster

Virtual Reality (VR) Research Internship

I was involved in a research project exploring spatial navigation in virtual reality (VR). We explored the idea of creating an avatar-based interface to guide users as they teleport in VR and help them become less disoriented.

This research was sponsored by the National Science Foundation: Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Program at Iowa State University – Virtual Reality Applications Center.

Partially Concordant Teleportation involves moving your body and choosing a spot in front of you to teleport.
Discordant Teleportation involves standing forward and placing a marker in the position and direction you want to face when you teleport.

Triangle Completion Task

We tested our participants’ spatial navigation abilities using a triangle completion task. They would teleport to two vertices of a triangle, and then point back to where they think they started.

We tested our participants using the triangle completion test in four different interfaces. The 2×2 experimental design included the variables with/without the avatar interfaces, and partially concordant or discordant interfaces.

See what the interfaces looked like in the headset:

For a detailed explanation, see my research presentation video on YouTube.

Reducing Disorientation in Teleportation – Undergraduate Research Day Poster.