My senior-year, self-sponsored capstone project. Our group of four came up with the concept and it was such an incredible experience bringing it to life. We were not able to demo our final installation in Spring 2020 due to COVID-19, but we are looking for exhibition opportunities for Fall 2020!

Performing online searches, liking photos, swiping through feeds—it's easy to generate digital data as a byproduct of your activity. How do you feel about entities collecting and using this data?

Afterimage creates art using your data and other people's data. As you move around, Afterimage allows you to create unique pieces of artwork with three sets of movement data: your own (1), the past user's (2), and the past 25 users' (3). At the end of the experience, you can view and photograph the artwork you made. Your data is stored for the next 25 users to make art with (and then deleted afterwards), in the same way you used past users' data to create your art.

By drawing attention to the generation, collection, and usage of data, Afterimage encourages reflection on your relationship with your data. How does it feel to use others' data and to know yours will be used in the same way? In what contexts is collecting data about you acceptable? Giving and using data, in this installation, allows you to create art and connect with past people's data. So, can sharing your data be a good thing?

Built with a Kinect, Processing, and SQLite.

Before my APM internship, I was playing around with AR filters and made one called "phones are friends". It's a "which one are you"-type Instagram filter that gives the user a phrase that I thought might sound nice coming from a friend, but sound a little less comforting coming from a phone.

I'm interested in how much my phone knows about me, what it's trying to learn about me, and what relationship my phone wants to have with me. Are we friends? Colleagues? Is my phone a resource; am I the resource? My phone knows so much about me. How much do I really know about my phone? What relationship am I comfortable having with my phone, and how much say do I have in it?

Why did I mention that this work was done before my APM internship? After making the AR filter, I had plans to dive deeper into my relationship with my phone. However, before acting on those plans, I found out that I'd be interning on Google Assistant on Mobile for the summer! The universe works in funny ways sometimes. I decided to step away from this project to focus on my internship and to approach the phone-user relationship as an APM intern. Being placed on Mobile Assistant feels serendipitous--here's the original phone wallpaper I made that inspired the AR filter:

From March to May 2020, I spent a lot more time with my laptop than usual. I realized my laptop fan, when whirring, reminds me of the ocean. That thought made me feel closer to this machine that I spend so much of my time with.

Can you tell the difference between the sounds, or are you closer to ocean sounds than you might think?

Thinking about my laptop as a source of ocean sounds gave me comfort. Contrastingly, during the same month I built this project, I routinely heard a room wall shake in a way that reminded me of how my phone shakes when it receives things through AirDrop, and that made me feel uneasy. Why was this real-world wall reminding me of a phone vibration pattern? Why wasn't that the other way around, and why am I more comfortable with the idea of my laptop sounding like the ocean than the ocean sounding like my laptop?

Ocean sounds were obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com. Fan sounds were obtained from my laptop. Some laptop clips were transposed slightly for more variance in sounds.

I was walking towards the subway one day on my way to work, thinking about online posts I’d seen imploring people to not use social media as their diary. But—so what if I did? How would it feel? Who would notice?

For one month, I journalled by changing my private Instagram account’s bio and screenshotting it. No one noticed—at least, no one noticed and brought it up with me. I then took all the screenshots and compiled them together in a handmade book. Here are some other things I took away from the experience:

• It felt like I had my own pocket of the Internet. People didn’t get notifications about me changing my bio, so they wouldn’t know I’d updated anything unless they went out of their way to check.
• There were things I felt that I couldn’t say in this “diary”. My bios were curated, as they’d been seen by friends, bots, and more. However, the character limit was the larger limiting factor. I felt like I had to share meaningful content with the space I had. Even on Twitter, people can create threads for longer-form content!
• I definitely have an idea of what an Instagram bio “should” look like and these diary entries were not it. I was self-conscious about my bio when people followed me that month. What would they think of me?
• I think I was changing my bio a lot more than the average Instagram user. Other actions seemed more optimized. For example, while on the subway, my feed would load just fine, but I was often unable to update my bio at all.
• At some point during this project, Instagram switched profile layouts on me. Did I join a new experimental cohort or did I leave it?

Maybe all of those bio changes were captured and archived online, a personal diary of mine floating around somewhere on the Internet. But I think I knew that might happen and that affected the way I approached my "diary entries". This feeling that I am being watched by web crawlers even affected the way I approached my online documentation of the project--there are some entries that feel a little more personal to me that I'm choosing not to share here. In any case, at least I know I have my own, personal archive that sits on my bookshelf, and I know exactly what that contains.

Check out sendit here!

I realized that a laptop held upside down has the same format of a card where text is written on the bottom panel (barring weight distribution that implies laptops aren't meant to be held/opened upside down...). sendit plays with this and invites you to explore how you feel about giving/receiving physical cards vs. digital cards. What's the gap to you? Is there one?

sendit was intentionally designed to store no data. The source code can be viewed on my GitHub.

Some main points I was thinking about while building sendit:

• I really enjoy writing cards for people. It feels very different writing cards vs. e-cards vs. heartfelt text messages to people. Where does sendit lie within this?
• Is it at all comforting knowing that no data is stored by sendit? Is it something that people want to verify for themselves before sending cards?
• The codes used to send cards to people are not overly sophisticated: letters and numbers are shifted linearly. Does that matter when sending a code/card to people? Are the elements of surprise and anticipation preserved?

Check out the digital pillar here!

I painted a pillar online and offline to explore the idea of viewing perspective in different realms.

The design is inspired by the 11th UN Sustainable Development Goal: Sustainable Cities and Communities. A whimsical take on the role of nature in cities and communities, the piece plays with the relative sizes between natural elements and city infrastructure, and draws connections between them all.

The piece uses perspective to draw attention to how we think about nature with respect to the city. Is it possible to wind bus routes, cell towers, and buildings around greenspace instead of the other way around? The doodle-like style suggests an organic relationship between the built and natural world, while the constellation-like dots in the background highlight the connections between everything in the piece.

The physical pillar has concrete coordinates to it. Does the digital pillar have the same kind of presence? What corner of the web does it occupy?

The "in this classroom" domain has expired but it lives on here :)

In fourth year, I took MATH 318 (Probability with Physical Applications). It was a M/W/F class in BUCH A201. Throughout the day, people in that same lecture hall learned about infancy, linear programming, Canadian society, forensic psychology, and more. “in this classroom” aimed to celebrate this diversity in topics being taught and learned concurrently in schools—often in the same spaces.

Temporary chalkboard/whiteboard drawings were installed in classrooms to highlight a few things that students were learning in that space. The drawings remained up in the classroom for a short period of time, but were documented online, in the ephemeral yet lasting and impactful spirit of classes/lectures.

I worked with my dear friend Serena on this project. We interviewed numerous people to learn more about the classes they taught. I sent out so many emails asking for permission to use the chalkboards and to ensure that they wouldn't be erased! So much coordination went into "in this classroom" because there was so much going on in the room.

I learned a lot from doing this project. Some key takeaways:

• people are learning so many different things! There are things I didn't even know I could learn about in a formal setting!
• cold emails can be scary, but you never know what might happen
• it is logistically challenging to get consent to continually use a space that's used by over a dozen different classes
• passion projects are fun. This project was a huge source of joy the whole term. It felt like I was doing something for myself, and I got to do it with a friend! I'm so grateful.

I was asked if I wanted to paint a mural in front of the lab where second-years in my program build robots, and of course I said yes! This was the start of my first mural (and my first time painting a wall in general, for that matter).

The robot-building summer is full of growth. There's so much to learn and do in so little time, and with great mentorship and a supportive community, this builds a spirit of trying, iterating, and sharing. "This Just Might Work" was inspired by this hopeful feeling that I got to experience for a summer, and features some familiar objects and things you may find in the lab. My own robot also makes a cameo!

I learned a lot about mural painting and I'm excited about future mural opportunities!

Featured on various news outlets, including CTV News Vancouver (television), CBC Radio's On the Coast, CBC News British Columbia (online), Daily Hive Vancouver, and the Weather Network. The Facebook video about the art has over 250,000 views.

In January 2017, I received a cold email. Someone who worked with the UBC SEEDS Sustainability Program had been forwarded my hand-lettering Instagram account, and they thought I'd be a good fit for a campus Rainworks project. It would be a temporary public art installation that only shows up in the rain (and it rains a lot in Vancouver!).

Right off the bat, I want to say thank you to:

• Rainworks, for inspiring this project, being a great company to work with, and making the product used to make these Rainworks. Check them out for more rain-activated art installations like the ones I'll detail here.
• UBC Campus and Community Planning, for endless support and enthusiasm
• Everyone I talked to about this project, for your input and feedback
• Of course, the SEEDS Sustainability Program , for many things, but especially for believing in me

I started off this project by asking classmates, friends, family, friends of friends...a good amount of people for what they'd like to see on rainy days, on account of this art being rain-activated. Because this was a public art installation on campus, I specifically asked people what they could use most during midterms season. From this feedback, I came up with three main points I wanted my design to achieve:

• be thought-provoking, but not pushy
• be very clear in its intent (who'd stay in the rain to look at the art forever?)
• share symbols of self-care, based on gathered feedback

The two designs I came up with were "Flourish" and "Hops and Hopes".

“Flourish” is a flat garden. It aims to encourage passersby to grow and flourish along with it—despite of, or perhaps in part from, the rain. It's more of an illustrative piece, after people told me that they'd like to see nature, the sun, rainbows, etc.

“Hops and Hopes” is a game of hopscotch where the numbers have been replaced with symbols of self-care (all of which were taken from the feedback I collected from people!). By being directly drawn from things that people have identified as helping to contribute towards their self-care, it hopes to encourage people to start conversations about wellbeing, play in the rain, and hop towards what they want.

I put both designs into my design proposal, and both designs ended up being taken on. So, next on my plate was figuring out how I would actually install the two pieces.

My first design for "Flourish" was physically impossible to achieve with the stencil-and-spray technique I used, so I redid it before proceeding with stencil fabrication. To save me from days of cutting out stencils by hand, I prepared files for laser cutting. This came easily to me because I'd laser-cut chassis parts for an autonomous robot, Lalo, over the summer, and I'm glad!

I was nervous when installation day came around. An amazing videographer was also brought in to film the making of these Rainworks, which was exciting! After hours of laying out the stencils, I went ahead and sprayed Rainworks' hydrophobic spray over the stencils.

Finally, the rain came...

The Rainworks were alive!

I'm grateful for all of the support I received throughout this project and I'm thankful I got to work on public art--it's something I'd always admired and appreciated, but would never have imagined myself taking on.

For our first capstone project, two of my classmates and I worked on building a web application to replace physical data loggers in battery testing processes. I led the front-end design and implementation of the application.

More information about this project is available upon request.

Play the game here!

The summer before third year, where second-year Engineering Physics students build autonomous robots in ENPH 253, is an iconic part of the program. I wanted to make a souvenir to commemorate the summer; I decided to do this by making a web game.

I gathered survey data from my classmates to see what summer experiences they felt were most iconic, and turned the feedback into graphics, questions, and quiz results. I left notes in the console if anyone wants to find all possible outcomes of the game. The game is one huge inside joke, and though I know my target audience is about 70 people here, I'm happy with this project's impact.

As the first Publicity Coordinator at Geering Up, I got to refresh the visual identity for a non-profit organization that brings STEM outreach to youth across British Columbia.

There was a solid history of Geering Up design before I stepped into the role, and I sought out to build upon that foundation.

It was a fun challenge working with a brand that reaches both students and the adults in their life. How do you set a whimsical yet STEM-inspired tone, that's structured for parents/guardians and accessible by kids?

I approached this by creating a set of STEM and motion-inspired illustrations and backgrounds, inspired by some of Geering Up's science and engineering demos. I then created templates for posters, brochures, and more, to help standardize the look and feel of the brand.

I learned a lot about visual brand identity and working with a lot of creative freedom here, and as an engineering student, I had a really rewarding time bringing STEM to youth in my province.

UBC Sauder was my first graphic design job at a place that had a style guide!

I learned how marketing works, and my assignments pushed me to pick things up on the fly. I'd done a lot of graphic design in high school, but never at a level as professional as this. I started handing in "proofs" instead of drafts and "decks" instead of presentations. I learned what a graphic style manual was (and ended up making one for my job with Geering Up).

Aside from graphic design work, I worked on a social media audit, student activities audit, web mockups, tagline creation, and more. I learned a lot about working within a large and established brand, and within a professional marketing department.

CAPACITY is a compact shelving unit for urban gardens. Go big or go home? Grow big—at home!

I came up with CAPACITY's name, vision, branding, and copy. I had the chance to build a comprehensive idea of what this (hypothetical) company stood for, and I ran with it.

CAPACITY was a business project that tied for 1st Best Overall at the 2014 National SHAD Cup. Our marketing collateral, made entirely by me (in a summer with a good amount of free time), ranged from brochures to posters to seed packets to buttons to a short picture book. I had fun writing and creating my own ads; I even created a little flower, named Ferris, whom I modelled CAPACITY around.

And our logo: CAPACITY is a shelving unit for urban gardens, so I used a little sprout to form the edges of a greenhouse.

Check out My Life As Told By STEM here, noting that it's a concept and that nothing on the page will actually submit!!!

My Life As Told By STEM was a solo hackathon project that turned into a personal project to practice using Cherrypy and CouchDB (so forms are submitting and likes are increasing on my localhost, but not on the live site, sorry!).

I'm content leaving this up as a concept. This came out of my own need to relate to my course content. I wanted to humanize STEM concepts to both understand them better and to not feel so alone in the world. I hoped to capture how I felt to help others who may be feeling the same way, and though I think I'll continue expressing myself through my lettering for now, I'm thankful I got to bring this idea to life.

"Tabs" won Best Design at HackPrinceton, Fall 2017. The Devpost submission is here .

Built with React Native and Expo, "Tabs" is a no-nonsense app that allows you to keep track of IOUs with others by updating your tab with one person on both people's ends. That's all it does.

My team found that many expenses-tracking apps were bloated with features we didn't need. So, "Tabs" is intentionally simple.

With simplicity as a number one priority, the app was designed to be sleek, uncluttered, and easy to navigate. Playing with a coin and dollar bill motif, I made icons like a record player for the "update tabs" screen (because you're recording items down! ha ha), a bus for the "add friends" screen (you're on your way to finding your friends! woohoo), and a few more:

The ways a user could navigate through the app was constrained. Besides the landing and sign in/sign up screens, there are only four other screens: viewing all your tabs, adding a friend (to have a tab with), viewing a specific tab, and adding to a specific tab. There is no navigation bar because there are so few screens.

I learned a lot about design and app development with React Native, and I'm looking forward to my next app.

For more about Lalo, check out Lalo's website .

In six weeks, for ENPH 253, my team of four built an autonomous robot that was able to:

• navigate a narrow course, indicated by black electrical tape
• differentiate infrared signal frequencies to determine when to pass through a gate
• rescue toys from platforms above a pool of water
• transport them to safety by using a zipline

I was primarily in charge of electrical work—this included making infrared peak detector circuits, systems with phototransistors to line-follow with, a power supply circuit, switches, and soldering cables. I also contributed to the robot's code, which was coded in C in Arduino, and interfaced with the TINAH board.

For more about Lalo, check out Lalo's website .

In six weeks, for ENPH 253, my team of four built an autonomous robot that was able to:

• navigate a narrow course, indicated by black electrical tape
• differentiate infrared signal frequencies to determine when to pass through a gate
• rescue toys from platforms above a pool of water
• transport them to safety by using a zipline

I was primarily in charge of electrical work—this included making infrared peak detector circuits, systems with phototransistors to line-follow with, a power supply circuit, switches, and soldering cables. I also contributed to the robot's code, which was coded in C in Arduino, and interfaced with the TINAH board.

I really enjoy hand lettering and I'm open for commissions :) weddings, cards, prints, social media posts...let's go!

Outside of commissions, I really enjoy lettering for myself.

I also enjoy exploring my life as an engineering student.