pranav portfolio

www.pranavmistry.com

PORTFOL!O

ranavp m!stry

Projects. invent. DATAG2.02. MARBO. ProjectCHILD. SunFlower. RoadRunner 2.01. Sandesh. Ghost in the machine. VET. Sthiti. VEDa. Akshar

Papers & Seminars

Research. SOROTICS. HCI India. zombie.labs. Designing Intelligence. Staying in the FLOW

Awards & achivementsAcademicsExtra CurricularAreas of InterestsReferencesContact

. Perceptual User Interfaces

. Functional Metaphoric Approach to be in theflow with interfaces

. Microcontrollers

. Computer Vision

. HMD and Visual Ergonomics

!NDEX

!NDEX

A conceptual gap exists between therepresentations that people use in their minds whenthinking about a problem and the representations thatComputers will accept when they are programmed. For mostpeople learning programming, this gap is as wide as theGrand Canyon . invent is my research project under theguidance of Prof. Ravi Poovaiah initiated with the vision tohelp solve the same. I have taken children as my users.

The initial goal of invent is to design an intuitiveprogramming environment for children. The key ideas are touse representations in the computer that are analogous tothe real world objects being represented or letting childrencreate them and to allow those representations to bedirectly manipulated in the process of programming. Thechild can create objects, give them properties andattributes & use those objects to create their world creatingchallenges & solutions to them. invent is an attempt tomake programming more like thinking.

In brief, invent=‘Imagine...Explore...&...Learn'

PROJECTS

design of a programming language for childreninvent

PROJECTS

With the aim of providing a more intuitive andphysical interaction with systems and machines, the projectDATAG2.02 explores a new mode of human-machineinteraction. DATAG2.02 consist an artificial gadget kept inthe real world. The user will use this glove like gadget tointeract with objects and perform the desired action in thevirtual world. The user's actions are mapped by the gadgetand the virtual world experiences the changes done by useras well.

The overall goal of the project was to explore thenovel way to interact with virtual worlds and systems withinaccessibility, like a robo on moon or a crane hand liftinghuge rocks. I won award at India level Open HardwareContest for DATAG2.02. It is also awarded at Ingenium2002for its innovative perspective.

An intuitive interactionDATAG2.02

PROJECTS

My research project with Microsoft Research -MARBO, is the concept of a communication device forchildren helping them share their feelings, events andlearning with fun. After a deep study & analysis of children'sworld, we came up with the product called MARBO. With theinitial goal of making the social circle larger, building trustamong children, making learning interesting & fun for them,MARBO has been extended to a level that, it is ‘the' devicefor children.

MARBO is basically inspired by the metaphor of themarbles, a traditionally popular toy in India . MARBO is adevice through which children can communicate with eachother to freely express their feelings, as well as have fun byexchanging of ideas, emotions and having collaborative andinteractive learning. With its spherical screen anddetachable marbles (digital memories), MARBO provides anew mode of interaction. For its wonderful unique designconcept and social aspects, MARBO is awarded 1st prize inDesign Contest at Innovation Fair.

Share your marblesMARBO

projectCHILD explores the very basic butinteresting cognitive aspects of human mind, aboutlearning and remembering that 2+2=4 or suchsimilar concepts. The core initiative to the projectis the thought that, there are some tasks which wehuman perform faster that these computers androbots. To make them do the same with the sameefficiency we can try making them learn as we havelearnt.

Through projectCHILD I tried to teachcomputers of my lab that 2+2=4, but by the way achild is taught by his teacher, mom orfriends(sometimes 2+2=5 or 2+2=?). Thesechildren (machines) at the end of the project learntthat 2+2=4 as a child learn the same.

Teach computer that 2+2=4ProjectCHILD

Lets track the sunSunFlower

My interest in exploring nature led me to wonderfulidea of having artificial sunflowers. With simple op-amp 741circuitry & photo sensors I implemented a sunflower whichcould track the sun. Though later the concept was veryefficiently used in solar panels at my institute as the panelscould get the most efficient angle each time, at the core,there was my interest in designing electronic interactiveexperiences.

PROJECTS

PROJECTS

RoadRunner was one of my attempts to makecomputer games when I was in second year of computerengineering. The interesting feature of the project is thatthe game gives user a 3D game experience, though it ismade by 2D graphics techniques. Study of human mind'sperspective about 3D and algorithms to generate 3D lookfrom simple 2D graphics primitives of C are at the core ofthe project.

a 3D car racing gameRoadRunner 2.01

connecting rural IndiaSandesh

In the search of work, to earn their breadlots of people in India come to metros from theirdistant villages. Sandesh addresses the need ofcommunication of such people. It is an attempt toconnect their parents & relatives to them where noreliable or efficient modes of communication areavailable. Besides the illiteracy in reading andwriting in standard languages like Hindi andEnglish, inaccessibility of communication serviceslike phone and mails creates the major problem ofother end(village) connectivity. To help solve itSandesh suggests a new system using existingPSTN network and simple interaction methods.Sandesh contains a message receiving unit atrural end and kiosks at metro end with visual aids.It uses of print/sound based medium to conveymessages.

“It is by logic we solve, but it is by intuition wecreate.” Questioning the nature of creativity andexperimenting with my desktop computer to create piecesof art ended with the discovery of a ghost in my machine.From studying drawings done by children to the robotsplaying chess and painting on canvas it is the result of anexperimental formative approach. It is an attempt to answersome of the questions arose during my journey of enjoyingchildren drawing mountains, sun and river and those happymoments of programming my desktop machine.

With a vision of questioning the nature of creativitythe idea was to generate pieces of so called art or creativityin collaboration with machines. “Creative machines?”; “Canmachines be creative?” My thoughts and attempts toexplore the same, to seek in the field with a positiveapproach of making machines creative, which can generatepieces of so called ‘art', are also documented as a papertitled ‘ghost in the machine'. I think Life is ‘Trying things tosee if they work'.

“creative machines?”Ghost in the machine

PROJECTS

PROJECTS

New technologies have created new opportunitiesto look forward the vision of 'Technology to Masses' fromdifferent perspectives. Not technology, technology in'meaningful manner', only will help solve the currentproblems. Lack of proper scheduling, decision makingsupport, planning and resource management seems thedriving force for the inefficiency in veterinary servicesprovided by Amul in Gujarat . The inefficiency in existingscheduling system ends in inefficient use of systemresources and improper handling of emergencies.

With the proposal of a revised system based ondecentralization of visit request registering and a map-based interface of VET for scheduling, the project aims tosolve the problems to a level. With the help of a storybased design approach throughout the project andevaluations at various stages helped define the efficacy ofthe suggested solution.

Visual aids to scheduling and decision makingVET

design of a local positioning system and servicesSthiti

I think Sthiti was my first project which helpme broaden my perspective to look at technology.Now, in this age when we have enough of things toexplore, it is not important that what we can do.Important is what we should do. Sthiti was anattempt to help people in finding things, people,places along with basic information they need. It isa system design of having a local positioning andinformation system in the small regions likeuniversity campus, hospital, shopping mall,multiplex theatre, etc. A small handheld device oruser's mobile phone can be used as a medium toprovide this location specific information or to helpthem finding their way. The project gave me anopportunity not only to explore networking, mobiletechnologies but also user interaction design.

‘A tool is not the task, and often the invisible,social, non-physical aspects of a technological regimemake all the difference'. VEDa is a conceptual designof ‘the' home device for Indian market. Deepunderstanding of need of common man of India ledto the wonderful product VEDa during my summerinternship at Microsoft. With the exploration of allpossible aspects, not only technology, but also socialaspects, market, people and their need, their likings,understanding ....all collectively acted as a goodbase on which I could come up with VEDa.

The project gave me a broad perspective tothe digital industry as a good platform to havebusiness and product research along with exploringhardware technologies, to form design.

VEDa

A unique mechanism for inputting Indic scripts on digitaldevices

(Akshar)

Data entry methods for Indian languages like Hindi,Gujarati and in general are not keyboard friendly and theirentry using QWERTY keyboards is cumbersome andcomplicated, it involves the use of multiple shift modes.The same applies to the input methods on mobile phoneand other interactive digital kiosk like systems. There is agreat need for practical input mechanism/schemespecifically for various Indian languages.

With the vision of 'Innovate for India', Akshar isbasically an attempt to have 'the' input mechanism forinputting Indic scripts in Digital devices like Mobile phones,Kiosk booths, WLLs, Interactive TVs, VEDa or PersonalComputers. It is observed that most of the scripts in Indiahave their base in Brahmi script. Akshar uses uniquefeatures of grouping of 5 consonants in such script. Studyhas shown that this new mechanism is far better than anyother input methods available around today. The reason forthat is, without any consideration of features of Indicscripts, these methods are taken as they were from Latinbased script mechanisms.

PROJECTS

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PAPERS & EM!NARSS

Perceptual User Interfaces: an inspiration from

Indian traditions

Functional Metaphoric Approach to be in the flow

with interfaces

Microcontrollers - ‘controlling machines’

Computer Vision - an informal approach

HMD and Visual Ergonomics

My detailed study and research interest in PUI and multimodal interfacesresulted in a seminar as well as a paper I presented. The core interest was to getinspirations from reach Indian traditions and use this extensive knowledge to designmore intuitive, natural and physical interactions.

Mihaly Csikszentmihaly's concept of 'flow' and an inner urge to use 'the waywe use things' as metaphors resulted in my recent research work on FunctionalMetaphoric Approach. Through the paper I suggested FMA as a heuristic in developinguser interfaces with better user flow. The paper has been selected as one of the bestresearch work and published in IHCI2004 under new trends in HCI session.

How to use Microcontroller to control the joined pieces of metals mosteffectively was one of my main interests during engineering studies. Though, theseminar, basically introduced the world of microcontroller and its programming to thenovices to the topic, ideas about wonderful uses of microcontroller imaginedand presented in the seminar made it an interesting talk for all there.

The automatic deduction of structure & properties of the possibly dynamicthree-dimensional world from either a single or multiple two-dimensional images ofthe world can be used as a strategy to design robotic systems where we needmachines with vision. My study in the field, exploring the logical and implementationconcerns about the same is resulted in a seminar titled 'computer vision'.

As a part of my course in visual ergonomics, I worked on how visualergonomics and related concerns help design Head Mounted displays to be used invirtual or augmented reality worlds. At the end of the course I presented the findingsin a form of a paper and a seminar.

Papers and Seminars

RESEARCH

Designing robots with social skills andunderstanding is a critical step towards enabling themto cooperate with human as capable partners, tocommunicate with human intuitively, and to learnquickly and effectively from natural human instruction.These abilities would enable many new and excitingapplications for robots that require them to play along-term, supportive, and helpful role in humans'daily lives.

sorotics group aims research in human-robotinteraction leading towards building sociableautonomous robots that can work in collaborationwith people.

zombie::labs is an initiative started by me in1999, aiming to have research in the field ofinteractive intelligent systems. I have conductedvarious research projects under the name ofzombie::labs. It is my dream to make systems in truesense 'humane' through research going on atzombie::labs. Projects related to various fields fromartificial intelligence to interaction design and fromrobotics to HCI make it an interesting body workingwith a focused goal towards developing interactiveintelligent systems.

social + robotics = soroticsSOROTICS

zombie.labs

HCI India is basically an activity group initiated byme to have a nonformal ground to discuss the thoughts,problems, challenges and learning in the field of HumanComputer Interaction. People from various background likecomputer science, architecture, design, … are member ofthe group. This kind of variety in members from students toprofessionals provides larger perspective to the discussionsat the group.

HCI India

RESEARCH

Designing Intelligence is a research initiative withthe vision of thinking technology from design perspectiveand vise versa. My research interest in artificial intelligence,social computing, robotics ended in this two strangesounding words.

The core idea is to design intelligent interactive systems.The idea is.... . . Yes, to think that only that what can be orshould be in this future(present) which is full of intelligentsystems around us. The idea is to design it.I agree withAlan Kay that 'The best way to predict the future is to inventit'.

Designing Intelligence

It has been found that while using acomputer, human sense that they are performing atask. I think still computer interfaces do not keep user‘staying in the flow' fully while working. At the sametime in real life results are somewhat ironical. MihalyCsikszentmihalyi has explored the characteristics forperceiving optimal experiences, with the issue of‘flow'. People in a state of 'flow' are those who feelthat they are engaged in a creative unfolding ofsomething interesting; athletes call it ‘being in thezone', mystics have described as ‘ecstasy', andartists ‘rapture'. You and I may recognize our flowexperiences as simply those activities (work, a hobby,some kind of service) which seem to make time standstill. The core idea of the research is to designinteractions with machines, computers that we feel‘staying in the flow'. As a part of the research Ipresented my paper titled ‘Functional metaphoricapproach to be in the flow with software interfaces' atIHCI2004, Bangalore.

Staying in the FLOW

. 2nd in SPACE competition in SIGGRAPH2004.

. 1st in Innovation Fair at India level, for project MARBO.

. All India 3rd in National Open Hardware Contest at IIT Bombay for project DATAG2.02

. 3rd in Model Presentation at INGENIUM 2002.

. 3rd in Creative art competition organized by ISRO.

. 1st in Design competition organized by IEEE, India chapter.

. 2nd in website designing organized by ACES.

. Selected for the prestigious DIRUBHAI AMBANI FOUNDATION AWARD for securing 1st rank indistrict.

. 2nd in on the spot Model Making contest at techfest2001 at IIT Bombay.

Awards and Achievements

Academics

Exam Year University/Board Grades Class (Rank)

M.Des

4th semester

3rd semester

2nd semester

1st semester

B.E.

8th semester

7th semester

6th semester

5th semester

4th semester

3rd semester

1st year

School Board

H.S.C.

S.S.C.

2005

2004

2004

2003

2003

2002

2002

2001

2001

2000

2000

1999

1997

IIT Bombay

IIT Bombay

IIT Bombay

IIT Bombay

Gujarat Uni.

Gujarat Uni.

Gujarat Uni.

Gujarat Uni.

Gujarat Uni.

Gujarat Uni.

Gujarat Uni.

G.S.E.B.

G.S.E.B.

10/10

8.82/10

9.49/10

9.24/10

78.46 %

77.87 %

73.65 %

75.50 %

75.72 %

65.57 %

68.14 %

81.00 %

91.57 %

I-Dist (1st in IIT)

I-Dist (4th in IIT)

I-Dist (1st in IIT)

I-Dist (1st in IIT)

I-Dist

I-Dist (6th in uni.)

I-Dist (5th in uni.)

I-Dist (8th in uni.)

I-Dist (7th in inst.)

First

I-Dist

I-Dist

I-Dist (1st in district)

Former coordinator of Association of Computer Engineering Students (ACES).President of Young Scientist Club (YSC), Palanpur branch.Table Tennis- district Champion for 7 years, Institute champion for 3 years.Founder and Incharge of zombie::labs, a research group.Founder of the sorotics (social robotics) group in IIT BombayLead coordinator of HCI India, an informal community of HCI in India.

Social Computing, HCI, Interaction Design, Robotics, New media, Cognitive Science, VirtualReality, Visual Reality, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Intelligent Interactive Systems andEnvironments.

ProfessorIDC, IIT [email protected]

General ManagerMicrosoft India Development CenterMicrosoft India R&D Pvt. [email protected]

Prof. Ravi Poovaiah

Mr. Srini Koppulu

Prof. Anirudha Joshi

Mr. Niranjan Nayak

ProfessorIDC, IIT [email protected]

Tech LeadMicrosoft India Development CenterMicrosoft India R&D Pvt. [email protected]

Extra Curricular

Areas of Interests

References

Copyrights.2005©Pranav Mistry.All Rights Reserved.

Mailing addressPost Box #10Palanpur 385 001Gujarat, India

Phone+91-9885720280+91-2742-253536

URLhttp://www.pranavmistry.com

Pranav Mistry

[email protected]@microsoft.com

PORTFOL!O

Social Computing

Human Computer Interaction

Robotics

Artificial Intelligence

Intelligent Interactive Systems/Environments

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