Novel percussion instrument co-developed by ECE professor Sidney Fels to debut at SIGGRAPH in Vancouver

A unique presentation at this year’s SIGGRAPH—the world’s leading computer graphics conference which opens next week in Vancouver—may well inspire future digital content creators and multimedia artists.

Engineer and musician Victor Zappi will play a short rock/electronic piece on August 10 as part of his presentation on the Hyper Drumhead – a futuristic percussion instrument that he co-developed with Sidney Fels, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at UBC.

The Hyper Drumhead is like a virtual drum set—no drumsticks are required.

“The Hyper Drumhead is a virtual percussion surface that you can excite by touch. You draw shapes on the touch screen surface and you modify them to change the timbre and create all sorts of unique sound effects,” says Fels, an expert known for his work on new interfaces for musical expression and 3D displays.

To play the instrument, a musician can choose to load pre-recorded sound files into a connected computer, or he can inject live inputs such as vocals or guitar. Each audio source is assigned to a specific area on the screen. Changing the dimensions of the shape changes the pitch or other aspects of the music, and the musician can remix and layer different tracks to create a complete music piece.

Click here to view a demo of the Hyper Drumhead

Conceptually, the technology is not too different from physical drum sets, where the shape and size of the drum largely determines the sound, with larger drums creating warmer tones and smaller drums producing brighter, sharper tones. But what makes it different is that the computer does a simulation of the physics of the movement of sound across the virtual drumhead. This allows any type of surface and sound to be explored.

An early version of the Hyper Drumhead won first place in 2018 at the Guthman Musical Instrument Competition, a worldwide competition aimed at discovering new ideas in musical instruments.

“There is a learning curve, but it’s quite intuitive. Even people who have no musical training can learn to play the Hyper Drumhead,” says Zappi, who’s currently an assistant professor in the College of Arts, Media and Design at Northeastern University.

SIGGRAPH, the most important conference on computer graphics and interactive techniques where companies such as Disney Research, Nvidia and Facebook Reality Labs present their work, runs August 8 through 11.

EDITORS: Victor Zappi and Sidney Fels are available to speak to media about their invention. For more information, contact lou.bosshart@ubc.ca

UBC AeroDesign – Student Team Perspectives

UBC AeroDesign (UBCAD) is an engineering student team founded in 1992. Each year, the team designs and builds a fixed-wing electric-powered remote-control aircraft to compete in the SAE Aero Design competition series. UBCAD’s mission is to allow students to engage with a real-world problem in the field of aerospace, providing them with the opportunity to develop their engineering skills in a team environment. From aerodynamic and structural analysis, to propulsion and controls simulation, to machine learning and computer vision, UBCAD does it all!

ECE has had the opportunity to interview Simon Jobst, Tony Wang, and Bryson Wu from UBCAD. Read on to learn more about the team and their work!

How many students are on your team, and what are the different areas/departments your teammates are from? What year-levels are represented? (Simon)

UBC AeroDesign currently has 53 members, belonging to the Departments of Mechanical, Electrical, Engineering Physics, Integrated, and Materials Engineering. Each year we recruit 10-15 new members from a wide range of disciplines and year levels to join our team. We are proud to have a wide range of year-level representation on our team, ranging from first-year to final-year students, allowing for technical mentorship for more junior members.

What specifically are ECE students involved in on your team? In other words, what can an ECE student expect to be working on by joining the team/why would an ECE student want to join? (Bryson)

ECE students typically choose to work on the avionics (aircraft electronics and software) for our primary aircraft and for a smaller drone that deploys from the Advanced Class
primary aircraft. Avionics work can include:

● Machine learning/computer vision models for target identification and navigation planning

● Embedded programming for aircraft sensing and control

● Full stack programming for data visualization, target verification, and telemetry reporting

● Power supplies sizing/optimization that drive our electric motors and electronics

Additionally, if interested, ECE students have an equal opportunity to learn aircraft and mechanical design techniques!

Have there been any accomplishments that you and your team are most proud of? What are they? (Simon)

Over the past 30 years, our team has competed in the annual SAE Aero Design competition against top universities all over the globe, including schools from the USA, Poland, India, China and many more We placed in the top five 15 times over the years, and placed first in the design component during the virtual competitions in both 2020 and 2021.

During our most recent 2021-22 design season, we designed 3 aircraft and cumulatively manufactured 11 prototypes. Revamping to full-scale capacity and in-person work after the 2 year suspension of physical prototyping was a huge logistical accomplishment that all of us at UBC AeroDesign are
exceptionally proud of!

Moreover, we are proud to announce the following results from the 2022 SAE Aero Design East event held in Fort Worth, Texas between May 20-22, 2022:

● UBC AeroDesign Regular Class: 10th place overall (of 22 teams), with a 2nd place design report and 2nd place technical presentation, and

● UBC AeroDesign Advanced Class: 5th place overall (of 18 teams), with a 6th place design report and 9th place technical presentation.

How does being part of a student team enhance your experience at UBC and in the ECE department? (Bryson)

You create cool things from scratch with raw engineering creativity. You make friends that you can rely on and geek out with. Perhaps more tangibly, being a part of UBC AeroDesign has helped me understand the “why” behind our engineering curriculum and exposed me to an industry-like engineering process outside of our coursework. Many of us on UBC AeroDesign have also found that nothing pushes away imposter syndrome as effectively as seeing our work take flight.

Do you feel that your experience on the team is helping you prepare for life after university/in your career? How so? (Simon)

UBC AeroDesign has excellent potential to prepare you for life after university and career eligibility. We are proud to offer excellent co-op placement mentorship opportunities, and provide each other connections to well-established and reputable employers (e.g. Dometic, Seaspan, Kardium, Tesla, General Fusion, etc.). Moreover, attending competition allows members to connect with competition sponsors, such as Blue Origin, Lockheed Martin, Skunk Works, and Siemens. Being a member of UBC AeroDesign extends far beyond simply being part of a design team; you join a group of motivated individuals that support each other every step of the way!

What would you say to someone who is considering joining your team? Why would you recommend someone to join? (Tony)

Design team experience is extremely valuable for any aspiring engineer, but also makes you stand out when applying for co-op positions. A design team is essentially a technical club, targeted toward engineering students. You are able to meet numerous talented students and alumni, learn about engineering design, and develop skills as a person. There are so many design teams to choose from, and I would say to choose one not just based on reputation, but to choose a team that designs something you are truly passionate about. Even though AeroDesign consists of over 50 members, every person’s contribution to the team directly impacts the aircraft we send to competition, so your work is just as valued as a team lead’s work!

How can others join the team or get in touch with you if they are interested in learning more? (Tony)

If you are interested in learning more about UBC AeroDesign, we host live information sessions at the end of August and in the beginning of September (Imagine Day, etc.). You are welcome to reach out to us there, or on social media:

Website: https://ubcaerodesign.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UBCAeroDesign

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ubcaerodesign/

LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/company/ubc-aerodesign

Feel free to also email us at ubcaerodesign@gmail.com to learn more about the team, or recruitment.ubcaerodesign@gmail.com if you’re more specifically interested in joining the team!

Simon Jobst is a third-year mechanical engineering student specializing in the aerospace option. Simon is the Regular Class Airfoils lead (focus on aerodynamics, mechanical structures, and electromechanical system integration) and sponsorship lead. He intends to pursue a career in either the aerospace or HVAC industry.

Bryson Wu is a 3.5th year ELEC student and leads UBC AeroDesign’s Advanced Class group. While he would love to work on aircraft systems after graduating, he is also interested in software engineering, mechatronics, and hardware design in non-aviation contexts. UBCAD is looking to expand the electrical engineering work they do on the team. If interested, contact Bryson through his social media platforms or at brysonwu@icloud.com.

Tony Wang is a student in the department of Mechanical Engineering heading into his 3.5th year under the aerospace specialization. He has been on UBC AeroDesign for 2 years, where he is the Regular Class Fuselage Structures Lead and Marketing Lead. He has loved airplanes since he was young, and has developed a stronger appreciation for the design and build of an airplane through being on UBCAD. Tony is looking to focus on aircraft design as a career, but is open to many other industries, particularly in the automotive/EV industry. He has two more co-op terms to complete before graduating, and is looking forward to working in different industries to figure out what he would like to do in the future.

Call for Capstone Proposals

Proposal Submission for 2022/2023 is open!

Please contact Paul Lusina (capstones@ece.ubc.ca) if you have questions about our next Capstone cohort, or check out our Capstone Client FAQs.

Interested in seeing what our students have to offer? Check out our 2021/2022 Design & Innovation Day showcase.

For examples of past capstone projects, we welcome you to view our capstone videos from 2021, 2020, and 2019.

Are you interested in becoming a Capstone partner?

Please watch this 4 minute video to answer:

Why do organizations choose to be partners?

What is your role as a partner?

How do we manage intellectual property?

How can you get involved?

How does Capstone work for clients?

In the Capstone course, senior students in teams of four to six work on projects proposed by industry, or other organizations. Each team is supervised by a faculty member who acts as the technical director, assisting or pointing the student to appropriate technical expertise. You will act as the client.

The projects can be general projects in:

electrical and computer engineering
software engineering
energy
biomedical devices
microsystems
nanotechnology

Benefits of taking part!

**Exploration of research/development opportunities utilizing the expertise of UBC faculty, staff and students**

How to get involved and what to expect!

ECE invites you to propose a project to our students which will prepare them for employment and in turn give you an opportunity to meet the next generation of graduates.

A Capstone instructor assesses each proposal and provides feedback to you (the client). You are invited to revise your proposal based on the instructor’s feedback. Clients with successful proposals have the option to pitch their proposals to the Capstone students in early September. By the second week of September, each student bids on projects by ranking their top 10 preferred projects. This ranking is used to form teams. In 2018, 46 teams were formed from approximately one hundred proposals.

Our students and faculty would be working towards developing potential solutions with you from September and April. You will have ample opportunity to be actively engaged in the development of solutions.

For detailed information about what a project proposal should look like and how to submit a proposal to us, please see our Project Submission Page.

Time Commitment

Partners are expected to support students define the problem and give feedback on their design solution. The amount of time commitment required depends greatly on the type of project you propose. As a minimum expect approximately 10 hours of engagement in September & October and a further 10 hour for the remainder of the term.

Capstone Course Timeline

	September – 1^stweek of class	Clients pitch their project to students.
	Mid-September	Student teams formed and clients are contacted
End of Milestone 1	Mid-October	Project proposals due. Client and instructor feedback
End of Milestone 2	Early December	Design review 1 due. Client and instructor feedback
End of Milestone 3	Mid-February	Design review 2 due. Client and instructor feedback.
End of Milestone 4	Early April	Product review due. Client and instructor feedback
	Early April	Design and Innovation Day public showcase hosted by APSC
	Mid-April	Client receives all project deliverables and signs-off on the project.

Resources

ECE will commit a significant amount of financial resources. To make this a successful partnership and a sustainable model, it is our hope that you and your organization will commit in a similar fashion, feasible for your organization.

Submit a proposal!

2022/2023 project submissions are open

If you have any questions, please contact capstones@ece.ubc.ca, or check out our Capstone Client FAQs.

Capstone Perspectives: IoT sensor to improve learning and focus in classrooms, 2022 Capstone Faculty Award Winner!

Join us in congratulating ECE undergraduates Mitchell, Matthew, Lam, Valentine, and Larry for their accomplishment in receiving one of this year’s Faculty Awards at the 2022 Capstone Design and Innovation Day! We were able to connect with the team to ask about their work together on the capstone team, their excitement about their chosen project, and some of the challenges they were able to overcome together!

Which company did you work with?

We worked with Airtame, a company that builds wireless screen sharing devices for school and business settings headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark.

What would be the “elevator pitch” for your project (i.e., what is your innovation, what problem does it solve, etc.)?

Studies have shown that environmental conditions such as CO₂, temperature and humidity exceeding certain thresholds can have a negative impact on the effective learning of students in classrooms. Our project lets the teacher know when the classroom conditions are becoming unfavourable to learning, and nudges them towards making changes to the classroom to help students learn more effectively.

What inspired you to pursue this particular project?

The project was well presented by the clients from the start of the project. This project also seemed like a good opportunity to work through and complete a proof of concept design from start to finish while involving multiple facets of electrical and computer engineering.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while working on your project?

The biggest challenge we faced was integrating our teams’ work together into one functioning unit. We split ourselves up into teams to satisfy hardware, firmware and user application requirements, and when it came time to consolidate our teams’ work into one working unit, we realized we had many slight inconsistencies to debug which took more time than we had anticipated.

What excited you the most about your project?

The experience of working with a group of bright and driven students in a simulated professional capacity!

What is the most interesting/surprising thing you learned while working on your project?

One surprising thing we learned throughout the project was just how much part availability can fluctuate. We would spend a considerable amount of time designing PCB revisions to a specific footprint for certain components, only to find months later when we wanted to make a second order that the part was no longer in stock and would not be for the foreseeable future. For this reason we selected several backup components that would satisfy the requirements of the project.

Capstone Perspectives: Hardware & Software biofeedback for Physiotherapy, 2022 Capstone Faculty Award Winner!

Join us in congratulating ECE undergraduates Warren, Stephanie, Gabriel, Hugh, and Jaiden for their accomplishment in receiving one of this year’s Faculty Awards at the 2022 Capstone Design and Innovation Day! We were able to connect with the team to ask about their work together on the capstone team, their excitement about their chosen project, and some of the challenges they were able to overcome together!

Which community partner did you work with?

The UBC Tendon Injury Prevention and Rehabilitation research group.

What would be the “elevator pitch” for your project (i.e., what is your innovation, what problem does it solve, etc.)?

PhysViz is an exercise-based telerehabilitation system. The package includes a Bluetooth-enabled load sensor and mobile application for providing biofeedback to patients, and a clinician-facing web portal for monitoring patients and updating exercise prescriptions.

The client’s system relied on an expensive dynamometer, so we developed a low-cost and scalable proprietary load sensor device from scratch. On the software side, in addition to user experience improvements requested by our client, we introduced exercise session tracking, self-assessment questionnaires, and direct messaging capabilities to the existing mobile app and web portal architectures.

What inspired you to pursue this particular project?

On a technical level, we pursued this project because we were interested in its hardware and software approach to assisting physiotherapy. Many current physiotherapy technologies are cumbersome, expensive, and often out of reach for most physiotherapy clinics creating a gap between the research realm and physiotherapists treating everyday clients. Given our diverse engineering backgrounds, we felt it was a good opportunity to address this biomedical issue through the generation of a novel and more accessible technology.

A number of us have also had experience struggling with rehabilitation either directly or through affected loved ones; those of us were eager to address a very relevant matter in our personal lives.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while working on your project?

With no load cell suppliers or printed circuit board fabricators in Canada, we had to outsource many of our hardware components overseas. International shipping incurred significant fees and several months in lead times, compounded by the global chip shortage and ongoing COVID-19 pandemic affecting supply chains worldwide.

We mitigated this by prototyping and testing in parallel with the lengthy delivery periods, using the aforementioned commercial dynamometer as a reference for our final design’s expected performance. By carefully managing our time and individual member expertise, we delivered a functional prototype on schedule.

What excited you the most about your project?

Besides exercising the skills and knowledge we gained during our studies, this project challenged us in fields and aspects of engineering less familiar to us.

Our hardware sub-team engaged in a supply chain throughout our printed circuit board sourcing and manufacturing process, load cell testing and calibration efforts, and mechanical design iterations. Lacking any prior practical knowledge in frontend and backend development at first, our software sub-team was also virtually thrown into the deep end; self-studying mobile and web app architectures turned out to be a stimulating experience, however.

This year in capstone has been an exciting learning opportunity overall.

What is the most interesting/surprising thing you learned while working on your project?

It was interesting to put our previous internships and personal hardware and software project experiences into practice to develop a fully functional prototype for our client. Sourcing components was surprisingly difficult; we didn’t expect to take almost two months of searching before finally coming across an s-type load cell fitting our client’s form factor constraints and performance specifications.

What does the future hold for your project?

Although remote physiotherapy is not a new idea, PhysViz is a novel concept never before seen on the market.

PhysViz still has a ways to go before it is fit for wide-scale clinical use. For one, a rechargeable battery circuit could elevate the load sensor device’s efficiency and ease of use. The mobile and web apps could also use better backend security, and gamification features would help to maintain active patient engagement.

We look forward to seeing how far our client and their future capstone teams take PhysViz.

Capstone Perspectives: Monitoring Nature with AI Automatic Change Detection, 2022 Capstone Faculty Award Winner!

Join us in congratulating ECE undergraduates Ege Berk, John, Yan, Kerem, and Lemuel for their accomplishment in receiving one of this year’s Faculty Awards at the 2022 Capstone Design and Innovation Day! We were able to connect with the team to ask about their work together on the capstone team, their excitement about their chosen project, and some of the challenges they were able to overcome together!

Which community partner did you work with?

We had the opportunity to work with Korotu Technology; an innovative sustainable finance technology startup based in Toronto founded by Sean and Agata Rudd.

What would be the “elevator pitch” for your project (i.e., what is your innovation, what problem does it solve, etc.)?

The impacts of climate change and biodiversity loss are becoming more and more severe after billions of trees are lost every year due to deforestation. Immediate action is required to prevent further prohibited deforestation, and we believe that our easy-to-use nature monitoring mobile application, which tracks and visualizes deforestation changes in any area of interest, provides access to the general public to engage and be accountable in protecting nature while calling people to action in our attempt to mitigate deforestation.

What inspired you to pursue this particular project?

The project combines our interest in nature and sustainability alongside our passion in using engineering principles and technical skillset to tackle real-world problems. As climate change, deforestation and biodiversity loss are some of the most critical problems we are facing today, we unite as a team and collaborate with Korotu technology to develop a mobile application that will call people to action against these serious issues.

What was the biggest challenge you faced while working on your project?

Designing the system-level architecture and training a decent machine learning model were the most challenging parts.

What excited you the most about your project?

When we were able to develop a classification algorithm and display the classified images on our front-end in an interactive way, we knew that the app would be useful for the general public. The deforestation changes between different years were evident and easy to see for the end-user, and the change metrics were simple and easy to understand. We were really excited as a team to see the app developing closer to an end-product and because we realize that the app has a lot of potential for real-life use cases, we believe that our mobile application can be beneficial to call people to action against climate change.

What is the most interesting/surprising thing you learned while working on your project?

We found a devastating amount of tree loss in Collingwood, Ontario from 2013 to 2021 after classifying the corresponding satellite images. This change was not as easy to notice by looking at the raw satellite images.

What does the future hold for your project?

Currently, our application supports only one type of nature change detection: deforestation. In the future, other natural changes such as glacier loss or erosion could also be integrated into our app, making it a one-stop application for nature change monitoring.

The application will also be integrated into Korotu Technology’s existing products and will potentially be used to attract new investors and raise awareness about current nature issues.

Dr Sudip Shekhar Wins Schmidt Polymaths Science Award!

We are very excited to announce that Dr. Sudip Shekhar, Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has been awarded the Schmidt Polymaths Science award and is the first Canadian to do so! The Schmidt Polymaths Award is presented to ten recipients with remarkable research track-records and includes a grant to further fund their work. Each recipient is awarded US $500,000 annually for a period of up to 5 years, a total of up to US $2.5 million. This grant is intended to allow the exploration of potentially breakthrough ideas that may not otherwise receive adequate funding.

Dr. Shekhar plans to use the funding from the Schmidt Polymath Award to research circuit techniques to shrink the photonic microchip biosensor technology to a portable, disposable size. These biosensors have the potential to provide inexpensive, robust point-of-care biomedical testing, and improve accessibility to medical testing for remote communities and emergency services. This technology can also be used at drive through testing centers, drug stores, and at home. According to Dr. Shekhar, “Point-of-use diagnostics is a complex multidisciplinary research field, but I believe it is an area primed for the microchip revolution. Our scientific mission with this award will be to build disposable credit-card-sized test kits that give rich, multiplexed, quantitative data for viruses, cardiac, and neurological ailments.”

ECE has had the opportunity to interview Dr. Shekhar on his award and the future impacts of his work. We welcome you to read on to hear from Dr. Shekhar!

Dr. Shekhar, congratulations on winning the Schmidt Science Polymath Award! What does winning this award mean to you?

The Schmidt Science Polymath award is unique since it is meant to recognize prior path breaking successes in conducting multidisciplinary research. The award provides unrestricted gift funds to enable a pivot towards high-risk, high-reward research that may not be easy to fund from other sources if the research does not fit the mold. This recognition humbles me, and I am very excited to dream big and pursue research that could one day make significant changes to our society.

Can you give us a brief summary of your research so far and how the research development process has been? Any difficulties that were overcome, breakthroughs, etc.?

My research is at the junction of circuits and communication systems, photonics, physics, quantum mechanics, signal processing, computing, and machine learning. Each of them is a vast field, and I am obviously not an expert in all of them. Therefore, to conduct impactful research, our group spends considerable effort in understanding the big picture to pick meaningful problems to solve. This also requires fostering collaborations with colleagues at UBC and around the world and companies with a research bent. Once we understand and speak somewhat of a similar language, the partnerships are extremely rewarding. But at the same time, multidisciplinary research is challenging and takes time.

When you think back to when you started the multidisciplinary research that contributed to the award, why did you start in those areas in the first place?

I will give an example of silicon photonic systems, which require an understanding of photonic devices and their interplay and cointegration with electronic circuits. The pace of technology development in electronic integrated circuits has slowed considerably due to the laws of physics. This was evident in 2010 itself, when I was working as a Research Scientist at Intel Labs. At the same time, another technology leveraging the same silicon platform but incorporating photonics on the chip promised much higher speed, fueled by the speed of light. I started investigating silicon photonics and its cointegration with electronics – at Intel from 2010-2013, and then at UBC, and my group has had considerable success in shaping the industry roadmap. Silicon photonics also promises to enable entirely new applications in communications, computing, autonomous driving, and sensing, and my group is working in some of those areas.

What research are you planning to pursue as a Schmidt Polymath, and why will it be important in the years to come?

This Polymath award will enable a research pivot to work to democratize and decentralize medicine using silicon electronic-photonic integrated circuits. While commercial-grade platforms today offer quantitative gold-standard tests for nucleic acid and protein biomarkers, they require centralized laboratory analysis, trained technicians, long time-to-result, and expensive equipment. On the other hand, current rapid, low-cost assays like lateral-flow strips (e.g., pregnancy tests) tend to be qualitative and low-sensitivity. Biomarker testing cannot be ubiquitous until it reliably gives accurate, rapid, and cost-effective diagnoses in a user-friendly format.

Microchips can be built in the billions and cost pennies at such volume. Photonic microchips are highly sensitive biosensors to detect biomarkers, and the technology has already been proven commercially. Although the chips cost very little, the standard commercial-grade measurement equipment costs tens of thousands of dollars, sits on a lab bench, and discards most of the data due to its inherent architectural limitations.

Point-of-use diagnostics is a complex multidisciplinary research field, but I believe it is an area primed for the microchip revolution. We would utilize the Polymath award funding to research circuit techniques to shrink the equipment to a portable, disposable, inexpensive testing kit device. We already have a fantastic, multidisciplinary team with colleagues from ECE (Chrostowski, Mirabbasi, Jaeger), SBME (Cheung, Grist), Physics & QMI (Young), Pathology and Lab Medicine (Wellington), and have made early breakthroughs to realize such a vision.

What future impacts do you feel this research can have?

Our scientific mission with this award will be to build disposable credit-card-sized test kits that give rich, multiplexed, quantitative data for viruses, and cardiac and neurological ailments. If costing <$10, such kits will be a game-changing technology for isolated communities (e.g., rural territories) without centralized testing facilities, emergency services, drive-through testing, drug stores, and, in the long run, for at-home use.

Is there anything else that you would like the people reading this interview to know about your work and your research team?

We eagerly seek collaborative opportunities from experts in biomedical sample preparation, assay development, scalable microfluidics, point-of-care and point-of-use diagnostic applications. We are also looking to recruit several undergraduates, graduates, and postdoctoral fellows to help us with our ambitious goals.

This year, you won the Killam Teaching Prize at UBC, and now have been chosen as the first Canadian Schmidt Science Polymath. What is your secret?

I have always believed that a good research leader ought to be good in teaching. And conducting cutting-edge research helps in bringing a unique perspective to the classroom too.

Dr. Sudip Shekhar is an Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. For more information on Dr. Shekhar and his research, visit his UBC ECE faculty page at https://ece.ubc.ca/Sudip-Shekhar/ or the Schmidt Futures announcement page for this year’s Schmidt Science Polymaths award: https://www.schmidtfutures.com/schmidt-futures-announces-recipients-of-schmidt-science-polymaths-award/

EmergeNeed Wins Treehacks 2022: How an ECE Master’s Student is Shaping the Future of Medical Diagnosis

Shreya Verma is a Master of Applied Science student in the UBC Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, who has worked with the UBC Faculty of Medicine and Vancouver General Hospital to develop algorithms to detect skin cancer in its early stages. After being diagnosed herself with a potentially fatal tumor, and her recovery from her diagnosis, Shreya was inspired to pursue a research career in the field of early medical diagnosis. Shreya is also passionate about biomedical AI and is currently developing a deep learning algorithm to detect sepsis in infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. As part of the team, Shreya’s project EmergeNeed has won the Treehacks 2022 Covid Challenge and Sponsor’s Challenge, which we were excited to connect with her about to learn more about her story.

Read on to learn more about EmergeNeed, Shreya’s experience in our ECE department, and some great advice from her for any students currently looking for help or facing difficulties or mental health concerns in their programs.

Can you tell me a bit about EmergeNeed?

EmergeNeed addresses three main areas of healthcare improvement. To begin, there is no easy way for an individual to know how crowded a hospital will be at a given time. Especially in the current pandemic environment, users would benefit from information such as crowd level and estimated travel times to different hospitals near them. Knowing this information would help them avoid unnecessary crowds and the risk of COVID19 exposure, receiving faster medical attention and an enhanced treatment experience. Additionally, such a system allows hospital staff to operate more effectively and begin triaging earlier since they will receive a heads-up about incoming (non-ambulance) patients before they arrive.

Moreover, online information is often unreliable, and specific demographics may not have access to a primary care provider to ask for advice during an emergency. Our interface allows users to access on-call tele-network services specific to their symptoms easily and therefore receive advice about options such as monitoring at home, urgent care, or an emergency hospital.

Finally, not knowing what to expect contributes to the elevated stress levels surrounding an emergency. Having an app service that encourages users to actively engage in health monitoring and providing tips about what to expect and how to prepare in an emergency will make users better equipped to handle these situations when they occur. Our dashboard offers tools such as a check-in journal to log their mood gratitudes and vent about frustrations. The entries are sent for sentiment analysis to help monitor mental states and offer support. Additionally, the dashboard allows providers to assign goals to patients and monitor progress. For example, taking antibiotics every day for 1 week or not smoking. Furthermore, the user can track upcoming medical appointments and access key medical data quickly such as their COVID19 vaccination card, immunization forms, and health insurance.

What inspired you to create EmergeNeed?

“Emergency” + “Need” = “EmergeNeed”

Imagine a pleasant warm Autumn evening, and you are all ready to have Thanksgiving dinner with your family. You are having a lovely time, but suddenly you notice a batch of red welts, swollen lips, and an itchy throat. Worried and scared, you rush to the hospital just to realize that you will have to wait for another three hours to see a doctor due to the excess crowd. This is exactly what inspired us to create EmergeNeed.

Now imagine that you could quickly talk to a medical professional who could recommend going to urgent care instead to treat your allergic reaction. Or, if you were recommended to seek emergency hospital care, you could see the estimated wait times at different hospitals before you left. Such a system would allow you to get advice from a medical professional quickly, save time waiting for treatment, and decrease your risk of COVID exposure by allowing you to avoid large crowds

How do you feel about having EmergeNeed win Treehacks’ 2022 Covid Challenge and Sponsor’s Challenge?

I had applied to be a part of TreeHacks 3 years ago and I was not selected. So this year to be not only selected but also to win the challenge feels surreal! Sounds cliché, but I am glad I didn’t give up. From team building to presenting my project to 50+ people, it was a great experience. It was a bummer that I could not attend it in-person, but I definitely will next year! A friend of mine told me during grad school small wins are important and this win came at the time I needed it the most.

Why did you choose to study at ECE?

I was diagnosed with a potentially fatal tumor which majorly impacted me physically and mentally. However, it also led me to the brilliant acknowledgment that timely and good quality treatment had saved my life. It was at that moment that I decided to study and explore the field concerning early diagnosis of medical irregularities,playing my role as a mindful engineer by contributing to saving lives. This led to me to apply for the Visiting International Research Student position offered by UBC. I worked with the Faculty of Medicine and Vancouver General Hospital to develop algorithms to detect skin cancer in its early stages. My time here made me realize that there is no better place than the ECE department at UBC to work towards my goals.

How does your career path and graduate experience connect to your current position?

I was always fascinated with Biomedical AI. Currently, I am currently a part of Dr. Guy Dumont’s research team at BC Children’s Hospital. My team and I are working on the estimation of respiratory rate and heart rate of infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care unit using RGBD data. I have learnt alot about my field by taking exceptional courses offered by professors at UBC, such as Advanced Machine Learning, Trustworthy Machine Learning, and Deep Learning in Digital Media, to name a few.

What advice do you have for students who may be struggling or feel as though they are not doing enough?

Just three words – Hang in there. I started my Masters during COVID in September 2020. I didn’t know anybody and was too shy to reach out to other students over Zoom. I felt I was not doing well in terms of academics, research, basically just letting everyone down. On top of that, living in such an expensive place as Vancouver is stressful, especially when you are an international student. I am sharing this so that I can let my peers or even incoming grad students know that it is okay to feel that you are not enough and that everyone goes through this phase. I have always relied on UBC Applied Science counseling services when I feel overwhelmed (https://students.engineering.ubc.ca/health-and-wellness/). Another thing that helped me is being a part of the ECEGSA. I met so many fellow grad students and also organized fun activities like skiing at Grouse mountain, coffee socials, and a board game night! I truly believe “One day you will tell your story of how you overcame what you went through and it will be someone else’s survival guide” and that is what I am striving for.

What are you looking forward to in the future?

I am right now working towards finishing up my Masters. With that I am also preparing for job interviews (so A LOT of Leetcode). I am very inspired by a fellow graduate student that made it to Forbes 30 under 30, and that is what I am working towards!

What are some of your favorite activities to help you unwind while you’re working or studying?

I am an outdoor person! I am out hiking or skiing every other weekend! I love playing basketball, so I am also found on the court very often.

ECE Professor wins 2022 IEEE Cyril Veinott Electromechanical Energy Conversion Award!

Dr. Juri Jatskevich, a UBC professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, has won the 2022 IEEE PES Cyril Veinott Electromechanical Energy Conversion Award! This award is given to those who have made outstanding contributions to the field of electromechanical energy conversion, and is administered by the IEEE PES Awards Committee. Dr Jatskevich is recognized for his contributions to electrical machine models for transient simulations of electromechanical energy conversion in power systems.

Dr. Jatskevich received his Bachelor’s in Electrical Engineering from Ukrainian National Agricultural University, and completed both his Master’s and Doctorate at Purdue University. He has chaired the IEEE CAS Power Systems & Power Electronic Circuits Technical Committee and is an editor of a number of IEEE publications. His research areas in the ECE department with his students include power and energy grids, power electronic systems, electrical machines and drives, and advanced modeling and simulation. He is part of the UBC Electric Power and Energy Systems group, whose work is focused on developing models and software for the analysis of electromagnetic transients in power systems and power electronic circuits.

To learn more about Dr. Juri Jatskevich, please visit his faculty page and researcher profile.

ECE PhD Student Wins IEEE ICC 2022 Best Paper Award

Zihuan Wang, a PhD student in UBC Electrical and Computer Engineering, received her B.S. and M.S. degrees from the Dalian University of Technology (DLUT), Dalian, China, in 2017 and 2020, respectively. Zihuan has several awards to her name, including the National Scholarship of DLUT, a UBC Four Year Fellowship, a Mitacs Accelerate Fellowship, and a Graduate Support Initiative (GSI) Award from the ECE Department. Most recently though, Zihuan won the Best Paper Award at the 2022 IEEE International Conference on Communications!

We are excited to share an interview with Zihuan below, where we connected with her about the award, her research focusing on machine learning applications in wireless systems and integrated sensing, and her future plans!

Congratulations on winning the IEEE ICC 2022 Best Paper Award! How do you feel about receiving this award?

It is wonderful to receive this award! I feel very encouraged by this acknowledgement and recognition of my work. It motivates me and strengthens my confidence in continuing my research in this area. And I am greatly thankful to my supervisor Prof. Vincent Wong who has suggested this research topic to me and provides me continual support and helpful guidance.

What topic are you researching for your PhD and what is it that excites you about this topic?

My research areas include the applications of machine learning techniques in wireless networks. In particular, I developed a deep neural network for traffic prediction in wireless networks and I tested its performance using a real-world collected dataset. I felt very excited when I first saw the greater performance improvement of my proposed approach than the other schemes, and realized how my research work can help the real-world wireless systems.

What has your career path looked like so far? How did you end up at ECE, and why did you choose our department?

I obtained my Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in China. After that, I applied for the Ph.D study in UBC ECE. I would like to become a researcher in wireless communications in the future. To gain a wider and deeper vision in research, UBC ECE is a perfect choice for me because of its advanced resources. Also, I was interested in Prof. Vincent Wong’s research areas, and looking forward to joining his research lab.

Where do you hope you’ll be in 5 years?

I hope at that time I am still passionate about researching wireless communications. I hope to become a researcher who can contribute to the development of wireless networks.

What do you like to do outside of work/research and what makes these activities enjoyable for you?

I really love the beautiful environment in Vancouver. Outside of work, I usually go hiking. I feel relaxed during hiking, and it is a lot of fun to explore new places in nature when going on a hike. I also love watching movies, as I can see various worlds, feel different emotions, and learn new things.

For any inquiries, Zihuan can be contacted at zihuanwang@ece.ubc.ca