Student Involvement
![](https://sites.gatech.edu/awarehome/files/2023/03/AHRIstudentsWorking_Together.jpg)
The Aware Home provides a number of resources and opportunities for students in the Georgia Tech community. The house was developed as a space for researchers to experiment with home technology in its proper context. It is outfitted with a myriad of technologies to help facilitate research in the fields of smart home applications, aging in place, health and well-being, digital media and entertainment, education, sustainability, and home management.
Interested students can contact us for more information and help in getting started.
How to Get InvolvedThe Aware Home is not open access, but there are several ways in which students can get involved in the Aware Home. These include:
- General interest – If you are looking for a project to ramp up or show off your embedded computing, electronics prototyping, signal processing, mobile computing, or design skills and find the Aware Home appealing, feel free to contact us for some ideas for projects that may fit your level of expertise.
- Class projects – Students may find the Aware Home an interesting environment in which to design a class project. Courses/topics that relate include, but are not limited to: Mobile Ubiquitous Computing, ECE Capstone Design, Human Computer Interaction, Real-time Systems, Industrial Design, Design for Interactive Environments, Applied Experimental Psychology, and Special Topics. If you think your class project would benefit from use of the Aware Home, contact us.
- Institute for People and Technology (IPaT) Living Labs Seminar – If you would like to learn more about the Aware Home and other Living Labs under IPaT management, consider joining in the IPaT Living Labs Seminar (CS8001-AHS). Typically, the seminar is held over lunch in the TSRB room 333 with some sessions at the Aware Home. Students are welcome to drop in.
- Faculty research – Several faculty members from different disciplines have agendas that often utilize the Aware Home. While funding is not a guarantee, there are limited opportunities for exceptional students with the right skills to join on research teams. A good place to start is the IPaT Living Lab Seminar to learn more about research areas of interest.
- Convergence Innovation Competition – The Convergence Innovation Competition conducted in the Fall and Spring semesters provides opportunities for students to explore new solutions that match the domains of IPaT. Winning teams are awarded some pretty cool prizes and even those who don’t win get some great exposure and feedback on how to improve their products.
The Aware Home environment in itself provides a unique research lab in which to try out concepts. In addition, we are continuing to build the sensing and control capabilities of the home, including an API for linking projects intto the home infrastructure. The core home infrastructure, powered by Zwave (thanks to a donation from Zwave Alliance member companies) includes a traditional set of smarthome sensors and controls. These include:
- Sensors: motion, light, temperature, humidity, door and window, and cameras
- Controls: lights, lamp and appliance modules, and door locks
We are adding other sensing options with technologies our researchers and students are developing (e.g. waterline pressure) and other control / feedback options, such as various display/lighting options for presenting information in different ways around the home.
Project components available at the home for checkout (pending project approval) include:
- Arduinos and other microcontroller platforms
- Sensors
- Output devices
- Embedded computing platforms such as Raspberry Pis
- A wide variety of other tools for designing and building prototypes
Current Students
Undergraduate Students
MITCHELL PHILIPP
![](https://sites.gatech.edu/awarehome/files/2023/03/mitchell-philipp2.jpg)
BS Computational Media, 2023
Aware Home Projects:
Cognitive Empowerment Program
Mitchell is a web designer and game developer, and smarthomes and IoT are among his many side interests.
Graduate Students
Avinandan Basu
![](https://sites.gatech.edu/awarehome/files/2023/03/avitest.jpg)
MS Human Computer Interaction, 2021
Aware Home Projects: Smart Bathroom
Avi’s expertise in user centered design and a broad spectrum of knowledge acquired from working on multiple domains in academia and industry, he is able to build products that can benefit mankind in meaningful ways.
Nandita Gupta
![](https://sites.gatech.edu/awarehome/files/2023/03/nanditagupta_headshot-1024x1024.jpg)
MS Human Computer Interaction, 2021
Aware Home Projects: Participatory Design Workshops, Ambient Alerting, and others.
Nandita Gupta is an electrical engineer, UX Researcher and an accessibility and inclusive design advocate. Inclusion to her, is bringing different voices to the table so we can all be part of the change and design.
Alumni
Jayanth Krishna
![](https://sites.gatech.edu/awarehome/files/2023/03/051218-leadheadshots-0058.jpg)
MS Human Computer Interaction, 2018
Current Employment: Solutions Consultant, Smart Homes and IoT, Google
Aware Home Projects: Connected Home, ambient alerting. Also helped on smart bathroom, gait speed detection.
Jayanth believes that IoT is the second coming of computing, and wants to make IoT easy for all.