Design + AI. Aiming to craft valuable experiences and tools that communicate the perspectives of others.
mansidak@re-collect.ai
Frost
A MOOD-INDUCING WRITING PROGRAM
Blancus
ACCELERATING SYSTEMS TRADE STUDIES LEVERAGING AI
Clyde
AVOIDING UNATTENDED LAPTOP THEFT
Silvia
WORLDS FIRST MULTILINGUAL DICTATION INPUT SYSTEM
Work
Reason Robotics
Dallas, TX
Utilizing computer vision and LLMs to develop the core architecture for off-the-shelf robotic arms to make them autonomous. Developed in-house models for end-of-arm-tooling and integrated with custom APIs for robotic arms reducing cost from $5000 to less than $500 per tool. Designing the control interface for Web (React).
Raytheon Technologies
Phoenix, AZ
Developed internal tools for projects for clients like Airbus. Projects included automating mechanical testing (Instron), streamlining and reducing workflow times, and simulation tools that reduced the inflation time of evacuation systems of A320 making them compliant with FAA’s c70 safety regulations.
Doryland Wind Tunnel
Phoenix, AZ
Implemented a Python-based parametric modeling process to streamline CAD model updates in CATIA using data from the supersonic (M 3.5) wind tunnel tests, without clashing with existing constraints. Saved 30 minutes every CAD render (3x/week = 1.5 hrs/week) for Dr. Wallace Morris’ NASA Space Grant research.
Capture.so
New York, NY
Shipped and designed a new onboarding flow, resulting in a 15% increase in conversions and reduced drop-off rates. Amplified top-of-the-funnel sign-ups by 80%, providing the design team with enough data for A/B testing. Conducted market research, analyzing metrics via June, Amplitude, and Analytics. Performed weekly user interviews and 1:1 onboarding.
re:collect AI
New York
Designing and building Sidecar at re:collect, our flagship macOS platform. Developing the design system and architecture for the graph-based retrieval app for a venture-backed startup ($2.8M funding). Sidecar automatically collects content as you interact with the web and your Mac and leverages machine learning to help you effortlessly find and make use of stored insights without breaking flow.
UC Berkeley Co-design lab
Berkeley, CA
codesign.berkeley.edu/papers/ballestas-hazard-idetc/
Conducted research under Dr. Kosa Goucher-Lambert in designing secure, responsive cyber-physical environments. Developed LLM-based tools to analyze and normalize hardware-software interactions in intelligent environments, such as maker spaces and grocery stores. The program optimizes safety as the objective function by suggesting ideal configurations for a chosen abstraction level, focusing on mitigating physical harm
Rodin Reserves
Following the sculptor Rodin's death, many plaster casts and unfinished pieces were found in his studio’s drawers, each a testament to his artistic journey and a reservoir of untapped potential. In the same vein, my 'Rodin Reserve' is a collection of ideas and projects I’ve developed, rich with possibilities, poised for eventual completion.
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On the flight back home after Thanksgiving, I was reading something on my Mac but didn't have enough space to move my hand to scroll on the trackpad. I figured, why not leverage the gyroscopes in the AirPods I was wearing at the time to scroll on the Mac? It turns out macOS doesn't have CoreMotion, so I created an iPad simulator and streamed quaternions over a local server. Possibilities could include scrolling through a recipe on an iPad while cooking, clay artists doing something similar, and perhaps even gaming.
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Was inspired to create a program that would let me just focus on one application while giving me the ability to access other windows when necessary. A better alternative to stage manager due to accessibility reasons. The user increases/decreases blur by simply pressing cmd + brightness up/down key.
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GenAI X Frost. Please refer to the Frost write-up for reference.