Design Engineering
Showcase 2020

Over the course of the placement at Emotech, I have gained a wide range of new skills, and have had the opportunity to put these into practice on real-world projects. A particular achievement has been expanding my skills in Python, and learning 4 new programming languages (HTML, CSS, JavaScript & React) to a standard that allowed me to valuably contribute to development and research teams. Many of my visual communication skills from Design Engineering have been extremely useful, both for communicating complex information to other team members, and also when making informed decisions while implementing web features. It's been very valuable to have a breadth of knowledge and understanding in different areas, and working alongside established and high-level software engineers, AI researchers and multidisciplinary designers has given me a deep appreciation of how a startup or smaller company can provide the flexibility for its members to impact a wide variety of projects, and implement a wide variety of skills while doing so.

One of the major projects that I completed during the second half of the placement was the build and deployment of Emotech’s new marketing website, using a visual web development platform called Webflow. This particular project is consumer-facing and will contribute directly to the success of Emotech’s recruitment drive, as well as providing a platform to showcase Emotech’s new technologies and capabilities to potential clients. This is a much-needed update, taking the place of the old company website and drawing attention to Emotech’s role as a major developer and supplier of bespoke AI solutions. The website I built can be found here.

Another project that I contributed heavily towards was the implementation and refinement of new features for Emotech's English Language Teaching Platform. The platform is designed to be used by English language teachers to generate, organise and distribute teaching content, and is currently in late-stage testing with a prominent client.

The section I worked on allowed teachers to upload videos of themselves speaking, which would then be processed and scored using Emotech’s Pronunciation Assessment engine (MMPA) to verify that the teacher’s pronunciation was adequate. Alternatively, they could choose to generate a ‘virtual teacher’ using Emotech’s Text-to-Video (TTV) engine, which would provide realistic lip articulation to aid the students’ learning of correct English pronunciation. My work on this page allowed for batch-processing of TTV practice sentences, meaning that large amounts of teaching content could be generated quickly and efficiently by the teachers themselves, via a simple file upload in the front-end. I also worked on some major UI/UX changes, based on design work from my colleagues, refreshing the visual look and feel of the page and making it much easier to work with.

Emotech is an excellent place for fast-paced, challenging skill development, and I was given lots of opportunities to get involved in different aspects of the business. In the projects I worked on, I had a lot of responsibility, which allowed me to progress massively in all areas during the course of the placement. I found that fast, efficient learning and an open-minded approach to new problems have been the most valuable assets when working in a professional context.