Sneha Makini

Selected Projects

Health Pulse

Data analytics (machine learning / natural language processing / network analysis) to track the spread of public health messages and misinformation on Twitter. Partnering with local organizations and influencers to relay guidance in trusted ways to under-exposed communities.

Occasions

Occasions is an AR app prototype powered by Unity that lets users envision how a furniture product designed for special occasions and holidays looks within their real-world space. The prototype allows users to change furniture colors and add Halloween decor objects.

INSPIRE

Connecting students from underserved Boston school neighborhoods to stories of successful people through a chatbot named “JoJo”, in order to enhance career exploration, and metacognitive traits such as growth mindset.

StoryBlocks

A smart, interactive storytelling iPad app for children (ages 6-10) with an intent to promote literacy, social-emotional and narrative development. Children can create stories in frames using characters (Boo, Kiwi, Lem), speech bubbles and in-game items. Deployed as part of a child-coach-parent network.

PictureBlocks

A mobile authoring app developed for young children (ages 5-9) to create digital pictures, fostering creativity and open-ended exploration of spelling principles and vocabulary learning. PictureBlocks allows children to discover sprites via correct spellings and a semantic network of words. It’s also the only study that has explored online social sharing between children of these ages. Graduate thesis.

Projects Continued

Child Coach Parent Network

A project that introduces a family learning coach to support a child’s learning across custom-built, open-ended literacy apps. I contributed to 3 pilot studies conducted involving this research — (1) creating an in-app parent+child onboarding experience, (2) automated learning goal detection using the words children make to assist coaches (3) designing and developing a storytelling app around which study 3 was centered. Coaches analyzed stories made by children on StoryBlocks and provided feedback through in-app stickies.

Foodprint

Design and development of a Pacman-style game (built in Unity) to highlight how our food choices can impact climate change. Players can move the main character around to eat randomly appearing food in the maze. Foods are tied to a point system that reflect their real-world impact on the environment. The goal of the game is to destroy the world ASAP by eating food with high carbon footprints. This was built as part of an MIT class called “Games for Social Change”.

Light Timer

A beautiful light piece that doubles as a timer, and is useful for productivity in disruptive environments. This is accompanied by an iOS app to adjust its brightness, colors, and duration. Built for an MIT architecture class - "How to Design (Almost) Anything".