About me
Here is a little more background about me, what I did besides work, and my hobbies. I am passionate about improving the lives of others through design and constantly looking to learn new things every day.
Father of two kids
Rosie and Lucas are the greatest gifts, and I get a lot of inspiration from them.
When Rosie starts to paint, she keeps herself in a state of flow. Achieving this state can help her feel greater enjoyment, energy, and involvement. I also get into this state when I start creating a design or building a prototype. It makes me forget about the time and focus on current activity. I even named my studio after this.
Lucas inspired me when he interacted with an object around him. Most of the item in our daily life is intuitive enough for a baby to understand how to use, like a toggle switch to turn on a light, a knob to adjust light intensity, a button to shut down my computer (when I am working on designs and forgot to save). I may invite him to do user testing one day to test if my design is intuitive enough.
Event Organizer
Starting from 2017, I had organized and hosted annual culture events in ConnectWise to celebrate Spring Festival (a.k.a. Chinese New Year).
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At the Year of Rooster(2017), I taught my colleagues how to paint Chinese Painting and started a painting competition.
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At the Year of Dog (2018), I hosted an event to learn how to do Chinese Paper Cut.
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At the Year of Pig(2019), I brought the hot pot to our office and taught them how to wrap pork dumplings.
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At the Year of Mouse (2020), I taught them how to make an origami mouse plus a calligraphy session.
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At the Year of Ox (2021), I started a virtual meeting and a coding challenge to draw an OX using CSS.
3D artist
I started to learn Blender in 2018. My full story about VR AR and 3D projects can be found here.
Volunteer
I started my volunteer career in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. I kept that spirit and served the local community. Below are photos of me:
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teaching 3D modeling at Cary Chinese School
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drawing Martin Luther King with kids in Boys & Girls Club
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talking about job interviews in Duke Fuqua Business School
Plus, some screenshots & photos of the poster for local non-profit organizations at different Chinese culture events.
Painter
Rosie likes to paint, and I am afraid of her making a mess. So I do less paint using actual paint and more digital painting now. Below is a couple of early paintworks I did.
Photographer
Before I had any kids, I liked to travel a lot. Below are a couple of photos I took:
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Antelope Canyon in Arizona,
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July 4th fireworks in DC
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Masks in Cancun,
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Dancing girls at an international festival,
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Trees in Arctic Circle
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Aurora Borealis in Alaska
With the pandemic and two kids, my travel plans are away from my life. So my photos are restricted to child portrait photography of my kids.
Badminton Player
I used to be the Club Champions of Badminton NC in 2017(Before Rosie was born in 2018) and played competitively in a couple of badminton opens. Playing badminton once a week has become a luxury thing to me now.
Above is what I did besides work. On my to-do list, I also have a list of exciting areas I want to explore. I hope one day I can be an expert in:
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AR VR interaction design,
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3D digital sculpting using ZBrush
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3D printing
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3D animation using Houdini
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Data visualization using artificial intelligence
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Art of communication
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Psychology
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Cooking
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Marketing