Will Rule

Creative Technologist

Penn State B.Des ’26 — Digital Art & Media Design

I'm Will, a creative technologist who likes building the whole thing. I design the interface, write the code, model the enclosure, and print the parts. My work lives where software meets something physical: an iOS app that turns repeating photos into motion, an LED map of State College that tracks me in real time, a projection-mapped installation, a golf tool that reads greens with computer vision. If a project needs a skill I don't have yet, that's usually why I picked it.

Barista — nine years behind the bar

Skills

Design

Adobe Suite

Used on
- Drew the overlay shapes users hunt for through the camera, plus the app's icons and UI assets.
- Laid out the map tile plan, LED grid references, and companion app graphics.
- Built the projected surface graphics and the installation's visual identity.
- Designed the app icon, interface assets, and brand system.
Used on
- Animated the demo reels showing how aligned photos compile into motion.
- Motion pieces documenting the build, from tile prints to the finished glowing map.
- Made the proposal animation that got the installation approved before fabrication.
- Produced the proposal piece that set Dialed's design tone before the product had a form.
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- Turned photographs into the animated visual assets projected on the structure.
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- Edited and assembled the opening film sequence and supporting video cuts.
- Cut the final installation reel and the in-process documentation edits.
- Edited documentation and presentation footage for the installation.
- Handled assembly edits and timeline work across the Dialed video pieces.
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- Color corrected and graded the stop-sign series for the gallery installation.

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- Early screen layouts and overlay explorations before the final assets.
- Supporting vector work for map documentation and print references.
- Supplementary surface graphics and layout files for the install.
- First-pass icon and interface explorations during early design.
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- Previsualized the map assembly and rendered shots for documentation.
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- Color graded and edited the opening film sequence.
- Color graded and edited select footage for the opening sequence.
- Every Dialed video ran through here: edit, color, and finishing.
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- Mapped the visuals onto the triangular structure and dialed in every face.

Code

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- Camera capture, live shape overlays, and the engine that compiles photos into video.
- Phone-side logic that syncs my live position to a specific LED on the map.
- Ball tracking, green reading, and putt analysis, all running on device.
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- Home of the app from first prototype through App Store release.
- Built the companion iOS app that streams my location to the map.
- Shipped the full app: camera pipeline, on-device ML, and session history.
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- Trained the ball-detection models that power tracking out on the course.
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- ESP32 firmware that maps incoming location data to individual LEDs on the grid.
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- The realtime bridge relaying my location from the app to the physical map.
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- Prototyped the Kinect-driven alignment interaction before the physical build.

Fabrication

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- Modeled the frame and mounting hardware that hold the printed map together.
- Designed the print-in-place folding stand that fits in a golf bag and deploys in seconds.
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- Turned real State College street geometry into the modular printable tiles.
- Designed the triangular structure and prepped the cut files for laser cutting.
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- Sliced hundreds of map tiles, tuning profiles so every piece fit clean.
- Tuned the print-in-place settings so the folding stand prints as one working piece.