Sam Miles

Background

About Sam Miles

I graduated with my Master's of Science in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Missouri-Kansas City and have been working for Olsson Inc. in Overland Park, KS as a telecommunications intern while finishing my degree and thesis. In my internship, I developed skills in the design process as well as in Machine Learning and Python development for geoprocessing tools.My master's thesis was an adventure in Machine Learning. I was able to develop an AI system that understands the ins and outs of music, which involved training custom model that converts natural text descriptions of a song into plausible MIDI files (see more at https://sammiles.cool/projects/jamformer ). My undergraduate Senior Design project was on public display from Feb-May 2023 in the learning gallery at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art (shown in the banner image, photo courtesy of the museum, but additional information is available at https://sammiles.cool/projects/digital-organum). This audio-visual experience sonified visitors' hand movements and rendered a rotoscoped outline of them on the wall. I developed the visuals, and our team developed the MIDI pipeline.My practical electronics experience outside the classroom is a constant stream of hobby projects including frankensteining together a robot vacuum from spare parts for my elderly grandmother, building a custom USB controller, upcycling a laptop-turned-monitor, modifying a vintage boombox to implement bluetooth while keeping that 90's flair.My volunteer work as the audio/visual team leader in my local church college ministry has grown from a few random volunteers with a basic travel setup to a dedicated team of 9 technical veterans who skillfully operate, organize, and livestream a fully-featured multimedia environment. Leadership has been rewarding and stretches me in new ways: from working with limited resources or requisitioning needed technologies, to effective encouragement and coaching people. I've also gotten a lot of flight hours as an audio engineer, which I have really enjoyed.