Finding Flow was inspired by a previous research project, Zen and the Art of STEAM. The concept of flow was developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and can be described as "being in the zone." The previous research project focused on digital culture students and whether they could find states of flow within their coursework. This thesis project aimed to develop a website prototype that could be used to help students who struggled to find flow.

Finding Flow was inspired by a previous research project, Zen and the Art of STEAM. The concept of flow was developed by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and can be described as "being in the zone." The previous research project focused on digital culture students and whether they could find states of flow within their coursework. This thesis project aimed to develop a website prototype that could be used to help students who struggled to find flow.

Coliving is a concept that has many benefits towards society and sustainability. This is due to the resources saved economically and environmentally when living with other people. Aisha Comfortable Coliving, a company based in Canada, provides a service where they help women find Coliving communities. A lack of knowledge pertaining to this service could slow down or halt the growth of Aisha ElSherbiny’s Aisha Comfortable Coliving company. This thesis was an extension of a broader project, “Web App for Aisha Comfortable Coliving Inc.,” which focused on transitioning from their current website platform into a web application. As an extension of this main project, this thesis is focused on the engine component design portion surrounding AI chatbots to determine which implementation would provide the best results for a small company in reaching their target audience and helping inform them through an interactive chatbot. The ability to present 24/7 support for Aisha Comfortable Coliving brings value to the company and the methods used in this chatbot can be reproduced in order to create similarly effective chatbots. This thesis delves into the various approaches and implementations researched to determine how to optimize the backend of a chatbot to provide speed, reliability, and expandability for companies aiming to create a chatbot for their users to interact with. It also discusses the methods used when implementing a chatbot called AishaBot using the IBM Watson Assistant’s platform that includes the development of Intents, Entities, Dialog Tree structure, and its WebHook functions. Overall, satisfaction pertaining to the designed chatbot engine within IBM Watson Assistant was discovered to be positive through user trials. Limitations have been discovered, feedback for future improvements have been noted, and lessons learned about the thoroughness of training data have been discussed.

In this paper, I propose that taking an embodied approach to music performance can allow for better gestural control over the live sound produced and greater connection between the performer and their audience. I examine the many possibilities of live electronic manipulation of the voice such as those employed by past and current vocalists who specialize in live electronic sound manipulation and improvisation. Through extensive research and instrument design, I have sought to produce something that will benefit me in my performances as a vocalist and help me step out from the boundaries of traditional music performance. I will discuss the techniques used for the creation of my gestural instrument through the lens of my experiences as a performer using these tools. I believe that, through use of movement and gesture in the creation and control of sound, it is more than possible to step away from conventional ideas of live vocal performance and create something new and unique, especially through the inclusion of improvisation.