The Vision: This project gave physical form to the digital cacophony of social media. Designed as a retro-styled radio, the device allowed users to "tune in" to a real-time stream of Twitter feeds. The goal was to create a tactile interface for an intangible data stream, allowing users to physically adjust the volume and distortion (Noise) of the internet's collective voice.

The Engineering: The system required a tight, bidirectional loop between the physical interface and a hidden background workstation. I architected a control system where the embedded hardware and the desktop audio engine worked in tandem to process data in real-time.

Bidirectional Control: The microcontroller acted as the primary interface, reading analog values from the custom "Volume" and "Noise" dials and transmitting them to the workstation to modulate the audio parameters. Simultaneously, it received telemetry data back from the application to drive a physical galvanometer, mechanically displaying the real-time "Tweets Per Minute" velocity on the radio's faceplate.

Audio Pipeline & DSP: On the workstation, I implemented a custom audio rendering pipeline using the FMOD engine. The system ingested live tweet text, converted it to audio via a Text-to-Speech (TTS) engine, and applied real-time Digital Signal Processing (DSP) based on the user's dial inputs—adding reverb, distortion, or granular delay to physically manifest the concept of noise in the data stream.