Bob Hsiung's Design Portfolio
Death and the Powers
Death and the Powers is a futuristic new opera created by MIT professor and composer Tod Machover. The opera features professional opera singers performing onstage with unusual, highly sophisticated, robotic set pieces created specifically for the opera.
As Technical Development Manager, I facilitated communication between MIT engineers, non-technical theater professionals, accountants, lawyers and Monaco-based funders. I balanced technical risk and artistic considerations and helped the team to reach a compromise on the overall scope and direction of the design of the robotic set pieces
I controlled the development schedule and budget. I contracted and managed outside vendors and consultants to design and construct the physical structure of the larger set pieces including the Chandelier (an articulated, 14 ft tall hyperinstrument) and the Walls (3 autonomously mobile 15' tall, 3000 lb periktos with Versatube display surfaces).
I personally performed the mechanical design of the Operabots (a Greek chorus of highly expressive semi-autonomous, human-sized robots) in Solidworks. I redesigned circuit boards in PCB Artist. I assembled and managed a team of 10+ graduate and undergraduate students to construct the 12 operabots in-house over the course of 6 months. I managed the development of all software control and sensor systems for all robotic elements, trained and rehearsed teams of operators to run the equipment during the live performances.
Death and the Powers debuted to great critical acclaim in Monaco in the Fall of 2010 and Boston and Chicago in the Spring of 2011.
The MIT Death and the Powers Official Website
Boston Globe Interview (video)
Sloan Fellows Interview (video)