Alexandra Somodi (Photo/Courtesy of Alexandra Somodi)
It started with a trick, and a carefully hidden sensor.
As part of USC Makers, Alexandra Somodi – a 21-year-old senior from Iowa – and her teammates built a “magic top hat” that seemed to rise on its own whenever no one was looking directly at it. The illusion relied on sensors and a simple control system: when the device detected that eyes were turned away, a concealed mechanism quietly lifted the hat.
The result drew laughter, confusion and a steady crowd of curious onlookers.
But the project was more than a joke for Somodi, a double major in computer engineering and computer science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and in pharmacology and drug development at the USC Alfred E. Mann School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. It reflected a theme that runs through her work at USC: a constant pull toward creativity, paired with a desire to make that creativity meaningful.
