Hi! I’m Sabrina, a second year Computer Science student at Bath who was given the opportunity to intern at Xor Systems for a weeklong AI research project. The Micro Internship was hybrid; I was based remotely as well as in Xor Systems’ office in the Bristol and Bath Science Park.
The project I worked on was researching and collecting information about various audio classification AI systems. This research would be used to inform the audio classifier the client would use to identify the sounds being picked up at their properties.
Over the week, I conducted research into audio classification models, learning how Google have developed many open-source frameworks and models to allow for classification of not just audio, but also gesture and image (amongst others). I got to test out Google's MediaPipe web app, which can predict sound types from over 500 classes using the YAMNet model, and use platforms I had not used before like Google Colab and Android Studio to learn more about the code needed for these audio classifiers to function.
At the end of the week, I produced and delivered a written report about everything I had learnt, including YAMNet, the Audioset dataset it used, the MediaPipe web app (as well as a handful of demos showing it identifying sound types from different audio samples) and the web version of MediaPipe. In addition to this, I explained the concept of transfer learning as the YAMNet model appeared to have some limitations in identifying some sounds (especially if the Audioset data set did not classify its sound collection precisely enough) which could be rectified by customising it further to suit what the client wanted.
I found this internship very exciting, as well as useful in helping me decide on the kind of career I would like to have in the future. Researching audio classification models helped me not just broaden my research and report writing skills but also my knowledge of the AI and ML sphere.
If I were to give advice to anyone wondering whether to go for a Micro Internship, I would 100% recommend applying. Even if you think you lack the experience required, it is worth a try and the experience you gain will be extremely valuable for you and your future career.
Finally, I would like to thank Elizabeth Childs for supporting me throughout the whole internship process, making it simple and smooth, as well as my host Jeff Graham for being so accommodating and encouraging.
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