Bassam Jalgha joined Karaj in the summer 2011 as a resident & later became a roomie. He completed his BS and MS in Electrical Engineering (with concentration in Mechatronics) at the American University of Beirut. Currently, Bassam is teaching Mechatronics and Intelligent system design, Control systems and Instrumentation labs at AUB. Bassam, is also the co-founder of the start-up “Depot Beirut” along with Hassane Slaibi and Majd Oleik . Back in 2010, he participated in season 1 of ” Stars of Science” in Qatar and won first prize for his awesome project “Dozan”, an automated tuning device for string musical instruments.We asked Bassam to tell us more about his project and here’s what he said about his work and how Karaj helped him in implementing it.
I first moved in to Karaj in the summer of 2011 to join hands with Hind Hobeika in developing her first butterfleye prototype. And I never imagined I will fall in love with the place the way I did. The beautiful architecture, the great spirit and the collaborative aspect of the place made me enjoy and remain located in Karaj till now.
Measuring a pulse after plenty of development! 
During my stay at Karaj I was involved in countless electronics projects (some of them were small, some were big, some were just for fun). Along with Hassane Slaibi and Majd Oleik, we started DepotBeirut early this fall. Depotbeirut is based in Karaj and the purpose is to develop consumer electronics. Our main R&D product is Tork (formerly known as Dozan). Dozan allowed me to win the stars of science competition back in 2009. And I am happy to announce that Tork made the most progress during my stay in Karaj. The product was demo’ed live during my TEDxBeirut talk
Currently Tork is undergoing major development and all is due to the beautiful space that Karaj provided us.
Depotbeirut planning in the common room
Also during my stay in Karaj, I started my own blog DepotBassam. The purpose of this blog is to promote the electronic DIY culture in Lebanon. DepotBassam was successfully featured on Hackaday and Howtogeek for the sound triggered flash project.
Meet Emily
One of the earliest project of DepotBeirut was Emily. We have been hired by 961 beer to build them a beer serving robot. The challenge was that we need to have the robot ready in 3 weeks. So we assembled at team of 6 people and started the work.
Soldering the brains of Emily
Sevag assembling Emily
- During my stay in Karaj we also developed an Eyewriter (eyewriter.org) to be used to drive a screen cursor with the eye.
The eyewriter
One of the early products developed by DepotBeirut
a part of the interior of Tork
- The smallest circuit i’ve built in Karaj
our lovely workshop at Karaj.
I also worked on the ijit ijit sign.
And finally a few weeks ago, and for one of DepotBassam’s hacks Ja3far was born. Ja3far used his electronic know how to design a new and useful hack as can be seen in the following video.
