Engineering Commons^™

Automatic Range Finding Bow Sight, Garrett Gill, Dillon Denny, Cory Verba

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

With the growing popularity of archery, a system designed to help an archer achieve the best shot possible becomes necessary. The Automatic Range Finding Bow Sight is a system that consists of a single pin sight controlled by a servo motor. The servo motor controls the sight pin by rotating a drive wheel that will move the pin up or down. The sight pin movement is based on a reading obtained by a built-in rangefinder and speed data input by the user. This data will then be compared to programmed lookup tables in order to find the appropriate pin position. …

S.A.V.E. M.E., Taylor Davis, Kelly Nicole O'Neill, Adrianna M. Dunlap, Parsa Esshaghi Bayat

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

S.A.V.E. M.E. stands for Submerged Automated Vehicular Elevation Minor Extraction or alternatively a Home Swimming Pool Rescue Device. The objective of this project is to design and prototype a system that will make unattended swimming pools through detecting a victim’s presence, deploying a means to save the victim, and alerting others nearby of the situation. This system encompasses sensors and devices within the pool and an alarm system outside of the pool. Upon detection of a sufficiently sized object entering the pool when the system is armed, a device will maneuver to the victim and deploy a flotation device that …

Autonomous Combat Robot, Andrew J. Szabo Ii, Chris Heldman, Tristin Weber, Tanya Tebcherani, Holden Leblanc, Fabian Ardeljan

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This honors project will also serve as an engineering senior design project.

The objective is to design and build the software and electrical systems for a 60 lb weight class combat robot that will function autonomously and outperform manually driven robots during competition.

While running autonomously, the robot will use LiDAR sensors to detect and attack opponent robots. This robot will also be able to be remote controlled in manual mode. This will mitigate the risk in case the autonomy or sensors fail. LED lights on the robot will indicate whether it is in autonomous or manual mode. The system …

Smart Garage Opener, Jacob Wasson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this research project was to design an anti-theft device that interfaces with a standard garage door opener to allow packages to easily be delivered into a garage in a safe and secure manner. Primary functionality of the device is to use a package’s tracking number and corresponding barcode to open and close a garage door to a preset height so that a package can be delivered inside the garage before it closes. My contribution to the project revolved around the programming and board design of the microcontroller circuit that controls the input and output signals of the …

Cycle Assist, Tyler Matthews

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The senior engineering design project presented in the paper that succeeds this, outlines the steps taken to design and implement an electronic bicycle that is able to keep a user’s heart-rate in a selected “intensity zone” though the use of an electronic motor and custom control circuitry. My portion of this project was to allow for safe and consistent power delivery to the rest of the electronics. That is to say, I built a battery pack and battery management system (BMS) to safely supply sufficient power to the rest of the electronics that were required for this project. In order …

Safe Pass, Alycia Riese, Julia Hariharan, Greg Synek, Jonathan Hall

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project is to design a sensor to be mounted on Class IV and higher vehicles to detect on-coming traffic. If traffic has been detected, the system is to warn drivers behind the stopped vehicle that passing is unsafe. The vehicle detection is to be implemented using a LiDAR detection method along with signal processing. A wireless transceiver is to transmit from the front radar module to the rear warning indicator module when the conditions are unsafe for passing. The project goals are to increase road safety and maintain traffic flow. The report details the challenges due …

Soil Moisture Sensor, Jaclyn Miller, Derek Bitecofer, Seung Jun Lee

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Since water is an important resource and not all communities around the world can afford to be liberal with their water needs; it has become important to use available water as efficiently as possible, especially in agriculture. For the purpose of reducing the overwatering of crops, an unattended ground moisture sensor can be implemented to measure the moisture level in the soil surrounding the plants. This will allow a farmer to know when to water or stop watering crops. For convenience, the moisture data information should be transmitted wirelessly to the user. The design of an unattended ground moisture sensor …

Ball Oscillating Bouncer, Eric Blok, Daniel Altemese, Ryan Nowacki, Maram Qurban

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this report is to document the need, objectives, marketing and engineering requirements, as well as validate the design of an autonomous control device capable of continuously bouncing a table tennis ball on a paddle. This includes the design of a self correcting system using lightweight materials, and as few sensors and components as possible to achieve a compact, portable design. To accomplish this, the system is designed to react to a ball falling from as short a distance as 10 centimeters above the paddle, meaning all sensor processing, control processing, and motor drives should be able to …

Smart Fitness Machine, Tyler M. Masters

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This paper details the design of a smart fitness machine that, by the use of sensors and a central micro controller, tracks an individual users exercise performance data and provides a platform for the data to be easily accessed either by the trainer or user.

Stringless Guitar, Kue Z. Yang, Anthony Batey, Dominic Mercorelli, Nathaniel Hawk

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The aim of this project is to improve the design of a typical guitar by designing a digital stringless guitar. Due to the nonlinearities inherent in a guitar, it would be difficult to reproduce guitar tones by summing harmonic components; therefore, digital samples of guitar tones were taken in order to preserve these unique and wonderfully sounding tones. These digital samples were stored in the guitar and used to produce its tones when played. The digital guitar includes fingerboard position sensors as well as strum sensors for each string. The fingerboard position sensors detect the player’s fingers at discrete positions. …

Packmule, Jared M. Alexander, Jared J. Ford, Timothy J. Griffiths, Andray Pennington

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

People face demands of hauling equipment and belongings with them every day, whether it be for work or leisure. This design report discusses and details a product that would allow people to overcome the struggles of this. The Packmule is an autonomous following robot that has the capability of carrying a load up to 30 pounds. The design involves two independently controlled motors operating two drive wheels so that the Packmule will be flexible in the directions it can move. There are also two more steering wheels for support of the base and the load inside. The way in which …

Underwater Robot, Joseph E. Beck, Matthew Crislip, Cody Bobek, Peyton Lucas

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs) are remote controlled drones operated by a non-local user. The ROV we plan to build is connected by a tethering wire to a floating buoy that contains an antenna which will send signals between the base station and the ROV. The ROV is equipped with a video camera, ballast system, propulsion system, lights, and a depth sensor. The ROV will transmit a live video feed to the user, while receiving input signals to control its movement from the base station.

Analysis Of Sensor Coil Implemented In Maxwell-Wien Bridge Circuit For Detecting Ferrous And Non-Ferrous Particles, Kue Z. Yang, Robert J. Veillette, Joan E. Carletta

Electrical and Computer Engineering Student Research

This paper presents an analysis of a wear debris sensor coil implemented in a Maxwell-Wien Bridge circuit used in detecting ferrous and non-ferrous particles. The sensor coil is designed to have a diameter approximately 15 times larger than the largest particle being detected. To detect particles up to 2 mm in diameter, a coil 30 mm in diameter was constructed. Simulations of the experiment indicate that the available particles should be detectable by the sensor coil. However, experimental results indicate that the Maxwell-Wien Bridge does not detect the available particles. Further simulations are presented accounting for parasitic capacitance of the …

Titan Wireless Camera Control System, Matthew J. Trowbridge, Ian Drake, Samuel Davis, Ognjen Krco

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Titan Camera Control System is an eletromechanical device that allows the user to wirelessly control a camera’s digital operations as well as physical orientation through the use of a mobile device application. The Titan system accepts input in the form of virtual user commands on the mobile app and performs system output in the form of sending photos/video from the camera back to the app as well as changing the orientation of the camera in accordance with the user’s commands.

Roobockey "Autonomous Hockey Robot", Keith R. Martin, Troy W. Bowers, Deboshri Sadhukhan, John A. Supel

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of the ROOBockey project is to design and construct a floor hockey robot that can competitively shoot a puck. The robot design quickly locates a specific beacon through the use of image processing and uses a pneumatic shooting mechanism to send a puck to a specified target. The beacons act as possible player or goal positions in a hockey game. The robot also utilizes a wireless controller device to allow a user to maneuver the robot across a hockey field.

Disc Golf Locator, Christian Wallenfelsz, Shane Gamble, Noah Sanor, Brandon Linhart

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research

Disc golf is a game similar to traditional golf where players throw small plastic discs into chain-link nets. Disc golf courses cover several acres containing lakes, small wooded areas, large bushes, and grassy fields. It is not uncommon to accidentally throw a golf disc into the woods or bushes, so it is the goal of this project to create a device to locate the disc and make suggestions for the player to improve performance. A small device will be attached the disc which will track its location and flight characteristics. The device will contain a GPS receiver, an inertial measurement …

Modular Biped Robotic Base, Lawrence T. Chiavaroli, Andrew J. Forchione, Wesley A. Miller, Joseph M. Drockton

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This report contains the final developments and research involved with the modular biped robotic base. A need was first identified in 2011 when President Obama announced the National Robotics Initiative, an initiative focused on the funding of robotic development to work alongside or cooperatively with humans. This scope of this project concerns building a robotic base modeled after human legs and hips, capable of interfacing with future modular subsystems depending on what tasks are trying to be accomplished. Firstly, a mathematical torque simulation of the hip, knee, and ankle joints was developed in MATLAB. Using this information, complimentary actuators and …

Autonomous Robot Sphere, Robert Haver, Melissa Haver, Daniel Madden, Noah Robertson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Autonomous Robot Sphere is an interactive robot toy meant to entertain kids. The robot will locate its target and execute algorithms to autonomously evade or chase a child. The sphere will contain a platform equipped with four omni-wheels, which will allow the sphere to maneuver and change direction almost instantaneously. The robot will be configured to maintain a fixed distance from the transmitter, allowing it to chase or evade the child in response to their movement. The primary advantage of our design lies in its capability to quickly adapt to changes in direction.

Free-Range Pre-Programmed Rc Car, Alexander L. Aubihl, Andrew S. Hopwood, Benjamin J. Riggs, Tyler P. Vance

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

There is a growing interest in the capabilities and utilization of autonomous vehicles. The objective of this project is to design a small scale illustration of an autonomous vehicle driven by user input. An application will be designed that will allow a user to create a track that an RC car will accurately follow. As the car follows the track, a microcontroller on the vehicle will send movement information back to the application. This information is used by the application to process where the vehicle is currently at and where it needs to go. While in motion, on-board sensors will …

Led Learning Guitar, Kellen C. Reusser, Justin Fiser

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of this project is to create an electric guitar that detects and displays chords in different tunings for learning and exploration purposes. A hexaphonic pickup will generate the required signals and a processor will detect the pitch. The computer software will apply the pitch information to determine the tuning and the voicings of chords. LEDs mounted on the fretboard of the guitar will indicate a note to be played.

Self-Balancing Two Wheeled Robot, David Laubli, Thomas Garabedian, Jordan Paul, Nikheel Patel, Michael Redle

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Automation is increasingly becoming a larger part of daily life. From automated telephone calls to machines in manufacturing, robots are generally an effective and efficient way to reduce overhead costs, increase consistency in products and services, and perform tasks that may be hazardous to humans. The successful design and building of a two-wheeled balancing robot demonstrates a knowledge of control systems and sensor interfacing that can translate to real world applications. Helping seniors live on their own, performing dangerous mining work, repeatedly screwing the same piece in an assembly line, are great examples of a controls automation system freeing time …

Monitoring System For Electric Motors, Sean Waples

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Induction motors are key to many applications and are one of the most commonly used electric devices. Currently, induction motor fault detection schemes are limited in features and computational power. With current technology, fault detection algorithms are operating in embedded systems and run on embedded processors. These processors do not have the computation power and functionality that more advanced computer systems have, which is the source of the issue. With the recent rise in cloud computing and connected devices, it is possible to build an induction motor monitoring system with a much greater set of features and possibilities.

Electronic Learning Guitar, Justin Fiser

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

No abstract provided.