Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

Whiteboard Drawing Device, Stefan Ilic, Andrew Adams, Vaughn Richards, James Medved

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Whiteboards have become a staple in many classrooms, especially in the context of STEM courses. However, when it comes to teaching complex topics, it can be difficult or impractical to provide accurate drawings and visualizations by hand, and in extreme cases may lead to misinterpretation of a particular topic. To fix this issue, the Whiteboard Drawing Device allows users to draw preset shapes to a whiteboard automatically, both quickly and accurately. Using either a smartphone application or a set of onboard controls, the device allows users to automatically draw straight lines, rectangles, triangles, sinusoidal waves, and circles on the whiteboard. …

Running Shoe Pedometer, Benjamin Kasper

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Running shoe pedometer aims to solve the issue of worn out running shoes. It can be difficult to know just how many miles you have run in your shoes and when a new pair is needed. Running in old shoes and worn out shoes is heavily linked to injury. My proposed project is a device that is powered by the compressive forces on the shoes soles that counts the number of steps the wearer takes using a microcontroller. Then, when the shoe reaches milestone that indicate it has been used 75% 90% and 100% of its expected life, it will …

Wireless Environmental Weather Monitor, Joel Christie-Millett, Nathan Schroeder, Sylvester Wilson, Matthew Szijarto

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of this senior design/honors project is to create a device that monitors environmental conditions in order to detect a wildfire. This device should notify a user of the status of the environment. The device should also last for 6 months without any human interaction. My role on the team is to design the power supply system that maximizes efficiency and uses renewable energy.

Autonomous Wildfire Detection System, Matthew Pyle, Nick Garrett

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

According to the National Fire Protection Association Journal, federal wildfire suppression costs in the United States have risen from an annual average of about $425 million from 1985 to 1999 up to $1.6 billion from 2000 to 2019. On average, more than 200,000 acres in the United States are burned per year due to wildfires, with more than 700,000 acres burned in 2020 alone. With the risk of wildfire ever rising, there is a need for better early detection of remote wildfires, as existing methods often include long delays like satellites or rely on human lookout towers. The objective is …

Smart Kettlebell, Cole Russell, Patrick Davis, Ryan Deboer, Isaac Stecker

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of design team 08’s senior design project is to create and implement a workout device that will be able to calculate the caloric expenditure, repetitions, and length of a workout. Once the duration of a workout is completed, the user metrics will be communicated from the kettlebell system to a user application via Bluetooth. The caloric expenditure will be used using the data that is provided from the accelerometer. The duration of the workout will be controlled using a push button that is connected to the kettlebell system that will allow for the start and stop of a …

Light Loaded Automated Guided Vehicle, Marcus Radtka, Nazar Paramashchuk, Lawrence Shevock

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of the locomotion system was to design and implement the mechanical, electrical, and software related functions to ensure the LLAGV had the capability of maneuvering its surroundings. The LLAGV’s motors were represented in an open loop transfer function to utilize RPM feedback and a compensator when needed. The modeled compensator helped control the LLAGV’s speed and acceleration, enabling further control of the LLAGV. The internal circuitry has the means to properly distributed power to all components and allowed the user to control the LLAGV to their desire. The application software within the LLAGV locomotion system (LLAGV-LS) had consideration …

Hard Hat Ambient Liability Observer (Halo), Hunter Hykes, Nathan Kish, Brian Thomson

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Capturing workplace incident information is a growing area of concern for most companies. To assist with this, the design team proposed the H.A.L.O. This design uses time-of-flight sensors connected to LEDs to create a proximity-based hazard warning system. It also records incident data using an accelerometer and micro-SD card. This helps workers avoid some of the most common workplace injuries, slips, trips, and falls and accidental collisions.

Students have created a design with engineering, and marketing requirements that accomplish this task. The proposed design allows for this monitoring and mitigation systems to be attached to hard hats. Team members developed …

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 …

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 …

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 …

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.