Engineering Commons^™

Eve: Engine Volumetric Effeciency, Dallin Lloyd

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Engine Volumetric Effeciency gauge is a system that is designed to optomize fuel economy in high performance vehicles.

Many competitive automotive events limit the amount of fuel that can be consumed during each race. The EVE gauge is designed to help engine calibrators and tuners optomize the turbocharger system, resulting in higher performance and increased fuel economy.

Foozee: The Automated Foosball Table, Nathan Cook, Leif Chipman

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Foozee is an automated foosball table designed to allow a user to play a game of foosball without another person. As Foozee captures a video stream of the playing field, it will control the foosball players in a strategic manner. Foozee’s tracking algorithm generates a command for the motors, which controls the position of the players. During game play, a single user is challenged in a game of foosball as Foozee competitively reacts to the playing field.

Gesture Aerial Camera, Usu Department Of Electrical And Computer Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

What is it?

• Video recorder via a quadcopter with a mounted camera
• Gesture controlled device via electromyography
• The sensing of electric pulses through one’s muscles.
• Unique networking structure via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi Direct
• Bluetooth short range communications to connect gesture reading armband to a phone application.
• Wi-Fi Direct long range ad-hoc communications to connect the phone app to the Gesture Aerial Camera.

Gps Tracker With 15km Range, Usu Department Of Electrical And Computer Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Aurora board is designed to be a light weight, low power tracker that is able to communicate location outside of any external networks such as Wi-fi or cell service. It is designed to run from USB or battery power, and requires no operator after powered on. This makes it ideal for unmanned aircraft, high altitude balloons, or drones. It can also be used for vehicle or human tracking. External antennas connectors allow Aurora to be used for a wide range of applications.

Hscr: High Speed Cubesat Radio, Dana Sorensen, Colton Lindstrom

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Software Defined Radios (SDRs) are limited by their usable bandwidth, which restricts how quickly they can transmit or receive data. The High Speed Cubesat Radio (HSCR) is capable of transmitting and receiving higher bandwidth signals by combining the bandwidths of several individual SDR transceivers. The HSCR performs phase correction to seamlessly stitch the bandwidths of each individual SDR into a single larger bandwidth.

Iphone Waveform Generator, Erik Sargent

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The iPhone Waveform Generator is a dual-channel arbitrary function generator controlled by an iPhone app to provide a more accessible instrument for circuit testing.

• The app enables easy drawing and customization of the waveforms
• Waveform information is transmitted wirelessly to the waveform generator
• Two different waveforms can be generated at once

Learn Piano With The Piano Trainer, Jay Mattinson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project was to help make learning the piano easier.The Piano Trainer is a simple bar of lights that sits above the keys on any piano. It lights up the lights to help you know which key you should play next. You can plug in a USB drive and play any song you like.

Nirs-Hyperscan Toolbox, Joseph Ipson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS) can used to measure blood oxygenation changes in the scalp, which are an indicator for brain activity
• Hyperscanning refers to measuring the brain activity in two or more individuals simultaneously
• The NIRS Lab here at USU uses a NIRS system to perform language and learning studies, but did not have tools to analyze data in a Hyperscan setting
• This software is meant to provide a tool for viewing and analyzing NIRS-hyperscan data
• Having the proper tools may help in the research of language development and communicative disorders in the brain

Noise Cancellation, Golden Money

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Noise cancellation is a technology that utilizes adaptive filtering and can be found in many different applications. This technology is used to cancel out unwanted sound waves by producing a similar wave with an inverted phase. When done properly the volume of the unwanted sound can be greatly reduced and sometimes entirely removed. This project analyzed how noise cancellation can be achieved through signal processing and attempts to show in the real world how this type of adaptive filtering works.

Perfect Stryde, Tyler Johnson, Taylor Hansen

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Over striding occurs when an athlete overextends their stride. Over striding reduces reduces the athlete's forward momentum and can increase risk of running related injury. Perfect Stryde provides feedback to the athlete while they are running to allow them to correct their stride.

Personal Cloud: A Better Way To Store Files, Jeffrey Heilbut

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Cloud storage is like a hard drive you can access over the internet. One example is Google Drive. The purpose of the Personal Cloud is to:

• Allow larger cloud storage for less money
• Better security for cloud files

The Personal Cloud allows users to store as much data as they want, without the yearly subscription fee from other cloud options. The Personal Cloud also gives the users management of the security of their files.

The Personal Cloud implementation is in the “Materials” and “Methods” sections. The final outcome of the Personal Cloud is in the “Results” section.

Real-Time Camera Array Lecture Capture System, Clint Ferrin, Daniel Mortensen

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Distance Education programs are rising in popularity, and classroom lectures are commonly recorded to host both in-person and online students. However, technical lectures that rely on several whiteboards are inhibited by current lecture recording techniques that reduce a teacher’s workspace.

The Camera Array Lecture Capture (CALC) System enhances the learning of both in-class and online students by sending a real-time, video of multiple white boards stitched together. The system allows a teacher to utilize every whiteboard in the classroom and send a complete replica of the whiteboard notes to distance education students.

Remote Control Boat With Camera And Depth Sensor Capabilites, Emerson Udy

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Climate change, urbanization, and agricultural runoff increase destabilization of aquatic ecosystems.
• Monitoring shoreline ecosystems can be very invasive to aquatic life.
• This monitoring can also require a lot of man hours and equipment.
• A system allowing minimal economical impact and man hours will greatly improve shoreline management
• Implementing reclamation in lake ecosystems requires adequate monitoring that gives up-do-date feedback on ecosystem improvement without impacting reclamation efforts
• An RC boat equipped with a built-in camera allows for effective monitoring with minimal disturbance and man power.

Smartsmoker, Nathan Tipton

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The SmartSmoker is an automated meat smoking device that controls the smoking environment based on sensor data. The controller adjusts feed rates for the wood pellet dispensing auger and the liquid dispensing peristaltic pump to maintain desired environmental conditions. The heating element is used to maintain the optimal meat smoking temperature.

Rpi Cluster: The Affordable Supercomputer Solution!, Cameron Frandsen, Joel Meine

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Problem:

Supercomputer systems in use today are...

• Expensive to develop, operate, and maintain
• Vulnerable to malfunctions
• Limited to non-scalable resources
• Large in physical dimensions
• Immobile to prevent relocating the system

Solution:

The RPi Cluster supercomputer system is...

• Affordable to acquire, operate, and maintain
• Adaptive to malfunctions
• Scalable to allow more resources
• Small in physical dimensions
• Mobile to allow relocating the system

Software Defined Radio For Communication Between Cubesats, Arden Barnes, Tia Bradley, Caleb Young, Tyler Gardner, Sarah Watkins, Emily Clark Young

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Cube satellites, or CubeSats, are small satellites that have become increasingly common for academic, amateur, commercial, and scientific applications over the past five to ten years. There is potential for CubeSats to be deployed in swarms and clusters, and a need for communication between satellites in these missions.

The purpose of this project is to design and demonstrate proof-of-concept for a Software Defined Radio (SDR) for communication between CubeSats. The preliminary design has focused on two main components: electrical and software design of the radio, and the mechanical packaging that will encase the radio chip-set and mount within the satellite.

Spectre Battlezone: Laser Tag Without Lasers, Evan Boren, Devin Gillespie, Taylor Spencer

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Spectre Battlezone is a twist on traditional laser tag without using lasers. Each player is provided a rifle configured for gameplay. The rifle is equipped with a digital display showing a real-time map and current player statistics along with location of teammates, opponents, and in-game upgrades

The goal of the project was to design a system comprised of smaller embedded systems. The design was to include embedded linux development tools, modern communication protocols, and to make laser-tag more like an Arena Shooter!

Thermoelectric Cooled (Tec) Central Processing Unit, Tyler Lindsay, Landon Wilcox

Electrical and Computer Engineering

There are no Intel processors that run at 5GHz stock. Breaking the 5GHz barrier is equivalent to joining the 150 MPH club out on the salt flats.

Thermoelectric coolers are used because they are solid state heat pumps that have low thermal resistance when they are inactive.

Creative 3d Plant Optimization (C3po) System For The Exploration Systems And Habitation (X-Hab) 2018 Academic Innovation Challenge, Carter Bodnar, Joanna Boyd, Rebecca Brown, Kaitlin Burnash, Amanda Dennis, Brandon Furman, Camren Hansen, Skyler Heiner, Cameron Lebaron, Nicholas Narrell, Ty Nicholas, Adreann Peel, Andrew Poulos, David Redd, Joshua Wallace, Iren Bencze

Biological Engineering

As work in space continues to progress, many different ideas are being explored to improve life for astronauts. One factor that has been extensively researched is the viability of growing plants on the international space station(ISS). As plants provide a fresh source of food and psychological benefits for the astronauts providing their care, growing plants has remained a point of interest for NASA over the years. Currently the VEGGIE system provides a platform for growing plants on the ISS; however, the system creates a large amount of waste (the substrate after use) and requires regular interaction from the astronauts, as …

Designing A Synthetic Spider Silk Based Coating For Urinary Catheters To Reduce The Risk Of Cautis, Tess Armbrust, Alexander Cook, Andrea Grebil, Matthew Potter, Rachel Müller, Harshit Singh, Riannon Smith, Randolph Lewis

Biological Engineering

• Catheter-associated urinary tract infections (CAUTIs) are a leading cause of morbidity and mortality in patients with life-threatening conditions.¹

• Foley catheters are the most common urinary catheters used but can become burdened with microbes which lead to CAUTIs, the most common source of hospital acquired infection (HAI).¹

• The attached bacteria can form biofilms on the catheter which are difficult to treat using oral antibiotics and can lead to chronic infections.²

• Synthetic spider silk as a catheter coating shows great promise because of demonstrated strength, biocompatibility, and antimicrobial properties.

• Chlorhexidine can enhance the antimicrobial …

Developing Technology For Environmental Response To Harmful Algal Blooms (Habs), Ammon Balle, Jason Eldredge, Michael Flores, Kyle Hillman, Ammon Hooper, Jeffrey Jarman, Bethany Jensen, Tyler Lewis

Biological Engineering

• Toxic to humans, domestic animals, fish, and other wildlife

• Immediate symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, headache, and skin rash

• Carcinogen

• Liver Toxin

• Withstands high temperatures, changes in pH, photolysis, and hydrolysis

• A main toxin of concern in Utah HABs

Microfluidic Device For Decellularization Of Murine Brain Slices, Christian Morrill, Adam Talbot, Ian Wadsworth, Melena Garrett, Elaine Castro, Holly Saatzer, Yu Huang

Biological Engineering

In the body, nearly all cells in tissues reside in an extracellular matrix (ECM) consisting of a complex three-dimensional (3D) microenvironment created through cell-cell and cell-ECM interactions that maintain specificity and homeostasis of the tissue. Accurate representation of microenvironments is pivotal in furthering our understanding of several fields, including disease mechanisms, drug discovery, tissue engineering, and regenerative medicine. Current 3D tissue models are limited in their ability to reproduce tissue-specific biochemical and mechanical cues present in vivo¹.

Decellularization is the chemical, physical, or enzymatic means of stripping cells from a tissue, producing a bare 3D ECM that is …

Springstepper: An Alternative To Traditional Crutches, Jennifer Smith, Garrett Jones, Wm. Paul Gilson, Jeremiah Woodall, Matthew Clegg

Biological Engineering

Axillary crutches are the most common type of crutch. They are cheap and readily accessible, which makes them a popular option. However, when used incorrectly they can cause a host of problems, including blood clots (Brooks) and nerve damage (Chang). Even when used correctly they can cause carpal tunnel syndrome and other injuries due to the large amount of force placed on the hand and wrist (Goh). Several different crutches have been created, but each comes with its own issues (Malkan).

Synthetic Snake Venom: The Novel Creation Of Crotalid Phospholipase A2 Using Genetic Engineering, Taylor Anderson, Emily Jesgarz, Richard Klein, Andrew Merkley, Alaric Siddoway

Biological Engineering

Antivenin is listed as one of the World Health Organization’s Essential Medicines¹, and as such, it is integral to a modern health care system. Antivenin is currently developed through a process of milking venomous animals, in this case, snakes, concentrating the venom, inoculating animals, and isolating antibodies found in their plasma. The aim of this project is to genetically engineer an organism to overexpress common proteins found in snake venom, thereby lowering the cost of antivenin.

Image Processing: Iris Detection, Samuel Jungert, David Spencer

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project is to use image processing techniques to detect the eye’s iris center. A camera with a wide angle lens and near Infrared (IR) sensitivity is used as input. An algorithm processes the input image data and distinguishes features such as face, eye region, and iris.

Auto-Locking Knee Brace, Kareena Hudson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Auto-Locking Knee Brace provides a support system for those with weak or otherwise unreliable knees. It functions by detecting sudden changes in direction and locking the brace into place to help prevent a fall. The knee brace is worn regularly and programmed to be able to identify the difference between normal movement and a fall risk. When a fall risk is detected the knee brace is programmed to lock into place preventing the fall. If a fall is falsely detected, or after stability is regained, the knee brace contains a lock-release mechanism. All the user has to do is …

Open Eyes Smart Application, Austin Goddard

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Open Eyes is a smart home application that combines machine learning and computer vision techniques into an Alexa smart home app that works through your Amazon Echo device. The application will fulfill several purposes. It will notify the home user when unknown guests have entered, track commonly lost objects and communicate a catalog of objects detected. Open Eyes uses deep learning neural networks and computer vision to observe its surroundings and provide users with information they require. It is operated by simple voice commands such as “Who is in my living room?” or “Where is my phone?”. The system should …

The Pocket Generator A Self-Charging Backup Battery, Cadin White

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The purpose of this project was to provide a personal external power source for small electronic devices such as smart phones. The objective was to use triboelectric effects between materials with different electron affinities in order to store energy from mechanical movement. This effect allowed the pocket generator to collect energy as it was carried by a person throughout their daily routine. Directing that energy into a rechargeable battery allowed that energy to be used later for powering a personal electronic device.

A Post-American World? Assessing The Cognitive And Attitudinal Impacts Of Challenges To American Exceptionalism, Jason A. Gilmore, Charles Rowling

Languages, Philosophy, and Communication Studies Faculty Publications

A number of voices have emerged in U.S. political discourse questioning the legitimacy of American exceptionalism, suggesting we are in a “post-American world.” Our research examines the effects that political messages that explicitly challenge American exceptionalism can have on U.S. public opinion. Drawing upon social identity theory, we find that explicit challenges to American exceptionalism significantly impact Americans’ views toward their own nation, their willingness to denigrate foreign publics, and their broader foreign policy preferences.

Ahoy Aggies! | College Of Engineering, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

In landlocked Utah, freshmen engineering students at Utah State University got a hands-on lesson in sailing the open seas.