Electrical and Electronics Commons^™

Parking Information And Supervision System, Joshua A. Thum, Alex J. Kinch, Jacob A. Dye

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In densely populated areas, finding parking can be an arduous and time-consuming struggle, especially in large and tall parking decks. Drivers would benefit from a convenient way to find an open parking spot without having to scour the entire lot first. The goal of this project is to sense available parking spots in a parking garage or parking lot using physical object detection and visual detection with computer vision verification, and display the open spots to drivers entering the lot. This information will be displayed locally at the lot and in an app, with the latter allowing someone to see …

Printer For Music Box, Chad Lewis, Caleb Murawski, Zion Smith, Bryan Tibbs

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The traditional method of creating music box sheet music involves manually punching holes into a paper strip using a hand-operated hole punch. This process involves precise knowledge of each note’s location and the ability to achieve perfect accuracy for hours.

The goal of this system is to automate this process, significantly reducing the time required while greatly improving the accuracy of the resulting music box playback. The user simply uploads a MIDI file of their choice into a user-friendly application. Here, the file is modified based on the user’s needs and sent to an automated hole-punching system to punch the …

Adaptive Lighting System, Jacob Samerdak, Ethan Schwartz, Brandon Breen, Matthew Carozza

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Adaptive Lighting System is a modular network of components that requires minimal installation in homes. Additionally, all components of the system communicate wirelessly and interface with a mobile application. The system utilizes occupancy and daylight sensors to detect the environment of a room and adjust the lighting accordingly. The system detects ambient lighting as well as occupancy within a room. Using the data collected from the sensors, the system adjusts lighting temperature, color, and brightness. The user can also manually control these settings. The Adaptive Lighting System aims to help regulate circadian rhythm, so there is a configuration in …

Dashboard And Racing Telemetry, Cole Barach, Jacob Koshel, Ethan Zifzal, Matthew Sullivan

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The main goal of the project is to design and manufacture a combined dashboard and data logger for the vehicles produced by the Zips Racing design team. The dashboard will intuitively display real-time information to the driver and record all received information while driving. This information may be pulled off the device later for performing data analysis. This project will incorporate custom PCB design, surface mount soldering, embedded software development, and the CAN communication protocol.

Aquaflow Pro, Ashton Henley, Jeannie Fritz, Khalin Rubbo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Changing aquarium water is a hassle, and when done incorrectly, it will result in changes in water quality and potential harm to aquatic life. Aquarium water changes are crucial in removing toxins such as ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. There is a need for an automated, stressless fish tank water-changing solution that ensures aquatic safety. To this end, an automatic temperature-controlled fish tank water changing system was designed, carrying out a water change for a designated main tank in which water heated within an inbound reservoir is pumped into the tank to replace the outbound water, responding to both the tank’s …

Brrbox, Shawn J. Myers, Lane Cline, Michael Davis, Christian Secrest

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This report details the project known as “The BRRBOX”, a reusable, insulated thermoelectric cooler developed to keep internal temperatures at refrigeration levels or cooler for at least 48 hours. The cooler will track its internal temperature during this period and be able to give the data at the end of its delivery cycle to keep up with food and pharmaceutical standards during delivery. The BRRBOX uses Peltier-based cooling alongside vacuum insulation panels and fans to achieve efficient thermal control. An onboard microcontroller will monitor temperature, record the data, and adjust the cooling output to minimize power consumption. The box will …

Automated Pill Dispenser, Ryan Oderkirk, Connor Beaven, Rachelle Labrie, Josue Panchana

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The project we propose is an automated system for dispensing dosages of medication throughout the day. It will be able to alert a user when their pills need to be taken and give them the correct dosages of up to four different medications. These dosages are configurable as well as the scheduled time they are to be taken. In addition, the pill dispenser will alert users when they are low on medications and need to refill the machine.

Automatic Pet Feeder Network, Daniel J. Herttna, David A. Bechtel, Alexander Deskovich

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will describe the design process and research behind the Automatic Pet Feeder Network, otherwise known as The Petwork. The system consists of a tank to hold the food, a latching system to drop the food at the desired time, a weight sensor to verify that the proper amount of food has been dispensed, a power supply unit that steps down 120V AC standard wall outlet power, & a microcontroller that will interpret the user's input from a mobile phone application. The networking portion is covered by having a primary and a secondary feeder. The mobile application will communicate …

Dc To Dc Buck Converter, Matthew Bildstein

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This research project focuses on the design, implementation, and optimization of a high-efficiency DC-to-DC buck converter that steps down 12V to 5V for applications such as USB-powered devices, embedded systems, and automotive electronics. Building on my Associate’s degree project, where a 555 timer-based was replace with a LM2576 switching regulator IC.

The research involves circuit simulation in Multisim, PCB layout optimization in Ultiboard, and prototype testing to assess voltage stability, efficiency, and thermal performance. The project will incorporate best practices in power electronics design, including proper grounding techniques and thermal management strategies.

Expected outcomes …

Autonomous Landscape Exploration Rover Using Imaging Surface Navigation (Alexis), Noah Jones, Dominic Salupo

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective is to develop a small-form-factor rover prototype that can be used to prove out a novel traversal method for use on extraterrestrial surfaces. The novel traversal method being proposed is LIDAR/CV-enhanced navigation, provided by a detachable flight vehicle that can communicate with the rover. On planets with thin atmospheres, cold gas thrusters or similar may be needed, but for the scope of this project more traditional flight/propulsion methods will be used.

All-In-One Security System, Nathaniel Rohr, Elizabeth M. Daniels, Kyle H. Sturgin, Jonathan R. Carozza

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The proposed All-in-One Security system is a security system capable of automatically or manually arming and disarming the building it is installed in. When armed, the system rolls down the window shades and locks the front door. When disarmed, the system unlocks the front door and rolls up the window shades. The system will have a keypad by the front door for arming and disarming the system. Additionally, there will be a smartphone app that can arm and disarm the system via bluetooth.

Vector Estimation For Continuous Tracking Of Observed Radio Signals (V.E.C.T.O.R.) Lunar Navigation System, Dimitry Melnikov, Evan Bartel, Andrew Burrier, Goran Gjorgievski

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

NASA's Artemis program requires precise navigation capabilities to establish the first sustained presence on the lunar surface. However, as launches bring necessary orbital infrastructure, the Artemis program will face a critical period during which reliable lunar navigation is not possible. To address this challenge, the V.E.C.T.O.R. system tracks assets, such as rovers and astronauts, as User Terminals relative to a pre-existing cell tower, or Base Station. To do so, the system leverages existing Base Station hardware to calculate the location of User Terminals in conjunction with existing communications infrastructure.

Mobile Weather Satellite Receiver, Luke Datsko, Sam Watts, Jason Do, Adam Bechtler

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The "Mobile Weather Satellite Receiver" project aims to create a portable, user-friendly device that receives and displays weather information from geostationary satellites, addressing the limitations of traditional weather sources like the Internet and weather radio, particularly in remote areas. This device will collect and demodulate satellite data, including imagery and Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN) forecasts, to provide users with detailed local forecasts and real-time alerts.

Designed with a user-centric approach, the system includes a satellite dish, Software Defined Radio (SDR), a Raspberry Pi, and a custom software interface for ease of use. Its portability and ability to function …

Autonomous Damage And Structure Scanning Drone, Natasha Ninan, Amber Long, Lee Nestor, Emmanuel Jensen

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Remote damage analysis plays a crucial role in lowering the risk associated with human presence at dangerous sites. This project focuses on developing a system for remote structural examination using photogrammetric techniques and analysis. The system utilizes a drone equipped with cameras for photogrammetry, and LiDARs for navigation. This setup can enable efficient structural model generation with the collection of images from multiple points. A novel structural analysis is performed to detect potential damage or points of failure in the structure.

Key components include a teleoperated drone, a software pipeline for photogrammetric analysis, collision protection mechanisms, and a user interface. …

Smart Longboard, Ben Rath

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The proposed design project includes a motorized longboard, equipped with a wireless handheld remote to manage the speed of the board. An embedded system mounted underneath the board will gather data from an accelerometer and a GPS sensor. This information is sent through a Bluetooth connection to a compatible smartphone application where it will be displayed. The project also includes a custom battery and charging circuit for the board to ensure that all of the engineering requirements are met. The board will be easy to use and the smartphone application will be able to display ride statistics of the user …

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 …

Botsitter, Maria Hatzis, Gregory Blondheim Jr., Marian Bonto, Brett Jacobsen

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

As society progresses into an era where both parents work, whether it is online or in person, children in the home may be put in dangerous situations if they are not given the attention they need. The BotSitter is an automated system that follows the child around and makes an audio alarm to alert both the child and the nearby guardian. Using RSSI trilateration, predetermined danger areas, and embedded controls, the BotSitter will be able to follow the child. The device can manage to keep track of the child for the guardian while being almost completely automated outside of setup.

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. …

Wireless Kick Pedal, Jacob Wise, Ryan Kinyo, Bradley Toth, Ian Zanath

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The goal of the project is to build a wireless kick pedal that allows accessibility to drummers that have leg or foot disabilities and add versatility to multi-instrumentalists looking to add percussion while playing another instrument. The proposed pedal is designed in two main parts, a wearable band that tracks the player’s movement, and a hammer mechanism that receives actuation commands from the wearable band to move the hammer and deliver a drumbeat. The band is designed to be worn on several parts of the body, including the ankle, knee, thigh, or even the arm depending on the user’s situation. …

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 Coffee Brewing System, Lillian Gonzalez, Landon Miller, Tyler Moff, Benjamin Vitu

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Coffee consumers want an affordable, high-quality cup of coffee that takes minimal time to brew and does not excessively contribute plastic to landfills. A fully autonomous system which utilizes whole coffee beans, water, and filters to brew coffee was designed to meet this need. This system accepts user requests which specify the brew’s portion size, water temperature, and brew strength, as well as the time which the system should begin the brewing process. Occasional maintenance to empty the system’s built-in waste receptacle or resupply the system with water, coffee beans, or filters is the only user intervention required. This report …

Garden Bot: Autonomous Home Garden Weed Removal Robot, Brendon Lovejoy, Robert Connolly, Isaac Lucas, Stevan Veselinov

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

With frequent weeding being a tedious chore and an essential task for a successful garden, there is need for an automated method of handling this routine. Existing technologies utilize computer vision, GPS, multiple units and other tools to remove weeds from garden plots. However, these solutions are often complex and expensive, suited for large agricultural plots in contrast to small-scale home gardens. In addition, many of these technologies, along with manual tillers and cultivators suited for home use, are unable to perform weeding within rows of crops in a process known as intra-row weeding. The Garden Bot is an autonomous, …

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 …

Chemical Clean Automated Loader, Jordyn Bryner

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

TTM Technologies (TTM) is a global printed circuit board (PCB) manufacturer. The work described in this report was completed in the TTM North Jackson, Ohio location. This plant focuses primarily on the manufacturing of rigid and rigid-flex PCBs for the aerospace and defense industry. TTM North Jackson has an ongoing labor dependency issue due to the shortage of workers the nation is facing. To solve this problem, TTM has focused the efforts of their new engineers and interns on automating processes that are labor dependent. The goal is to provide design guidance to be used later by TTM to automate …

Smart Uv-C Disinfectant Module, Nicole Baldy, Luke Rogers, Haitham Saleh

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The Smart UV Disinfectant device shall sanitize objects which are 18”x14”x8” or smaller and less than 20 lbs. using UV-C light. This device should contain many safety measures to prevent human and animal exposure to the UV-C light and have no public touchpoints to operate the interface. In order to achieve the first objective, this device shall contain a "sanitizing chamber" which completely encloses the object to be sanitized to prevent outside exposure with detection of any lifeforms inside of the chamber; for the second objective, it will contain a wireless interface to an Android application which can be used …

"Demeter" Soil Monitoring System, Ryan Matthews, Rachel Rummer, Temilolu Fayomi, Alex Fuller

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project is to develop a soil monitoring system that can remotely sense and relay soil conditions back to a user. The deMETER soil probe, Demeter is the Greek goddess of the harvest, is designed to aid hobbyist gardeners, small-scale farms, and nurseries to monitor their dynamic soil conditions and maximize their harvest. The probe is a self-powered system that can monitor the moisture and essential nutrients of the soil profile to determine which areas should receive water and fertilizer. This would significantly cut water and fertilizer waste. The solution will include an embedded system with sensors …

Magic: The Gathering Card Virtualizer, Vincent Garbonick, Jacen C. Conlan, Jaret A. Varn

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Any well-versed Magic: The Gathering (MTG) player or collector knows how difficult it can be to keep track of all cards in their collection. Some spend hours searching for that one specific card, and others are constantly scouring the internet for how much their collection costs. However, this issue does not only affect casual fans. Resale companies spend hours a day determining the costs of cards, and tournament judges painstakingly check players’ decks to ensure they are not cheating. To assist with these struggles, the design team proposed to create the MTG Card Virtualizer. This device scans MTG playing cards …

Analog & Digital Remote Synthesizer, Adam Brunner, Andrew Cihon-Scott, Scott Grisso, Linus Wright

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project is to develop and design an analog synthesizer musical instrument that integrates embedded digital hardware into the design to enable control from a remote source. The use of digital hardware enables the potential for a wide range of convenient features such as sound profile saving and loading, output recording functionality, and the ability to accept digital input from another musical instrument utilizing the Musical Instrument Digital Interface (MIDI). In addition to the synthesizer itself, this project also includes the design of a companion application that can be hosted on a wide variety of consumer computing …

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 …