• Club Website

🎯 Project Objectives

The goal of the project was to design an autonmous vehicle that is able to navigate through the assigned course. Electrical Team objectives are to integrate all of the components together into a unified circuit board to simply the electrical system. I am responsible from designing the motor controller module that controls the brushless DC drive train motors. I am also part of the controls team responsible to develop the controls for the vehicle including the autonmous naviagtion using C++ and OpenCV.

💡 Project Outcomes

As of January 2021, the first design iteration of the motor controller has been completed. Currently our team is combining all of the individual modules to the rest of the electrical system and beginning the PCB layout process.

🚧 Future Improvements

To be determined based on testing of current design.

📝 Documentation and Files

• Project Website

• Schematic and PCB Files (Coming Soon)

• Program Files - GitHub

🎯 Project Objectives

The objective was to create a sanitation drone that is capable of sanitizing the school stadium. The designed capabilities were to carry roughly 3kg of sanitation fluid per flight while maintaining a reasonable flight time per battery.

💡 Project Outcomes

As the electronics, controls and flight testing lead engineer, I organized the team into developing the overall drone. In particular I oversaw the selection of all components and the integration of the electonics with the flight controller. During flight tests I analyzed the test flight data to determine performance and made adjustments on software parameters to increase the capabilities of the drone during flight. I also designed a custom fluid pump controller module which used the PWM radio signals to control the output of the pump which allowed the operator to regulate the fluid in flight.
The drone was able to perform basic flight operations including autonmous take-off, landing, and return to home. However, we faced difficulty with the fluid and the spraying mechanism. In particular the change in center of gravity (sloshing) of the fluid, and the design of the tank-pump system made it difficult to achieve noticable fluid spray during flight.

🚧 Future Improvements

While, I am no longer a member of this project (due to graduation), I believe that in the future, we should consider a new tank design and reducing the specifications of the drone. For example, designing baffles within the tank to reduce liquid sloshing and using simulations to test our designs. Further, I believe we could design a better pump and spray system and increase the pressure to increase spraying capabilities.

📝 Documentation and Files

• Design Files

• Flight Testing Data and Review

• Mercury News Article

• Independent News Article

• Kron4 News Article

🎯 Project Objectives

The objective of this project was to explore the creation of realistic prosthetics that was able to integrate into existing human life and work flows. The idea of creating a 'sixth finger' was also out of the curiosity of exploring the possible benifits from having an extra finger in daily life. The main goal was to control this finger as naturally as possible without the need for external control components such as switches and potentiometers.

💡 Project Outcomes

For this project, I decided to use an electromyography sensor (EMG) which detected the electrical activity related to muscle movement. Based on the sensor data, I tracked when the user's fingers/hand movement and synced prosthetic finger to match its movement. This allows the user to control this additional prosthetic finger with minimal effort and does not require the additional thinking. The finger was created using 3D printed parts and mounted the to the user's hand.

🚧 Future Improvements

There were many future improvements I can explore with this project starting with a more accurate sensing method. The tracking of the muscle movement could possibly be more detailed if there were more sensors on the user. Further, the program algorithim could be improved to better predict the user's next movement based on the current sensor readings to reduce the slight latency present in the current iteration. Finally, I can also explore new bio-inspired materials that better match the functionality and appearance of a human finger.

📝 Documentation and Files

• Demo Video (As seen above)

• Engineering Log

🎯 Project Objectives

The objectives were to design a machine that is able to sort different pieces of trash into their respective bins (recycling, garbage, and compost). The purpose was to reduce the need to manually throw away trash into different bins, but also increase the accuracy of the sorting since it is done by a consistent machine instead of a human.

💡 Project Outcomes

Our team created a simple belt conveyor system with a sorting mechanism attached to the end. Using TensorFlow we created an image recognition program that determined what category the trash should go into. The entire machine including the image recognition was powered off of a single Raspberry Pi.

🚧 Future Improvements

Due to the time constraint of this project, the mechanism was closer to an prototype/proof of concept. I think as another iteration, this machine can be better integrated into existing trashcans, and the sorting mechanism can be improved. Further, it would be ideal if the image recognition ran at a faster speed.

🎯 Project Objectives

The given challenge for this project was to disasseble an everyday electronic device and explore what's inside. More specifically analyze what components, what integrated circuits are used and how they all work together to power the device.

💡 Project Outcomes

For this project, we decided to disasseble a handheld ham radio transciever. Using a microscope we closely analyzed every component on the circuit board from the transistors to the individual resistor. Based on markings, and our knowledge of transistors, amplifiers and signal filters we identified the purpose of each section. Finally, we formulated a reverse engineering summary report with our findings.

🚧 Future Improvements

Although, we achieved great results, I think we could have improved the report by providing more details on the functionality of each of the transistors/integrated circuits. However, for the scope of this challenge, I believe our team performed exceptionally well.

📝 Documentation and Files

• Final Report Submitted to Challenge

• Online Challenge Winners Announcement Page (Team: 5327C)

🎯 Project Objectives

During our matches in VEX Robotics, we repeatedly noticed that the various electronic components suffered damage related to static electricity. To combat this, we decided to look into ways to prevent electrostatic discharge within our design.

💡 Project Outcomes

We discovered that a possible cause was the static electricity discharge from the intake mechanism discharging to other parts of the robot. To prevent this, we electrically connected all metal components of the chasis togther so that the electric potential would be 0 (thus no way for static electricity to discharge). We also added a grounding wire, which was a low resistance wire attached to the chasis and constantly remained in contact with the ground. Using this design we were able to eliminate all electrostatic damage to the electronics.

🚧 Future Improvements

Using an oscilloscope, we also found that the motors current spikes when the motor faces large resistance/reverses direction. We believe this may also be contributing to the short lift span of our motors, so we want to explore this issue in the future as well. As a future improvement, we also considered modifying the electronics (such as the motor) to add a more effective ground. However, this was beyond the rules of VEX robotics so we refrained from this step in this project.

📝 Documentation and Files

• Project Documentation

🎯 Project Objectives

The project objective was to create a functional system which had at least 3 inputs and 1 output using Digital Logic Gates. Based on PLTW Digital Electronics P1.2.7

💡 Project Description

I decided to create a railroad junction point - (a location where 2 tracks join into 1) controller. The parts include traffic lights for both sides of the junction, and the junction itself. Here is a quick description of the logic.

Tracks: A, B, C where Tracks A and B merge into C
When Train Approaches A:

• Traffic Light for A - Green
• Traffic Light for B - Red
• Junction Direction - Track A to C

When Train Approaches B:

• Traffic Light for B - Green
• Traffic Light for A - Red
• Junction Direction - Track B to C

🚧 Future Improvements

This project involved discrete logic chips rather than FPGA or other types of programmable logic arrays. Using a programmable logic array would allow for more flexibility in implementation and would be easier to correct potential errors. Another expansion to this project could involve actually controlling the elements (such as the traffic light, and junction) rather than just the digital logic behind the control.

📝 Documentation and Files

• Project Documentation

🎯 Project Objectives

This was part of the Entrepreneurship Competition project where we were tasked to solve a real wolrd problem using engineering skills. We wanted to create a project which assisted people with disabilities.

💡 Project Outcomes

We created a pair of smart glasses with a camera and screen. The camera uses image recognition to determine the objects, location, obstacles and people in front of the person. The screen is then also able to display the results and other information such as reminders. This would aid people with disabilities by helping them navigate, identify objects and remember easily forgotten things. We addressed the concern of privacy by not letting the user directly access the camera or image data. Only our image recognition algorithim onboard the glasses is able to access the data.

🚧 Future Improvements

A large future improvement would be regarding the size of the glasses and the required hardware. The large size makes it difficult to wear the device for long periods of time. Further it would be much better if a better display could be designed and implemented to increase the image quality.

📝 Documentation and Files

• Project Documentation