Electrical and Computer Engineering Seniors Design Devices to Improve Energy Efficiency & People's Lifestyles

Energy-conscious Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology senior electrical and computer engineering students have developed functional prototypes of an energy efficient auto-dimming LED light bulb, a home automated lighting system, a low-cost weather alert system designed for residents of mobile home parks and two devices to solve frustrations expressed by visually impaired and deaf athletes.

Auto-Dimming LED Light Bulb: Adding sensors to a LED light bulb to control the amount of light in a room was the student design team that featured (from left) Doug Long, Jonathan Clark and Kyle McKinney.

Read more...

Design Winners with Digilent Representative

GRAND PRIZE

CJ Picklesimer- Fourier Keyboard
Description: The primary objective of this design is to allow a keyboardist more direct control over the fundamental characteristics of the sound his or her instrument produces. Most modern synthesizers have predefined sets of audible characteristics which are grouped together into a small number of selectable synthesizer “voices.” Each voice has its own set of unique characteristics, including spectral (or harmonic) content, various types of pseudo-mechanical envelope approximations and modulation effects, frequency response attributes, and delay-line effects. The Fourier Keyboard eliminates these clusters of characteristics known as voices, and instead allows the keyboardist to independently set, with a substantial amount of detail, the parameters of some of these characteristics. This allows the keyboardist to construct, from scratch, one of literally thousands of potential voices for this two-octave keyboard by setting 14 independent sound parameters that govern the spectral content and modulation properties of the sound produced by this polyphonic keyboard. The discussion of the project will focus on the real hardware implementation of fixed-point waveform generation and signal processing as well as techniques for analyzing, characterizing, and approximating musical sound.

SECOND PRIZE

Andrew Milluzi- RCX Single Port Servo
Description: The LEGO RCX Intelligent Brick has limited communication with the outside world. To use a servo motor on the RCX, the use of an input and output is required. This limits the use of a single brick as motor control is required for most applications. The FPGA would interpret the output signal of the RCX into a digital signal. The RCX uses PWM (pulse width modulation) to power its motors; using different pulse widths, the goal is to establish 7 different servo motor positions and use one output of the RCX to control it.

THIRD PRIZE

David Bliss- Magnetic Robot Control
Description: This project, based on the position of a magnet, will drive a rover across a level surface.