In the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department, we allow students to select their own teams and their own projects. Potential customers come before the class in the Fall semester and present their requests, and the teams brainstorm ideas for projects that might incorporate devices or techniques they want to learn to use. Then the teams choose their projects and write a proposal document which is reviewed by the instructor. After review and possible revision, they order parts to start their project, if necessary. In the Spring semester, teams assemble prototypes and write code, conduct tests, refine designs, and then assemble a final model so they can be presented to customers, if they have one, to each other, and to the world, at Design Day.
Contact Information:
Jack G. Mottley – Associate Professor
jack.mottley@rochester.edu
585-275-4308
ECE Design Projects
- Mid-Wave IR Read-Out Integrated Circuit
Team Mentor Professor Mottley and Professor Phinney Abstract Wildfires burn 7 million acres of land in the US every year. We present a read-out integrated circuit (ROIC) designed to be used in a CubeSat constellation for early detection and monitoring of wildfires. The circuit integrates, amplifies, and samples the weak signals from an infrared photodiode […]
Archive
- AGR
A Driver Board for AGR’s Spectre - AI Chess Board
Our senior design project is implementing an AI chess board. It uses Python and the popular chess engine Stockfish on a Raspberry Pi to show the user with LEDs where the computer would like to make its move. Our project was a success and could be used as a beginning step to make a more complex and intuitive chess board that plays chess against a user. - AI Sorting System
The AI Sorting System takes a photo of a recyclable object, weighs it, and scans it with a metal detector. It inputs this data into a program that classifies the item as plastic, metal, or glass. The system includes 3 bins, one for each material. LEDs will light up on one of the bins and its lid will flip open, indicating that the recyclable should be placed in that bin. - Autonomous Bot for Campus Delivery
A robot which navigates between points on campus, delivering packages. - Carbon Capture and Utilization
A one or two sentence description of your project. - Fritz – The Ball Throwing Robot
A launcher that locks on to a pre-defined target and fires a ball. - Haptic Feedback Gloves
Designing a system to allow a visually impaired person to better navigate their environment. - Health Care Test Station
A stationary unit designed to help facilitate the testing and storage of COVID-19 tests. - High Accuracy Displacement Measurement
Make a low cost system to measure mini-scale object displacement. - Interactive Detection RobotUsing the interactive detection robot, the user will be able to wirelessly control the device and visually see its surroundings using the camera module. The RPLidar enables a 360° view of the robot’s environment.
- IoP “Internet of Plants”
An automated hydroponic plant growth system that is monitored online by a user - Jam Detection in High Speed Scanner
An analog circuit designed to quickly and accurately detect jams in high-speed scanners. - Object Detection for People with Visual Impairment
A helmet that can guide visually impaired people to walk freely and have a vague image of their surroundings using stereo sound. - Pinger Detector
Underwater distress signal detector - ProcBlocks
ProcBlocks is an educational tool designed to introduce students to the basics of computer organization. Each component of the processor can function separately, allowing for different configurations of the “blocks” to be used. The final product would include some kind of instructional text, covering the basics of transistors, construction of digital logic, intermediate hardware constructs, and the use of computational components in a complete processor. - Realtime Audio Visualization
Using a rope of LEDs, connected to a Raspberry Pi with our software, we will read the audio signal from an HDMI cable and display colors on the LED strip that match the tone of the music. . The goal of our project is to be able to create a visualization to convey a similar feeling to people that are unable to hear the music. - Retriever Robot
The original intention was to make a robot that would retrieve tennis balls. The focus has now been switched to make a realistic robot simulator that can navigate to waypoints, which would be provided by tennis ball locations. OpenCV is used for tennis ball recognition to provide locations for the simulated robot to navigate to. - Rolling Robot
all-TErrain Rolling Robot using Autonomy - Self-Leveling Table
A one or two sentence description of your project. - Smart Home Automation System
MOTLEY (Main Organizing Terminal for Low Energy Usage) focuses on the creation of a Smart Home using a Raspberry Pi as the central device. Similar to the google home, we are able to control our in-house made and thoughtfully designed custom peripherals through the use of this Pi, granting our user the ability to remotely control various devices in their homes from their current location. - Smart Water Filter and Dispenser
A smart water dispenser system able to dispense drinking water to the user while keeping track of daily intake amounts. - Sonic JamA one or two sentence description of your project.
- Sonic Jam Detection
Industrial scanners are often prone to jams, which are costly both financially and time wise. Our projects uses audio recognition algorithms to automatically detect and stop jams in real time. For our project, we are using an scanner provided by IMBL. - Sun Tracking Solar Energy System
A solar panel system which utilizes sensors to position the system in a way to track the sun. - Sun-Tracking Solar Panel System
Our project was to implement a system of light reflectors that autonomously track the sun’s position and focus the light on a solar panel to maximize the incident light intensity and hence more power capture. The system was to be significantly cheap compared to buying multiple solar panels and capture more than double the solar power than using an ordinary solar panel. - Surveying Altimeter for Water System Design
The surveying altimeter is a cheap, portable, and easy-to-use method of determining the relative height differences between points of interest. - Thermal Energy Harvesting
Our project is concerned with utilizing the electromagnetic spectrum from the sun to generate and store electricity. Baseline application is capturing the temperature differential created by the sun between a roof and the inside of an attic. Further applications include using black body emissivity and radiative cooling to provide solar energy harvesting in places where traditional voltaic cells are not feasible. - UAV Autonomous Navigation
Creating an accurate SLAM estimation for indoor obstacle mapping, exploration, and flight execution. - VIRTua Bot
Why not take a virtual trip through the eyes of a robot that uses a camera and displays it to the user’s VR headset. VIRTua Bot allows you to do just that with your android smartphone. - Virtual Reality Data Glove
Our project is a “Data Glove” worn by a user and composed of several types of sensors for mapping human hand motion. A virtual environment is used to show the glove’s capabilities in capturing natural motion, with its primary purpose being for virtual reality applications. We use the Unity game engine to create our simulation and feed data from our glove to a simulated robotic hand. Ideally, this is completed in real time and can capture movements live. - Warehousing Robot: Object Detection & Classification
Retrofitting a forklift with an open-source autonomous-warehousing system. - Water Sterilizer Control System
This system is a cheaper alternative option to chemical water treatment meant to sterilize drinking water with UV-C light by controlling water flow in order to achieve proper irradiation time. - Wearable Fitness Tracker
Stay motivated to keep up with your fitness goals by taking care of a virtual pet!