Student projects display automation, imagination

Students enrolled in the Advanced Digital Systems Lab (ECE 395) are not only free of homework and tests but also gain experience and knowledge they need for the future.

“A lot of this lab is basically that you dream what you want to do,” said ECE Professor Lippold Haken, course instructor. “The students pick their own project, and then they work hard to make their dream come true.”

With projects ranging from an automatic foosball table to a laser gun, students in the spring semester’s just-completed class made great progress on accomplishing such dreams.

Since last fall, some students have been working on an automatic foosball table and a way to understand and predict the movements of the ball. The table is connected to a computer that receives a sequence of images from a camera mounted above the foosball table. The program within the PC analyzes each image and movement that takes place on the table and determines where the ball will go next.

“Based on past images, it predicts where the ball will go next, and moves the men to intercept,” Haken said. “If the men are close enough to kick the ball, it decides to kick.”

Haken said that for right now, the students’ work is very basic. In the future, he wants to encourage students to study how to fake out opponents or use more complicated strategy.

Another continued project from fall semester, which was also displayed in March at Engineering Open House (EOH), is a robotic chalker.

“It’s almost like a big printer,” Haken said. “It can roll forward, draw a line of dots, and roll forward again.”

Students in the fall 2006 class created the machine that can move right to left and draw lines or dots. By this year’s EOH, the robotic chalker, which is filled with athletic field chalk, was able to print readable text on paper. Haken hopes that by next year’s EOH students will create a remote control to steer the machine around the quad.

“There is actually a lot of detail work that makes that quite challenging,” he said. “There are a lot of issues, such as the machine being able to drive on grass and not be confused as to which direction it’s really going.”

Haken encourages all ECE students to take the class so they can not only learn, but also realize that creating these types of projects is one of the reasons they chose engineering.

“The lab is important because it allows students to be proud of their work and the ability to show it to others,” Haken said. “It allows them to get away from the usual pressures of school and reminds them why they majored in ECE.”

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Visit the ECE 395 course page for more information on the Advanced Digital Systems Lab and ECE 395.