Fall 2019
1: Commercial Sorting Machine
The project idea is a commercial sorting machine, mainly for use at return kiosks at stores. The world is becoming increasingly more automated, where it is estimated that the industrial automation market is expected to increase by 175% over the next decade. The purpose of the automatic system will be to help make consumer’s lives easier by decreasing the amount of human interaction needed, at the same time making it easier to return. The consumer will just need to place the item on a conveyor belt, and the conveyor belt will do the rest of the process. Our system will be running off of an Arduino microcontroller. It will be able to sort things by using a barcode scanner and some arms to placing them into the correct spots.
2: Face Swap Crisis
What if I told you someone could use your image and voice on someone else’s body to make it look like you did something you never did? A Deepfake is the product of an algorithm trained to recognize patterns in actual audio and/or visual recordings of a particular person, a process known as deep learning. Currently, Deepfakes are acting as one of the biggest security threats. The real threat is when anyone who has access to a computer can create a highly realistic manipulated video at the push of a button.
Our objective is to help prevent Deepfakes from happening by creating an algorithm that helps detect whether a video or picture is a Deepfake or not. We are planning to use advanced deep learning techniques to learn the facial features of a person from many real pictures and then use the model to detect if a new picture/video is fake or not.
3: Seguranca
According to the FBI, in 2018 there were 424,066 NCIC entries for missing children. In 2017, the total number of missing children entries into NCIC was 464,324. The goal of this device is to ensure safety for the child and peace of mind for the parent. Using advanced monitoring technologies through a wearable accessory for kids, which includes features that will help aid parents in knowing the whereabouts of their children as well as their safety. These features include a two-way radio, a heart rate monitor, a tracker, and a phone application. With the combination of these functions, the device will assist parents to safeguard their child.
Through Seguranca we aim to steadily reduce the uncertainty of parents and increase the safety of children. In time weeding out the number of entries of benign missing children. The two-way radio will be the main communication link between the child and the person on the application end. The heart rate monitor plays a major role in this device as it will detect any major changes in the child’s heartbeat. When something is wrong our heartbeat is the first to warn us. Once there is an irregular heart rate detected the parents will be notified through the app. With the tracker, parents will be able to see the location of their child at any time of the day. These features will ensure that parents will have full access to their kids and reassurance of their safety.
4: KTK Connector Testing Tool
A KTK connector is an electrical connector that can effectively and transmit data safely during the oil drilling process. They are rated beyond 400 Fahrenheit and pressures at 20,000 psi, providing also a reliable electrical connection while protecting expensive sensors and electronics. The new design of the KTK connector is more durable during an impact compared to a traditional KTK connector. Quintana Energy Services (QES) have experience issues with testing the KTK connectors efficiently. The connectors are well-constructed, reliable connectors are ideal for use in measurement data while drilling, they can log data, and are used for drilling tools and downhole batteries. Since these assemblies provide serious information such as the drill string rotational speed and smoothness, type and severity of downhole vibration, temperature, drill bit torque, and weight and mudflow volume. The reliable connectors need to withstand harsh conditions are paramount in oil and gas drilling.
To start designing the project the team researched and determined that QES has less than 30 technicians and they must manually inspect nearly 23,000 pins. Forgetting to check a single pin can result in massive monetary losses in the form of, lost equipment, damaged equipment or poor reliability rating leading to loss of contracts. The current procedure to check KTK connector pins is to suspend a four-ounce weight, if it can hold it, pass, if it cannot, fail. QES needs an easier, faster, foolproof way of reliably testing KTK connectors. The purpose of the project is to design a portable device that will inspect the strengths of KTK connector pins. We are going to use a servo motor with a microcontroller to get it to rotate in small increments to line up with each pinhole. After getting everything to line up, our team will then use a linear actuator that will push and pull the pinout. Our team can then attach the force gauge to the linear actuator to detect how much force was applied when pulling the pinout and give a pass or fail indicator.
5: Smart Desk
The National Health and Nutrition Examination proposed in 2015 that “70% of people spend 6 or more hours each day sitting down which creates a relationship between prolonged sitting and increased risk from dying from all causes”. Some of the health issues from prolonged sitting include heart diseases, diabetes, some cancer, lower back pain, stress, and other postural inefficiencies. Our primary motivation is to mitigate and reduce postural inefficiencies, satisfy the lower end market users who want a modular desk but do not want the commonly associated heavy price tag, and to significantly increase workflow and productivity within the workspace. Our prophesied users are generally casual to competitive gamers who have shown to spend money on expensive gadgets that will assist with their gaming ventures, students who need the desk space to work on projects, ideas (notably art, architect, drafting, engineering, technology students), and workplace professionals such as: small tech/engineering startup companies, independent/freelance developers and drafting agents.
We are improving the workspace by creating an augmented desk that is practical and efficient for work. The augmented desk would adjust to the user’s recommended height automatically for comfort. On top of having basic standing and sitting features, we are adding wireless charging, USB ports, lights, and other presented selections that we obtained from our survey that we conducted in the Spring 2019 semester.