ECE 3724 Fall 2006 Challenge Projects

 

 

If successfully completed, a challenge project will earn you the number of points shown that are then added to your total test points (regular test points, not final exam points). Your regular test average will not be allowed to exceed 100 pts. To get credit, the challenge project must be demoed in class during the last week of class. You are responsible for obtaining any parts required for the challenge project.

 

The demos for extra credit projects will be done during the last class period of the semester.

 

 

Challenge Projects:

 

  1. 35 pts. Build a line following robot (dark line on white background) capable of navigating around milk-carton sized obstacles that are placed on the line. This project can be done as either a solo project or group project. An inexpensive sensor for collision avoidance is the AIRRS IR Proximity sensor, available from HVW Technologies Inc. You cannot use any tactile switches for obstacle avoidance. This robot must be built on a breadboard attached to a wheeled chassis; you cannot buy an off-the-shelf robot and just replace the CPU. All you really need are two DC motors (http://www.solarbotics.com), and some balancing casters (http://www.pololu.com/products/wheel.html) that can be placed underneath a breadboard to create a wheeled platform. This project cannot be completed if you wait until the last week of the semester.

 

  1. 10 pts. Perform the audio lab (Lab 13 in the lab manual), but add some simple differencing compression to achieve 4-bits per sample at an 8 KHz sampling rate (for a total of 16 seconds of storage in the LC515 64K x 8 serial EEprom). This can only be done as a solo project.

 

  1. 0-20 pts. Perform a product dissection in which you buy a cheap electronic game, tool or general gizmo and dissect it to learn its operation, and then replace part of its functionality with the PIC microcontroller. See http://www.ece.msstate.edu/courses/ece4723/dissect/index.html for an example of how this is done in the Embedded Systems (ECE 4723) course. The Space Invaders example from Spring 2006 is a very good example of a product dissection. You must provide a web site that contains the components of the Dissection Report as documented on the ECE4723 website. This is worth a variable amount of points dependent upon the quality of the report and amount of functionality replaced by the PIC microcontroller (simply replacing button press functionality is not sufficient, it must be more complicated than that!). This can be done as either a solo or two-person group project.

 

 

If the project does not meet the design specifications, then any partial credit is assigned at my discretion. I will not be all that generous with partial credit.

 

A group of two is allowed for the robot project but the points are assigned as 70% of the above points to each group member.

 

Copying of source code between projects is not allowed; if this occurs then no points are awarded to any of the affected projects.