540:400 Design of Engineering Systems II
Large Projects

1. Home Alone Care:

Avena, Rocco L
Koppell, Harrison T
Sheehan, Dennis M
Urbano, Stephanie F

The aging population experiences social isolation, improper nutrition and care for its daily routine needs. The objective of this project is to develop a complete caring system for an aging person. The system uses sensors embedded in the person’s shoes to determine if he/she has gone for the daily walk, sensors to determine if the nurse’s aid has indeed performed the daily tasks, others to monitor the breathing rate, medication and meal preparation. Alarms via cell phones and web sites need to be issued to alert neighbors, relatives, emergency services. The status of the person can be accessed from anywhere using internet. This should be accomplished using sensors network and software. Prototype of the system should be constructed to demonstrate all its functions.

2. Paint Mixer:

Dawson, Brian S
Nishawala,Jjatin V
Pilch, Jacqueline D
Rodriguez, Fiorella N

Homeownership and home repairs have been a major part of the economy. One of the most frequently used functions is painting. There is a wide range of colors and the process of buying a specific quantity of paint requires human operators in most cases. The operator usually starts with a base color and adds drops of other colors based on some instructions to reach the desired color. In many cases the resultant color does not match the user’s request and the “recipe” is adjusted manually accordingly. Develop a self contained fully automated color mix system that uses voice or computer menu input to select the desired color. The mixer will accordingly “mix” the colors according to predefined instructions. A sample of the color is painted on a surface and compared (using vision system) with the desired color. If they match, the system will then determine the number of gallons of paint needed based on the area to be painted and the number of layers to be applied, it then informs the user of the required payment and the user leaves the system afterwards. If the sample paint does not match the desired paint, then the systems adjusts the color accordingly until a match occurs.

3. Smart Shopping Cart:

Chan, Wan Yee J
Chen, Yi-Hsuan
Findakly, Omar I
Khan, Talaha M

Many shoppers experience difficulties in locating items in typical supermarkets and occasionally forget to buy items they intended to acquire. With the advances in technologies, develop a smart shopping cart system where the user downloads items to be acquired from the supermarket menu (through a website) then proceeds to upload the items into the smart shopping cart computer which will then guide the shopper throughout the aisles reminding him/her of the items to be picked from each aisle and lower the shelving if the item is higher than the reach of the shopper. The cart should determine the optimum route and excludes the aisles that have no items to be acquired but will alert the shopper of potential discounts or sales of items that the shopper bought it in the past from such aisles. Should the shopper alter the route; the cart will immediately generate a new one. Also, shoppers are influenced by others shoppers and this data should be made available to the current shopper in order to make dynamic decision and schedules accordingly. Design a complete system that demonstrates the smart shopping cart concept.

4. Low-Cost Low-Altitude Aerial Resupply:

Bharadwaj, Ravi K
Cusick, Joseph H
Sevilla, Alvaro F
Tang, Andrew

In many situations, the soldiers in field require delivery of specific items such as MRE (Meal ready to Eat), medical supplies, water, fuel and others. One of the new methods to be investigated for the delivery of such items is freedrop. The freedrop method encompasses the releasing of cargo payloads from aircraft at a given altitude and allowing the payload to free-fall to the ground without the addition of any aerodynamic decelerators, such as a parachute. Develop an inexpensive package (costs $100 or less) that could be airdropped from an aircraft (fixed wing, helicopter or UAV) at 90-125 KIAS from 50-100 feet AGL with 100-200 lbs of supplies that could result in a 100% survivability rate for the supplies and could be quickly found and easily recovered by one or two soldiers without MHE (Materials Handling Equipment) in less than two minutes per package. Use the folding machine in CoRE 116 to determine the optimum package design for specified airdrop weight from specified altitude and airplane speed. Once the type of paper is defined and the optimum number of layers the machine will automatically produce the layers needed to construct the package. Verify the design using the impact testing machine.

5. Efficient Vending Machine:

Hindy, Abdelrazak
Pauls, Steven P
Tripathi, Manisha

During the past few years, the vending industry has been inundated with hardware devices designed to tightly control unattended transactions, software applications governing inventory replenishment and sales reconciliation, and netware for wide area connectivity (wired or wireless) for real-time data sharing. Historically considered a low-tech industry, the introduction of sophisticated automation has revolutionized the vend channel. Design an efficient vending system that tracks the inventory levels and places reorders, cash and product usage. It should be designed to dispense other items such as T-shirts, towels… Provide a mechanism that dynamically changes the prices of items remotely. It should use different methods to transmit data to the vend operators such as wireless communications and web browsers.