Our projects provide members with the opportunity to work on member-suggested electronics projects (with the help of experienced members and faculty) and gain valuable hands-on experience in PCB design, hardware and software design, etc. Projects are offered every spring semester and cost around $10. Members meet up periodically to work on the projects and after finishing, get to take them home! No prior experience is required; underclassmen and students from every major are encouraged to participate.
Past Projects
Xmas Ornament
The Xmas Ornament, as the name suggests, is a project from the end of the Fall 2019 semester, just before Christmas. It has blinking red LEDs and a hole, so that it can be hung on a Christmas tree as an ornament. It uses a timer 555 integrated circuit connected in astable mode. This allows the circuit to toggle on and off at a certain frequency, depending on the R and C values. On the board, there are 8 LEDs powered by a coin battery. It provides great learning experience on how to solder both through-hole and surface-mount technology.
IEEE Breathalyzer (DrinkBoy 2000!)
The IEEE Breathalyzer (DrinkBoy 2000!) is a project from the end of the Spring 2019 semester. It's a cheap version of a breathalyzer, a device that measure the alcohol level in blood. It uses an MQ-3 sensor to measure the level of alcohol present in the air. At the heart of its circuit, there is a microcontroller, an Arduino Nano, that processes the data from the MQ-3 sensor and displays whether a user is drunk or not through an OLED screen. The board is powered by 4 AA batteries held at the back of the board. There's a buzzer and LEDs to indicate battery life.
NFC Box
The NFC Lock Box is a wooden box utilizing an internal lock activated by RFID technology. Powered by an Arduino Nano, the lock box will use a servo motor to control an internal locking mechanism activated by RFID. A RFID receiver will be mounted on the exterior of the box, enabling the user to unlock the box with a fob, card, ring, or other RFID-enabled object of their choosing. The programming in this project will be very rudimentary, and this project is geared towards IEEE members interested in seeing how embedded systems and RFID can be leveraged to make intelligent devices that are extremely cost effective.
Audio Switch
Audio Switches, like other switches, are a binary (A/B) switch between two audio inputs/outputs. For example, let us say you have 2 audio inputs, and only one pair of headphones. Instead of manually switching the headphone between the two devices, you could route both inputs to the Audio Switch and flip between the two input by simply pressing a button. On the flip side, one could have a single input and two outputs. Say a computer connected to headphones and speakers, and switch between the two at the press of a button.
USB Color Organ
This is an audio visualization project which consists of a Texas Instruments Tiva C series microcontroller and a custom built daughterboard. The microcontroller decodes the audio frequencies and the circuit board visualizes different frequencies on an RGB LED matrix creating a light show that dances to audio. Both boards are powered by USB. It has two standard 3.5 mm audio jacks: one for audio input and the other for output, which means music can be played on speakers along with the LED visualization. The microcontroller is programmable and can be reprogrammed for other projects but source code for the color organ will be provided.
USB Solar Charger
This project allows for charging USB devices using solar power. The circuit board takes a variable input from a solar panel and outputs a stable 5V through a USB port. The main component of this board is a buck-boost converter which always converts the solar panel input in order to provide a stable output. The output port is a standard USB female port so any USB portable device can be charged using this board. Solar panel will be provided to participants.
LED Strip Driver
This project can be used to drive addressable LED strips (containing WS2812 LEDs) to create cool color patterns. The board is USB powered. At the heart of this board, there is an Atmel ATtiny85 chip which runs arduino sketches in order to control the color of individual LEDs. The circuit board has a programming port and using an Arduino board custom sketches can be loaded on the chip. Initial source code and a strip containing 15 LEDs will be provided.
