Gary Formisano
Design Six
Senior Design Project Ideas
Attempts
I pledge my honor that I have abided by the Steven’s Honor System
Attempted Ideas
When beginning to think about what I would like to engineer for a senior design project, I
decided to create three main ideas from which I would create three ideas each. From the three mains
topics of Robotics, Software, and Integrated Systems, I created a matrix where I evaluated different
strengths and weaknesses of the projects, weighing heavily on difficulty, interest, and pertinence to my
major’s concentration. From the matrix, I simplified my list to the two main topics that fit my criteria: A
cheaper alternative to a Roomba and a simple video game.
From these two ideas, the Roomba was the most difficult, but pertained to my major much
more than creating a video game, so off this basis, a Roomba is the best choice associated with my
major. The Roomba-like alternative has marketability (if created cheaper than a Roomba), is highly
integrated into my major minor (Computer Engineering with a minor in Robotics), and is a very
interesting topic. The tradeoff with this idea is that a Roomba is very intricate in a variety of aspects,
including the mechanical design, especially pertaining to the vacuum, electrical design, especially
pertaining to power consumption, and programming, especially pertaining to the autonomous features
and automatic wakeup. There is an additional necessity of a charging base for this product to be
comparable to the Roomba. In addition to all of these intricacies, the integration with electrical,
mechanical, and software will be especially difficult.
After realizing the great amount of difficulty in designing a Roomba-like device, I’ve decided to
lower my aspirations to fit the senior design’s time requirements and establish a more realistic goal.
Instead, I want to design a kid’s toy that dances and sings. Mechanical engineering will be a big part of
this as well, but a kids toy is far less intricate than a Roomba-like device, while still pertaining to my
minor and creating an interesting-enough-to-pursue idea.
A Dancing, singing robotic dinosaur would be an interesting topic to pursue. It could be built to
run after a child and “play” with the child in an autonomous fashion. A team to design this would
include a few mechanical engineers, an electrical engineer, and a computer science major. The biggest
challenge faced with this design would include a creating the autonomous mode with a variety of
sensors, and creating the moving (walking) parts in the mechanical design.
Children love playmates. Imagine a toy that can run after and play with a small child (ages 2 – 4). The
child would be delighted to have a robotic friend that could sing and dance with them. The toy would
have to stand up when knocked down, and be able to withstand abuse from the children.
…After some thought, creating a child’s toy would not be that interesting to me and I would not like to
make something like this.
I’ve also thought about creating some device that makes a phone more like a computer, to the point
that it could replace a computer for simple tasks such as word processing, internet browsing, and
viewing media.
1) The phone would need a bigger screen. At first, we could make a case that pulls out into a
screen much like a kaleidoscope rather than a folding mechanism. The problem with this is that
there is a battery limitation on the phone and it would be rather hard to design a screen that
can withstand damage, expand, and is easily powered.
2) A cloud like application that could stream music, media, and act as an ftp folder for other
documents. With limitations on data usage for smartphones, the applications would have to run
off of the phone, so this would be equivalent to Dropbox or inferior to services like Netflix or
Google Music.
3) Create a keyboard that is very portable. After research, the market has foldable and easily
collapsible keyboards. They also have USB-connectable laser-mapped keyboards and host
adapters to connect them to phones
Actual Idea
After much research, I’ve decided that I should just create a basic application that has public
demand, such as an application that is like a social networking site connected by each class section. This
could or could not be accessible through Moodle or Facebook. In the case that it is accessible through
Moodle, this would limit the application because through previous experiences like the Droodle
application, not all Moodle sites are setup the same. It would be much better as an extension to
Facebook.
The basic idea of this application is that people could connect to other people within their class
section to catch up on the class if they missed a lecture, for peer tutoring, or to join a group of peers to
discuss homework and generally, the class. Students would be able to choose their school from a list,
and then choose their class from that school. Possible, these lists could be generated from a link to a list
of classes on the school website. That is the optimal solution; otherwise, the lists would have to be
created by hand. Provided that schools assist us with this task, if necessary, we could collect a list of
classes from all of the schools and create private groups in which users could join and connect easier to
others. It is similar to creating a place to find your classmates, rather than creating a group and looking
through your contact list to try to invite everyone. Otherwise, this could be an app that posts status
updates similar to a check-in. It would say: John doe is studying blank in the library(or other place).
Although, the specifics for this app haven’t been worked out, this app has great potential.
This team would most likely need people that were very interested in programming. I’m not
sure how integration with Facebook would work, but this would be key to the design of the product.
The product would generate it’s revenue through advertisements on Facebook, or other Facebook
related income. This would first target a smaller test base of Stevens. If successfully coded, this app
would be a great addition to Facebook, add could be applicable to all schools.
This could be market as, “Do you need a better way to catch up with your classmates? Did you
miss last week’s lecture? Do you need some help understanding the material or are you looking for a
group of peers to study with? Install this app in conjunction with Facebook to connect with your peers
in your classes.