BUILDING AN INTELLIGENT ROBOT

Submitted By: Ismaila Wane
Spring 2003

Throughout history, men have been always fascinated in building artifacts that would behave autonomously. For both entertainment and practical tasks purposes, those artifacts are becoming part of our daily lives. An artifact that could play a board game or clean a building is interesting Artificial Intelligence problems, especially when we use robotics to enable the artifact to physically do so. The experience in designing such systems is invaluable since it gives hands-on experience in designing AI systems. This project allowed Ismaila to use practical skills in programming, knowledge in electronics and mechanical systems and allowed him to understand more on how to build intelligent systems. He was fortunate enough that the robot he built from scratch has the potential to become a viable product, targeting the research and educational market. The simulation software is still under development, but the whole system itself has been figured out. His approach on this project and in any AI-related project is to design how the system should work. Once the design is figured out, the implementation can be done with the help of other persons. During this year long research, Ismaila was able to explore many fields and see how he could bring them together in order to design a real-world problem solving device. The project gave him enough groundwork to be able to focus onto a more advanced robotic project. From this project Ismaila and his team were able to incorporate a company called Gbotics. Its initial mission is to supply a common humanoid platform to schools, researchers and other robotic enthusiasts. You may view their website at www.gbotics.com.

JONOVA - ROTARY ENGINE

Submitted By: Russell Mitchell
Team Members: Fahad Al-Maskari, Jumaa Al-Maskari, Keith Brewer, Josh Ludeke
Spring 2003

The project led to the development of four possible project phases. Phase I involves developing an animated CAD drawing illustrating the motion of the engine while providing enhanced visualization for thos unfamiliar with the project. Phase II consists of developing a stereo lithography model for dynamic design validation. The completion of Phase III is a working metal model run on compressed air. Finally, Phase IV is a hot, fuel-burning engine. This was an optional stage, to be completed if time premitted. The current design predicts an ideal engine capable of producing nineteen horsepower at 3000 rpm. This design incorporated internal compression, which ultimately results in a more enviromentally friendly engine, since less fuel is required to produce the same power. The original aim of the team was to build q hydrogen burning engine. Time, safely and sealing limitations made accomplishing this highly improbable. The hardware for the final prototype, an aluminum engine, has recently been completed due to the generous donation of machine time and material from the University Research Instumentation Center. This final prototype includes bearings, cooling channels, spark plugs, coil, distributor, carburetor and other equipment necessary to reach a fuel-burning state. Phases I, II and III were completed that resulted in a successful design project.

ORACLE ENGINEERING GROUP

Submitted By: Hideyoshi Delgado & Burton Daylay
Spring/Fall 2002

A good company image is crucial and a professional web site plays an important role in attracting potential clients. Oracle Engineering Group understands this principle and is eager to implement an Internet website to increase their visibility. At the same time, they like to include as much information about the company, in order to be competitive. Smaller engineering companies like Oracle Engineering Group compete for the same projects as large firms. The website will increase their visibility in the industry and by presenting the company's capabilities at the same level as their larger competitors. You may view the new website at www.oracleengineering.com.

SOUND DESIGN

Submitted By: Elissa Repowitz
Spring 2002

For Elissa's senior design project, she did a sound design for the play "Tongue of a Bird" by Ellen McLaughlin, a workshop production through the University of Arizona Theater Department. The first section of her report is the script analysis and research section. After reading the script once to get an understanding of the play, she analyzed the script using a format she had previously used in her sound class. The second section of her report is technical information. This included tech week, sound hang, sound levels, dry tech, tech rehearsals, and finally dress rehearsal and then the actual live performance. Third section is the script, where Elissa marked down all of the cues with their appropriate names, which followed every rehearsal. Fourth section contains the cue sheets. The final section contains the sound plots. This was truly iterative process. Elissa's project perfectly combined her focus (industrial engineering) and complimentary (entertainment) areas. The theater connection is clear. Her industrial engineering background helped her to analyze the play differently than if she only had studied theater, and she used her skills to schedule the times of the sounds. Elissa used her engineering background to help her organize the sounds to provide a perfect sound design. She also used her technical background to troubleshoot any technical problems that arose.

FORMULA SAE

Submitted By: Dennis Walsh
Fall 2002

The primary goal of the project was to create a Formula-style, open wheel racer which would be sold to a weekend Sports Car Club of America race enthusiast. The secondary goal was to compete against, and beat, other schools in the National Formula SAE competition. This project was the most time consuming, frustrating, and rewarding project that Dennis has ever attempted. To take an idea and turn it into a moving, dynamic car is a wonderful experience. Dennis felt as though he came out with a better understanding of engineering. From an engineering standpoint, this project forced him to innovate and fight through problems. For instance, the brake over travel switch was added on late to the project. While the solution was not hard to derive on paper, the implementation was quire difficult. Implementing was a new goal for most of the team. As engineers, they are taught to design with pSpice circuit simulation, MATLAB, and ANSIS for structures--they are not told to build them. While the circuits were somewhat simplistic by 400-level EE status, implementing them so they would stay on a 100 MPH car without shorting, coming loose in a crash, or being susceptible to the weather was the biggest hurdle. Dennis was proud to be part of this team regardless of how they finished in the competition. This gave them real "hands on" experience.

ERONOMIC & INTERFACE ANALYSIS ON ART SOFTWARE

Submitted By: Andrea Monier
Fall 2002

In this day of age, everything is being produced by technology. However, a realm of our world, which is recently being introduced to this phenomenon, is art. Digital art is becoming a way of life and a beginning to take over the conventional and traditional ways that art is designed. As a digital art advocator believes, "...Numerous digital files printed to paper and canvas, and visually the results can be stunning..." (Pangia, John, 1999). Therefore, can such software enhance artwork? In addition, instead of the software replacing the traditional ways of art, what if it is just looked at as a separate entity of art entirely? These questions will be addressed thoroughly as we analyze the given software and propose a design for an integrated software to ASSIST in the design process. The targeted user in this case, is the University of Arizona Theater Arts Department. Included in the project are ergonomic and interface definitions that are adhered to when designing the given template. In addition, usability, ease of use, cost efficiency compared to other software packages, designing to the mean (average), and visual aesthetic value of a template, were underlying concepts when conducting the analysis and proposing the design idea.

BUILDING FOR THE FUTURE: A VISION OF SUSTAINABLE DESIGN FOR THE UA DEPARTMENT OF RESIDENCE LIFE

Submitted By: Andrea Marafino
Team Members: Athena Bertolino and Erica Hansen
May 2001

Andrea and her team undertook this project since The University of Arizona has a on-campus housing shortage every year. They used current materials available in print and on the web to compile information about green building alternatives in use today. This information is meant to serve as a starting point for considering implementation of green building practices at The University of Arizona, and more specifically, for future housing construction on campus. Issues covered are main building materials, roofing materials, interior materials, energy conservation, water conservation and waste reduction and recycling. After the research portion was completed, a list of suggested alternatives for use specifically at The University of Arizona was made, taking into consideration climate, geomorphology, surrounding environment and uses, price, and current building codes. The final section of the report included brief summaries of six successful examples of green building practices within the United States and a comprehensive reference list for further exploration of the subject.

INTRANET DESIGN USING DYNAMIC HTML & ASP SECURITY "GLHN INTRANET"

Submitted By: Steve Wargocki
GLHN Advisor: Ellen Alexander
May 2001

GLHN Architect& Engineers, Inc. is a medium-sized design and consulting firm in Tucson, AZ. It is not the biggest operation in town, but it is large enough to have a variety of special needs. Steve worked with GLHN since October of 1999, serving as their website designer and administrator. GLHN approached Steve to design a secure and dynamic intranet for their company. The ultimate goal was to produce a site that would facilitate all of the interdepartmental communication that takes place on a daily basis. GLHN was in need of a corporate intranet that was secured on either a company server or through an ISP. The site also needed to facilitate interdepartmental communication and awareness as to the status of a variety of concurrent projects. The end result was a corporate intranet that is designed entirely using ASP (Active Server Pages) and DHTML (Dynamic Hypertext Markup Language). ASP allows for all of the scripting and database connectivity of languages like PERL, or CGI without having to be complied through UNIX. ASP works just like JavaScript - the author codes the scripts right onto the pages. The script automatically executes when the page is called. There is little to no complicated server configurations involved with ASP, which is important in GLHN's case because their ISP offers little in the way of server access for complicated scripting and if the company switches providers anytime in the future. This would mean, all of the files need to be able to be copied onto a new server and just start working again. With ASP, this is exactly what will happen. GLHN is pleased with the intranet developed.

CCD IMAGING

Submitted By: Aaron Palazzolo
Fall 2000

In order to present his senior project, Aaron put together a CCD Imaging presentation CD. Aaron combined his music and computer backgrounds and was able to seamlessly integrate his project into a multimedia interface. Aaron programmed the entire project using Microsoft Visual C++. This allowed him to incorporate video, sound and images into a smoothly running program. The only drawback with Visual C++ (and many other programming tools) is that the multimedia components require that certain libraries and file types are pre-installed on the computers to be used to run the program. Aaron was able to isolate a few of these necessary components and attempted to include them on the CD but there is a chance that the CD will not run on a given machine. Besides the programming in C++, he used Adobe Premiere to assemble and edit the movies and used Sound Forge and Cakewalk Pro Audio for the sound. The planetary flyby in the intro was done completely by Bryce4. This allowed him to position a camera in a 3D environment and have it follow a path around this environment. The text animation during the intro and during the credit movies was done using 3DstudioMax. This program is similar to Bryce4 but instead of being a 3D rendering environment made especially for landscapes it is made to render anything and everything. Aaron was able to apply various distortions to the text to get it to catch on fire, blow up, rotate, and even vanish into the blackness. Overall, the use of 3D modeling, sound modeling, and programming software enabled Aaron to put together the final presentation. The integration of each of these components was essential and allowed the information gathered during his project to be presented in a much more entertaining manner.