People

TA Office Hours

Held weekly in the senior design lab (ECEB 2070/2072).
Name Time
Nick Ratajczyk Monday 2pm-3pm
Hershel Rege Tuesday 2pm-3pm
Kexin Hui Tuesday 3pm-4pm
Soumithri Bala Wednesday 12pm-1pm
Tony Caton Wednesday 1pm-2pm
Zhen Qin Thursday 1pm-2pm
Amr Martini Thursday 4pm-5pm
Dongwei Shi Friday 12pm-1pm
Evan Widloski Friday 1pm-2pm
Channing Philbrick Friday 2pm-3pm

Fall 2018 Instructors

Name Area
Prof. Xiaogang Chen (Instructor)

oxgchen@illinois.edu
Prof. Arne Fliflet (Instructor)
3056
afliflet@illinois.edu		 microwave generation and applications
Prof. Kiruba Haran (Instructor)

kharan@illinois.edu
Prof. Wei He (Instructor)

weihe16@illinois.edu
Prof. Rakesh Kumar (Instructor)

rakeshk@illinois.edu
Prof. Michael Oelze (Instructor)
ECEB 2056
oelze@illinois.edu		 Biomedical Imaging, Acoustics, Nondestructive Testing
Prof. Gary Swenson (Instructor)
ECEB 5064
swenson1@illinois.edu		 Atmospheric remote sensing, lidar, optical remote sensing, imaging, signal processing, atmospheric science
Soumithri Bala (TA)

bala4@illinois.edu
Anthony Caton (TA)
5068 ECEB
caton2@illinois.edu		 Remote Sensing, Lidar, Optics, Upper Atmospheric Research/Space Science
Kexin Hui (TA)

khui3@illinois.edu		 Computer Vision, Machine Learning
Amr Martini (TA)

ammartn3@illinois.edu		 Computer Vision, Acceleration, Algorithms, Optics, Video Processing
Channing Philbrick (TA)

phlbrck2@illinois.edu		 Atmospheric Remote Sensing, Image Processing, CubeSat design, Systems Engineering
Zhen Qin (TA)

zhenqin3@illinois.edu		 Audio, Signal Processing, Machine Learning, Power Circuits
Nicholas Ratajczyk (TA)

ratajcz2@illinois.edu		 RF Circuits, Antennas, Communication, and Remote Sensing
Hershel Rege (TA)

davereg2@illinois.edu		 Embedded Systems, Computer Architecture, Big Data
Dongwei Shi (TA)

dshi9@illinois.edu		 Computer Vision, Parallel Computing, Robotics
Evan Widloski (TA)
CSL127
evanw3@illinois.edu		 linux, signal processing, robotics, power electronics

Other Important People

Name Office Phone Email Area
Scott McDonald 1049 ECE Building samcdona@illinois.edu Machine Shop
Mark Smart 1041 ECE Building mwsmart@illinois.edu Electronics Services Shop
Casey Smith 3064 ECE Building cjsmith0@illinois.edu Instructional Lab Coordinator
Waltham Smith 1041 ECE Building wlsmith@illinois.edu Electronic Services Shop
Skot Wiedmann 1041 ECE Building swiedma2@illinois.edu Electronic Services Shop

Assistive Chessboard

Robert Kaufman, Rushi Patel, William Sun

Assistive Chessboard

Featured Project

Problem: It can be difficult for a new player to learn chess, especially if they have no one to play with. They would have to resort to online guides which can be distracting when playing with a real board. If they have no one to play with, they would again have to resort to online games which just don't have the same feel as real boards.

Proposal: We plan to create an assistive chess board. The board will have the following features:

-The board will be able to suggest a move by lighting up the square of the move-to space and square under the piece to move.

-The board will light up valid moves when a piece is picked up and flash the placed square if it is invalid.

-We will include a chess clock for timed play with stop buttons for players to signal the end of their turn.

-The player(s) will be able to select different standard time set-ups and preferences for the help displayed by the board.

Implementation Details: The board lights will be an RGB LED under each square of the board. Each chess piece will have a magnetic base which can be detected by a magnetic field sensor under each square. Each piece will have a different strength magnet inside it to ID which piece is what (ie. 6 different magnet sizes for the 6 different types of pieces). Black and white pieces will be distinguished by the polarity of the magnets. The strength and polarity will be read by the same magnetic field sensor under each square. The lights will have different colors for the different piece that it is representing as well as for different signals (ie. An invalid move will flash red).

The chess clock will consist of a 7-segment display in the form of (h:mm:ss) and there will be 2 stop buttons, one for each side, to signal when a player’s turn is over. A third button will be featured near the clock to act as a reset button. The combination of the two stop switches and reset button will be used to select the time mode for the clock. Each side of the board will also have a two toggle-able buttons or switches to control whether move help or suggested moves should be enabled on that side of the board. The state of the decision will be shown by a lit or unlit LED light near the relevant switch.

Project Videos