Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
46 The Candle Extinguisher
 Aaron VanDeCasteele
Casey Labuda
Matthew Nee
 Daniel Frei design_document0.pdf
final_paper0.pdf
presentation0.pdf
proposal0.pdf
video
video
Problem Statement: Candles should never be left unattended. Many house fires have occurred due to neglected and forgotten candles. Also, many users are unaware that most candle companies do not recommend having a candle lit for more than four hours at a time.

Solution: A device that is able to safely extinguish commonly sized candles after the user’s desired time limit.

System Description: The Candle Extinguisher is constructed around a one gallon glass jar. The user can place any sized candle that will fit into the enclosure and then set a desired time on the user interface to have the candle extinguished. Once the desired time has been reached, a mechanically controlled lid will lower to the top of the glass jar in order to suffocate the flame. A thermal IR sensor will communicate with our microcontroller to ensure that the flame has been successfully extinguished. The lid is held up by the motor, so if power fails, the lid will fall and allow the flame to be extinguished. If the lid fails to extinguish the flame, the Candle Extinguisher will have a backup system that uses air from above to put out the flame. Also, if for some reason the flame is still present, an alarm will be sounded to warn the user. An alarm can also be used to warn of low battery power.

Alternatives and Competition: Currently there are no other products on the market that will carry out these operations. On the other hand, a self-extinguishing candle does exist. The downside of this device is that it comes with the candle and cannot be used on other candles. The Candle Extinguisher can be used on almost any sized candle. It does not matter if the candle comes in a glass jar or if it is just a bare candle. The Candle Extinguisher will work as long as the desired candle fits into its enclosure.

Group Members:
Casey Labuda: cllabud2
Matthew Nee: nee2
Junren Chen: jchen155@illinois.edu

Electronic Automatic Transmission for Bicycle

Tianqi Liu, Ruijie Qi, Xingkai Zhou

Featured Project

Tianqi Liu(tliu51)

Ruijie Qi(rqi2)

Xingkai Zhou(xzhou40)

Sometimes bikers might not which gear is the optimal one to select. Bicycle changes gears by pulling or releasing a steel cable mechanically. We could potentially automate gear changing by hooking up a servo motor to the gear cable. We could calculate the optimal gear under current condition by using several sensors: two hall effect sensors, one sensing cadence from the paddle and the other one sensing the overall speed from the wheel, we could also use pressure sensors on the paddle to determine how hard the biker is paddling. With these sensors, it would be sufficient enough for use detect different terrains since the biker tend to go slower and pedal slower for uphill or go faster and pedal faster for downhill. With all these information from the sensors, we could definitely find out the optimal gear electronically. We plan to take care of the shifting of rear derailleur, if we have more time we may consider modifying the front as well.

Besides shifting automatically, we plan to add a manual mode to our project as well. With manual mode activated, the rider could override the automatic system and select the gear on its own.

We found out another group did electronic bicycle shifting in Spring 2016, but they didn't have a automatic function and didn't have the sensor set-up like ours. Commercially, both SRAM and SHIMANO have electronic shifting products, but these products integrate the servo motor inside the derailleurs, and they have a price tag over $1000. Only professionals or rich enthusiasts can have a hand on them. As our system could potentially serve as an add-on device to all bicycles with gears, it would be much cheaper.

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