Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
64 Sydekick - The interactive, fun, and educational robot for those on the autism spectrum
 Bala Chandrasekaran
Rohan Mohapatra
Sam Feizi
 David Hanley final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pptx
proposal1.pdf
Sydekick

Members - Sam Feizi (feizi2), Balasabapathi Chandrasekaran (bmchand2), Rohan Mohapatra (rmohapa2)

Motivation - According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rates of autism have increased from 1 in 150 newborns being diagnosed with autism in 2000 to 1 in 59 in the year 2018. We are motivated to build a therapeutic “Sydekick” for those who have been medically identified to be on the autism spectrum.

Solution Overview - Sydekick will have a set of wheels to govern its translation and rotational motion. We intend to create a robot that is partially humanoid with a torso, head, and two arm-like appendages that operate on one rotational axis. The robot will contain a set of games built-in for the child to interact with.

Solution Details - From the ground up, we will mention design specifics of the processing unit, wheels, torso, arms, and head as follows:
Processing Unit - We will use a Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+ due to the ability to interface with various sensors as well as its diverse wireless capabilities. Our intent is to integrate the Android SDK and be able to use Google Play Services as a method to communicate through an LCD and have touchscreen capabilities.
Wheels - There will be four motors on the base that will power the wheels using pulse width modulation communicated from the aforementioned Raspberry Pi.
Torso - This module will contain an LCD screen with capacitive touch for the child to interact with (tickle, hug, etc). The chassis will be mainly 3D printed using PLA with aluminum reinforcement.
Arms - Arms will operate in one rotational axis using a motor at the shoulder, but will not replicate a ball and socket joint. Arms are simply meant to offer yet another interactive tool for the child and due to the weight of adding another motor, will therefore not contain elbow movement functionality.
Head - This module will contain another LCD screen to encourage the reward system for the child playing with the robot and will simply have facial emotions programmed into it as well as a speaker to communicate with the child.
Sensors - Sensors will be primarily composed of pressure sensors for child interaction, particularly for games that are built-in such as a modified version of bop-it and educational games to enrich human-human interaction skills of the child.

Criteria for Success - To determine success this group has determined three areas: mechanical, hardware, software.
Mechanical - The robot should mimic a human in regard to movement with the exception of the wheels on the base.
Hardware - A successful hardware result for this group shall be obtained when all sensors are fully functional, LCDs work seamlessly, and all communicate properly with the Raspberry Pi.
Software - The software modules will be considered a success if a child can play the built-in games with the robot and benefit from its audio-visual features.

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.

Project Videos