McMaster students showcase inventions
The engineering faculty’s yearly capstone project expo featured more than 200 student projects
Senior engineering students at McMaster University usually ring in the end of their graduating year with a faculty-wide capstone project expo, the product of at least eight months of work.
For the first time, projects by about 1,000 students were featured online this year — from digital home systems like “Raccoon Lock” to protect garbage bins, to “Trash Talking” to measure garbage production, to mobile applications for just about everything.
Here is a look at their work: Piano Performance Pal (PP-Pal) á Team members: Kirill Teplov, Nathan Lam, Katrina Ma, Hank Bae, Roy Gohil, Gurpinder Sandhu
Ever look at a piano collecting dust in a bar, a hotel lobby, or a basement and wish it could play itself? Out of the six mechatronics engineering students on the PP-Pal team, five had that problem with pianos at home.
“So we just decided to make a robot that will do it for us,” said team lead Kirill Teplov.
Existing devices on the market call for a more invasive installation, requiring the instrument to be dismantled to integrate the technology that would operate the piano from inside.
The PP-Pal team built a robot that rests on top of the keys and pushes down on the notes that correspond with the input from a digital music file.
The students combined their expertise in software, hardware and computer-aided design to build the robot, and navigated limitations of not having access to building tools on campus and commuting far distances to a friend’s garage for the build.
Hank Bae bought a 3D printer to build some components from scratch, including the “feet” that screwed onto the pusher device that presses onto the keys.
“It was kind of like a miracle” to see it come together, said Katrina Ma.
The team was confident the PP-Pal could play “pretty much anything because it's a robot, it should be able to handle it,” said Gurpinder Sandhu. “But we realized some songs are essentially a little too fast.”
Slightly slower than Mozart’s intended 151 beats per minute timing, the team got PP-Pal to play the Turkish March. BravEye á Team members: Adam Woodill, Faisal Mustafa, Mohammed Raza, Ryan Perera
The team of electrical and computer engineering students behind BravEye set out to design a system that would help firefighters navigate hazardous surroundings with low visibility caused by smoke.
Team lead Adam Woodill said BravEye was designed using a thermal camera, Raspberry Pi — a type of single-board computer, a light detection and ranging — or LiDAR — sensor, and software designed by the students to process the signals picked up by the machines.
The device is mounted on a helmet, and signals are displayed as a thermal image on a wearable display screen that would be fixed to a pair of glasses over the firefighter’s right eye. The result is a thermal map that would help the firefighter detect people in the surroundings.
Woodill said they tested the device in his basement using water vapour and a smoke machine the team borrowed from a band member.
“It turned out that it was both ambitious and fulfilling in a technical sense, but also, it seemed like it was for a good cause as well,” Woodill said. Graphos á Team members: Arthur Méndez-Rosales, Colin Mohr, Dylan Genuth-Okon, Adam Otto
Bracing for a packed academic workload, this team of fifthyear engineering physics and management students got started on their capstone project brainchild, Graphos, last year.
The device is designed to create “photorealistic media” — in other words, digitize textures and surfaces for 3D applications in art and design. Except for one or two trips to drop off materials, the team designed the whole project remotely, and ended up focused on the software and design as opposed to building the hardware.
The design incorporates a camera system that take images of surfaces that are then converted into data that renders a digital image based on qualities, including how light would interact with the surface, said Dylan Genuth-Okon. The concept can be used to create animated films, games, architectural renders, and virtual tours.
Despite the complex design, Arthur Méndez-Rosales said one of the hardest parts of the project was putting together a creative video to virtually share their work for the expo.
“As engineers, we’re creative in aspects of engineering, but in just artistic creativity, we have a little bit of trouble doing that,” he said. “That was a challenge. We spent a lot of time on this video, and we're very proud of what we made.”
QEYnet Laser Beacon (QLink 1064) á Team members: Diana Dumitrescu, Malcolm Hodgins, Zan Barovier, David Hammond
The Q-Link 1064 team reached out to QEYnet — a spacecraft and quantum communication company founded by researchers at the University of Waterloo — and offered to dedicate their capstone toward an area of research that would benefit the company.
QEYnet specializes in quantum key distribution technology, bringing together satellites and space engineering, cryptography and quantum mechanics as part of a complex network to facilitate encryption and other cybersecurity protocols.
After accepting a project proposal, the engineering physics students went to work designing a model for a laser device akin to a “lighthouse on a foggy sea or something. It shows where your satellite is off in space,” said Malcolm Hodgins.
Engineering in a hostile space environment, with temperature extremes and atmospheric effects to consider, makes the design process challenging, said Zan Barovier.
The group preferred working remotely and were able focus on the analytical elements of their design, like choosing the best materials that could go into a future build of the laser system.
“But also, there’s obviously stuff that I’m sorry we missed out on, especially as graduating students,” said Diana Dumitrescu. “There were a lot of celebrations we were looking forward to that did not really pan out.”