Throughout my tenure at Texas A&M, the Computer Engineering department threw some very hard and intense course work in our face at times. However, there were many exciting opportunities to expand our creativity through self engineered projects. The youtube links below demonstrate some of the more appealing projects that we worked on, which include Computer Wizard, Friendly Fire!, and Automated Turret.
While watching these videos, keep in mind that all projects were completely thought out and researched by our teams and not an assignment from the professor. The projects were created from absolute scratch with no previous work. The projects were developed in under a month in lieu of other course work. We had received A's on all projects. It was after this when the professor asked us to make videos to show future students. So, the videos were compiled on short time notice before semester breaks. I was the primary software developer on all projects and consulted the hardware side as well. Each project is described in more detail below.
Computer Wizard: http://www.youtube.
The concept of this project was to create a computer building system that would assist ordinary people with the knowledge to build a computer from scratch from NewEgg components. Essentially, a computer illiterate person would specify how they intended to use the computer, input how much money they were going to spend, and then were returned a list of compatible computer components as well as an assembly guide for these computer components. Out of a class size of 15 projects, we received 2/3 awards, which consisted of votes from our peers. We received the "Grand Champion" (given to the best overall project) and the "Pablo Picasso" (given to the most innovative group) awards.
Friendly Fire! (Educational Robot Tank Game): http://www.youtube.com/
This project was a turn based game in which two users would play from their laptops against one another. The players had to answer mechanical physics questions correctly in order to move a robot tank across a battle field. Then, the player was able to launch a projectile at the enemy tank in order to score a point. The purpose of this game is to educate players in physics while enticing them to learn about robotics through the assistance of a fun game.In the video, one cannot see the GUI very well in the video, but it monitors whose turn it is, the score of the game, and the current state that the game is in. The GUI is the master control of the game.
Automated Turret: http://www.youtube.
During this project, our team created an automated turret system that would track a user defined color on a computer through a Logitech camera, send coordinates to the turret machine, turn the turret, and then resume firing small foam projectiles at the targeted color.
The 1:52 mark shows the main idea behind this project although the camera is angled to the side. In the top left corner, you can see the user click on our team member with a red shirt. You can see a red dot appear on the screen, and the Logitech's internal black and white interpretation of the shirt slightly below. Then you notice how the turret follows our team member with the red shirt on and shoots foam missiles at our team member.
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