Electronics Engineering Projects

[Karamel]

Hi,

I have a question for you. "Do you suggest a electronics engineering project(s) for a electronics engineering student(s)?"

One rule is that project(s) must be involved microcontroller or digital control. For example, not directly relating high voltage or etc. Also, project(s) must not be very basic or must not be very hard for students n

I am waiting your opinions

I must add that, these projects must be "semester projects"

Best regards,
Karamello

[PointyOintment]

• Datalogging and telemetry of vehicle performance (engine speed, wheel speed, fuel efficiency, acceleration, braking, suspension motion, etc.)
• Similar for a remote-control vehicle (plane, boat, etc.)
• Sun tracking and power generation datalogging for solar array
• Illuminated indicators and web dashboard to monitor the working/broken status and passenger loads of elevators/escalators
• Something to monitor stock levels on store shelves and make this info available to staff and customers on the store's website
• A bicycle headlight that automatically adjusts its beam to compensate for terrain and avoid blinding oncoming drivers/riders/pedestrians
• A system to track medications and dosages (i.e. "Did I take my pill yet today?" or "Did my grandma take her pill today?")
• Lightning detector/tracker (like Blitzortung, but it would be an independent device that works on its own)
• Rechargeable battery charger/discharger/analyzer (ideally multi-chemistry, but that might be too difficult)
• Video game controller that works with multiple different types of game consoles (The GameCube controller protocol isn't too difficult at least, and I'd guess the PlayStation 2 protocol isn't either.)
• Chording keyboard
• LCR/ESR meter or other simple test equipment
• Thermostat for the shower (PID controller)
• Window blinds controller—automatic up/down depending on time of day/sunlight
• Large wall map of the world, with LEDs to illuminate the area currently lit by the sun and to indicate places in the news (Ikea sells a large wall world map, but I don't know if you have Ikea in Turkey.)
• Bathroom fan timer that senses humidity from the shower and turns the fan on/off automatically

Also have a look at some projects on Hackaday.io.

[rstofer]

Pick a modest ARM chip, maybe an ARM7TDMI like the LPC2148 and then have the students implement every peripheral.  Of course, the answer to this is at www.jcwren.com/arm but the idea is to write a bunch of code aimed at ARM processors and to truly understand the peripherals and the various publications (datasheet, user manual, etc).

If you pick an STM32F, no fair using CubeMX or the HAL.  The students can use those as a guide but not as a library.  The STM32F4 has a lot more peripherals (LCD, Camera, etc) and these may be beyond a single semester course and also add to the cost.

[TheDane]

A long time ago, not that far from where I'm living now - I studied hard to become an EE.
I succeeded, and in the process made some fun stuff.

One of the semester projects we did was a GPS controlled model car.
We were 3-4 in a group, and were given a former RF controlled model car with an Atmel minimum system with display+keypad. The servos had been hacked a bit, so the 80C52 system controlling the car could read out the direction and drive the internal DC motor in both directions. A power motor controller was built, so the car could drive back/forwards at varying speeds.
A GPS receiver and other stuff like keypad and display was also needed to record waypoints, execute program, clear, etc.

This was +12 years ago, and I am aware that the tech back then wasn't as fast as now.
However,
however,
yep - however, it was a great way to learn about hardware limits - and work around them.
It's like implementing a fully functional RIAA amplifier using ONLY a single 741 op-amp and passives. It isn't easy, you have to know a lot about poles/0-points, practical limitations, etc., and PSpice it to get the curves just right.

And yes, we got it working. A single 12 MHz Atmel CPU doing all the work, including the NMEA-XYZ_map plane decoding in real time.
What great fun it was to see the little car sprint around the parking lot, searching - searching - searching - and then racing off to the next spot. Ah, thanks schuuul 

So, what I'm suggesting is going a little old-school. Teaching that a multi-gigahertz system isn't needed to control something as simple as an autonomous moving car.

[calexanian]

The one we did with I was at college was to design a system that controlled traffic lights. The follow on was to add sensor inputs that could detect when vehicles were present. All simulated of course. Teaches basic logic and most people are familiar with the sequence of events.