The Senior Project

The Senior Project

So today I am working from home again, Babysitting Anthony and trying to get things done around here. Basically, the next milestones to get through this summer are My Senior Project and the Internship in Minnesota. I plan on going up North as soon as I am done with my school work here in FAU. I still don't know if I passed my summer classes, it is going to be close. Which stinks, I don't like doing things this way but I had no choice this summer, I HAD to go to Military Annual Training, and I HAD to take these classes now in order to graduate in the FALL.

So, a little about the project, earlier this year I set up another blog to describe the development of the project, I was really enthusiastic, this being the rite of passage for Computer, Electrical and Mechanical Engineers here at Florida Atlantic University. Things started out good enough, the first of the two course series we are tasked with a mini-project in which your group members are chosen at random, and the project is supposed to be the implementation of a simple, straight forward solution to a simple problem. We were supposed to design a gadget that could shoot water to pre-determined grid block coordinates. We were given four coordinates a week before and an extra one the day of the competition. We were told that for the final Project we could choose our Teamates as long as there was at least one member from each discipline represented (one Comp.Eng., Electrical, etc)

Our Randombly chosen group got along so well, that we decided to stay together, but, the day we were supposed to turn in the list, the teachers threw a curve ball at us, we could chose anyone, as long as no-one in the group had worked together in the first project. We were mad! The least they could have done was warn us in advance. But, we moved on.

So we formed the new group. Majid, Chris, Jaime and myself. We are building a smart car seat. The idea behind it is to prevent negligent injuries caused by parents leaving their children unattended in their car, it happens all the time, a parent is having a bad day, leaves the kid in the car, it's 80 degrees outside, withing minutes the temperature inside the car is 110, and the kid just...well, it's not pretty.

So what we have is a regular car seat with some sensors hooked up, that will text message you if it detects that the vehicle is turned off and that there's a child in the vehicle at the same time. It will send the parent a couple of warning text messages, then if nothing happens it will call the authorities.

There are a lot of details left out, but this is the basic idea. We also have added a camera and an LCD screen so that the driver can see the child without turning her head around. A feature which my wife has "encouraged" me to add. Needless to say, I already have my first customer for this car seat.

Right now we have the car seat, we have the program that can send a text message, we have the camera and screen. All we have to do is put the whole thing together. I still have to work on the software that controls all of this. But I don't think it will take me that long. I wouldn't be surprised if we finish this week, wich will be sweet since the sooner I can finish this the sooner I can head up North and the sooner I get to come back and finish this long summer.

The one thing I look forward to the most right now is getting that College Degree, that's all I want, well, that and to keep my family of course.

Anthony is being the perfect kid this morning, no fuzz, he ate his morning bottle, took a nap, woke up in a good mood and he is sitting quietly in his high chair watching Baby Eistein, I hope it stays that way.

Ok Ya'll that was my morning report. Now back to your usual programming.

J.V.