okay pleeeaaasssee

can someone suggest a good project for final year in product design?? an impressive but not too complex one would be good

i've come up to a mental roadblock and can't think of anything suitable

project has to be product oriented, something financially viable (something marketable), could involve modification of something existing, interfacing, etc

hmmm....that's a little vague to give a specific answer.

What kinds of products have you designed in your course?

Is there a specific interest that you stick to or background strengths that you have? Such as interfacing, communications, power supply, test / measurement, audio, video, digital, analog etc.

What is your target overall cost to the consumer? I think this would stem into several questions about manufacturing / part cost.

What type of consumer are you targeting? Such as commercial, industrial, technical etc.

make a fully functional robot (like terminator - just dont program him 2 kill every1)

This little project has been kicking around for a while now
in search of a talented individual.
https://www.electro-tech-online.com/threads/electric-fence.3238/

I admit it's a cruel link to post but..well
it does drive the PIC proggers mad :lol:

Here are some other ideas

Portable alarm system for fences around construction sites
or large public events, battery powered / solar recharged?
RF or IR linked together or to a central control point panel.
Maybe even use a cell phone....

Voice activated shower, no more messing about trying to get the water the way you like it, just say "shower on" it recognises your voice and calls up the favourite settings. Any other budding designers out there drawing up plans for the shower cubicle of the future might want to include warm air blowers , much more hygienic than towells.

Staying in the bathroom , the idea of a hand /washbasin with automatic "taps" or "faucets" (depending wich side of the Atlantic you live)
has come up before, they appear in at least one episode of "Star Trek -next generation. Put your hands in the water starts take them out it stops.
Sounds simple enough, but practical refinements would include the ability to tell the difference between hands a toothbrush and a wet razor, self cleaning sensors might be another area worth wondering about....

Over here in Europe there is also a dire need for an Digital Tachograph
they do exist allready but these actually do less then units they are intended to replace....







Fans of the cartoon strip "Dilbert" would
flock to purchase a voice controlled Hassock.

Must be different on your side of the atlantic, but over here automatic faucets are pretty common... they have them in most heavily-traveled public restrooms (ie- airports) since they're a lot more hygienic. we have them where I work, along with automatic urinals and toilets.

granted, none of them can tell the difference between hands and a toothbrush... but don't you want the water to run when you stick your toothbrush in there to rinse it off?

Making a robot wodnt be a good idea.But since you have a final year project the robot wod proboly have to have a camera and proces images and procesing images wood need at least an 500 MHz PC on bord.Meady ading a microphone so you cod give the robot voice comands.But a ting like this wod be realy expesive.And an good image procesing software wod tacke a weak to make.If you cod get it togeter it wod be an exselent project

u can also implement the image processing with FPGAs. the inclusion of FPGA might make the project more impressive because FPGAs are quite hot these days

thanks guys, these are cool ideas

the robot one is the most interesting of them

The problem is i have NO knowledge of FPGA, average knowledge of digital image processing and have only done a little using MATLAB

what type of robots do you have in mind?? a wheel based one sounds good to me, don't think i can handle the complexity of a walking one within a year while still taking other modules :shock:

do you think i can accomplish this in a year?? (considering i have other modules to attend to as well)

Making a walking one wod be wery hard to make.A robot on weels.You shod have some good baterys becose a PC golp up to 200 W of energy.Meaby making a paint ball playing robot.It wod be cool if you cod get a heat sensitive camera.

My ideas:
-On weels
-Camera
-Microphone
-Spekaer
-Paint ball gun
-LCD screan (User interface)
-USB,Srial... ports
-Meaby Radio control
-...

Just start form the imporant stuf linke weels,PC,Camera... and leve the stuf like LCD,Radio control... for the end

You shod shurly get it done up to the paint ball gun.Make the other tings if you have enugh time.

LCD screen??? hmmm, implemented on the remote control you mean??

my initial idea yesterday was to have a transmitter linked to a PC (serial or USB) where you could send control information via a user interface on screen to the receiver on the controlled car

camera sends back real-time images that can be seen onscreen

I ment puting a screan on the robot and pluging an keybord in so you cod set his setings or meaby use it as a real pc.By radio conctrol i ment that the robot wod have 2 modes: Self controling (Controld by image procesing or voice comand) and Radio control (Controld by a RC Car like remote).You cod also make a PC control it by radio waves(Robot sends real-time video,audio... and the PC sends back comands to motors).This wod make the robot much smaler,lighter,complex and the baterys wod last much longer.I wod prefer the on-bord PC option becose it makes the robot much more indipendent(You dont want image qalety loss since it has image procesing)

Someone Electro said:

I ment puting a screan on the robot and pluging an keybord in so you cod set his setings or meaby use it as a real pc.By radio conctrol i ment that the robot wod have 2 modes: Self controling (Controld by image procesing or voice comand) and Radio control (Controld by a RC Car like remote).You cod also make a PC control it by radio waves(Robot sends real-time video,audio... and the PC sends back comands to motors).This wod make the robot much smaler,lighter,complex and the baterys wod last much longer.I wod prefer the on-bord PC option becose it makes the robot much more indipendent(You dont want image qalety loss since it has image procesing)

Click to expand...

let me get this right

are you suggesting that i actually create an on-board PC for the robot :shock:

i've only got part of 1 year to do this

do you think it is possible to accomplish this

with the LCD, won't i have to create my own operational interface, i mean like an operating system for it :shock: ?? are you also suggesting a direct serial connection between the robot and the PC

i don't even know how to beginning implementing image processing using microcontrollers, like i said only experience i have with it is on MATLAB

can you list some helpful things that might set me off in the right path e.g. books, ICs required, etc.

I once made an image procesing program in Visual Basic that pointed a strong contrast green pece of paper that i was waving around in front of my webcam.But if you dont know good abaot image procesing you beter forget abaot it.Do you know any programing language?You need a program that sends data thru an port (serial,parallel,usb...)wich tels the control circuit what motors to thurn on or off.

If you are interested in robots that are controled by a computer i recomend you to learn Visual Basic.Its a programing language that is easy to learn and you can get a program quickly done but it dosent ofer as much complex functions as C++ Programing language.

Meaby you shood make an radio controled car that has an camera and sends video to a TV and meaby a microphone to.

No you dont need your oun OS (Operating Sistem) you yust have to make a program that runs on an exsisting OS (Proboly Windows).

Puting an PC in a robot isnt that complicated.All you need to do is tacke apart an old pc (tacke out the mother bord,disks..) and replace the PSU.Use a multimeter to mesure up the volteges and make a psu that puts out the same but its input is the robots batry pack

By the potrs (serial,uesb..)i ment to make them avaliable since my idea was to have an onbord pc to plug in some other tings.