Continuing your Project

Description

Groups that wish to continue their projects are encouraged to sign up for Undergraduate Independent Study: ECE 396, ECE 397, ECE 497, or ECE 499.

Funds of up to $500 are available in order to defray project expenses. These funds have been generously provided by the ECE Alumni Fund and may be used for materials and supplies, equipment, computer software, etc. Funds may not be used for salaries or wages. Purchases may be made through the ECE Business Office, ECE Stores or reimbursement of personal funds with proper documentation. More information will be provided upon approval.

Please see the Undergraduate Independent Study Funding page for more details.

The Leung Fund provides another avenue for obtaining funding to continue a project conceived of in ECE 445. Prior projects have also continued through various programs in the College of Engineering's Technology Entrepreneur Center programs, including the Cozad New Venture Competition.

Wireless IntraNetwork

Daniel Gardner, Jeeth Suresh

Wireless IntraNetwork

Featured Project

There is a drastic lack of networking infrastructure in unstable or remote areas, where businesses don’t think they can reliably recoup the large initial cost of construction. Our goal is to bring the internet to these areas. We will use a network of extremely affordable (<$20, made possible by IoT technology) solar-powered nodes that communicate via Wi-Fi with one another and personal devices, donated through organizations such as OLPC, creating an intranet. Each node covers an area approximately 600-800ft in every direction with 4MB/s access and 16GB of cached data, saving valuable bandwidth. Internal communication applications will be provided, minimizing expensive and slow global internet connections. Several solutions exist, but all have failed due to costs of over $200/node or the lack of networking capability.

To connect to the internet at large, a more powerful “server” may be added. This server hooks into the network like other nodes, but contains a cellular connection to connect to the global internet. Any device on the network will be able to access the web via the server’s connection, effectively spreading the cost of a single cellular data plan (which is too expensive for individuals in rural areas). The server also contains a continually-updated several-terabyte cache of educational data and programs, such as Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg. This data gives students and educators high-speed access to resources. Working in harmony, these two components foster economic growth and education, while significantly reducing the costs of adding future infrastructure.