Final Demo :: ECE 445 - Senior Design Laboratory

Final Demo

Description

The Final Demo is the single most important measure (and assignment) for the success of your project. The evaluation is holistic, focused on whether your project is completed, well-designed, reliable, and usable. You will demo your project to your professor, at least one TA, and a few peer reviewers. Other guests (e.g. alumni, high school students, sponsors, or other department affiliates) may also be present.

Requirements and Grading

Students must be able to demonstrate the full functionality of their project by proving that all the requirements in their Requirements and Verification (RV) table are met. Students must bring a printed out version of their block diagram, high level requirements, and RV table. Credit will not be given for feature which cannot be demonstrated.

For tests that are lengthy or require equipment not available at the time of demo, students should have their lab notebooks or printouts ready to show testing data. For any portion of the project which does not function as specified, students should have hypotehses (and supporting evidence) of what is causing the problem. If your demo needs to happen somewhere that is not the Senior Design Lab, you must communicate this with your TA!

The design team should be ready to justify design decisions and discuss any technical aspect of the project or its performance (not just one's own responsibilities). Quantitative results are expected wherever applicable. The demo grade depends on the following general areas: See the Demo Grading Rubric for specific details, but in general, show the following:

  1. Completion: The project has been entirely completed.
  2. Integration: The project is well-integrated, looking more like a final product than a prototype.
  3. Performance: Performance is completely verified, and operation is reliable.
  4. Understanding: Everyone on the project team must must be able to demonstrate understanding of his/her technical work and show that all members have contributed significantly.
  5. Polish & Attention to Detail: The project is well-polished with the user in mind. Good attention to detail is afforded to useability, presentation, and packaging.

 

Submission and Deadlines

Signing-up for a demo time is handled through the PACE system. Again, remember to sign up for a peer review as well.

Electronic Automatic Transmission for Bicycle

Tianqi Liu, Ruijie Qi, Xingkai Zhou

Featured Project

Tianqi Liu(tliu51)

Ruijie Qi(rqi2)

Xingkai Zhou(xzhou40)

Sometimes bikers might not which gear is the optimal one to select. Bicycle changes gears by pulling or releasing a steel cable mechanically. We could potentially automate gear changing by hooking up a servo motor to the gear cable. We could calculate the optimal gear under current condition by using several sensors: two hall effect sensors, one sensing cadence from the paddle and the other one sensing the overall speed from the wheel, we could also use pressure sensors on the paddle to determine how hard the biker is paddling. With these sensors, it would be sufficient enough for use detect different terrains since the biker tend to go slower and pedal slower for uphill or go faster and pedal faster for downhill. With all these information from the sensors, we could definitely find out the optimal gear electronically. We plan to take care of the shifting of rear derailleur, if we have more time we may consider modifying the front as well.

Besides shifting automatically, we plan to add a manual mode to our project as well. With manual mode activated, the rider could override the automatic system and select the gear on its own.

We found out another group did electronic bicycle shifting in Spring 2016, but they didn't have a automatic function and didn't have the sensor set-up like ours. Commercially, both SRAM and SHIMANO have electronic shifting products, but these products integrate the servo motor inside the derailleurs, and they have a price tag over $1000. Only professionals or rich enthusiasts can have a hand on them. As our system could potentially serve as an add-on device to all bicycles with gears, it would be much cheaper.

Project Videos