Using the Website

Project Page

The Project Pages were created in an effort to help promote student projects. The Project Pages provide a showcase where employers, other students, and friends can see what UIUC students are capable of. Many employers, in particular, consider a good Senior Design Project to be just as valuable as internship experience. The Project Pages will develop over time into a valuable library of practical engineering knowledge. Some of the best projects will be identified each semester and placed in the Senior Design "Hall of Fame," while the rest will be accessible by semester and search engine.

Updating Project Information

Once your project has been approved on the discussion board by the Instructor, you should promptly update your project information. In order to do so, find your project on the Project page, and click its title. When a frame expands, click on "Edit." Next, enter your UIUC netid and password. The system will lookup your project and prompt you for information such as your project's title. Please fill in the information that you wish to have appear for your project, and then click on the submit button. The required fields are marked so. You can update this information at any time. We strongly urge you to keep a backup of all of the information, and we would like to caution you of one scenario in particular. If multiple people attempt to edit this information at the same time, the second person to submit the changes will overwrite the first person's changes. Also, be sure to logout when you are done by closing the web browser. It is important that you provide a project desciption. It should be a brief overview of your project and explanation of why it is worth doing. Please provide this information as soon as possible and try to limit the length to about 250 words.

Submit Schedule

After updating your project information, you should proceed to the Submit Schedule page. Here each student should submit his/her schedule so that your TA can schedule a weekly meeting time. We know that there are a lot of boxes to check, but we need this detailed information because of how difficult it is to match schedules. The information is displayed in a convenient way for TAs when it is time for them to schedule meeting times. The system is very intuitive so instructions are not needed. NOTE: Please be sure that the schedule you submit is as accurate as possible, since you won't be able to edit it later!

After submitting your schedule, you should familiarize yourself with the "Upload Files" page.

Uploading Files

This area is used to upload files such as the Proposal, the Final Paper, Images, and additional files. When a file is uploaded, it is renamed and limited to a specified size. Special documents such as Proposals and Final Papers should be uploaded into the appropriate slot and will automatically be added to your Project Page. Images and other files can be uploaded into any other slot such as "file1." To upload a file, simply select which slot to place it in, and then select the file from your computer using the "Browse" button.

BarPro Weightlifting Aid Device

Patrick Fejkiel, Grzegorz Gruba, Kevin Mienta

Featured Project

Patrick Fejkiel (pfejki2), Kevin Mienta (kmient2), Grzegorz Gruba (ggruba2)

Title: BarPro

Problem: Many beginner weightlifters struggle with keeping the barbell level during lifts. Even seasoned weightlifters find their barbells swaying to one side sometimes. During heavy lifts, many people also struggle with full movements after a few repetitions.

Solution Overview: BarPro is a device that straps on to a barbell and aids the lifter with keeping the barbell level, maintaining full repetitions and keeping track of reps/sets. It keeps track of the level of the barbell and notifies the lifter with a sound to correct the barbell positioning when not level. The lifter can use the device to calibrate their full movement of the repetition before adding weight so that when heavy weight is applied, the device will use data from the initial repetition to notify the lifter with a sound if they are not lifting or lowering the barbell all the way during their lift. There will be an LCD screen or LEDs showing the lifter the amount of repetitions/sets that they have completed.

Solution Components:

Subsystem #1 - Level Sensor: An accelerometer will be used to measure the level of the barbell. If an unlevel position is measured, a speaker will beep and notify the lifter.

Subsystem #2 - Full Repetition Sensor: An ultrasonic or infrared distance sensor will be used to measure the height of the barbell from the ground/body during repetitions. The sensor will first be calibrated by the lifter during a repetition with no weight, and then that calibration will be used to check if the lifter is having their barbell reach the calibrated maximum and minimum heights.

Subsystem #3 - LED/LCD Rep/Sets Indicator: LEDs or a LCD screen will be used to display the reps/sets from the data measured by the accelerometer.

Criterion for Success: Our device needs to be user friendly and easily attachable to the barbell. It needs to notify the lifter with sounds and LEDs/LCD display when their barbell is not level, when their movements are not fully complete, and the amount of reps/sets they have completed. The device needs to work smoothly, and testing/calibrating will need to be performed to determine the minimum/maximum values for level and movement positioning.