People :: ECE 445 - Senior Design Laboratory

People

TA Office Hours

Held weekly in the senior design lab (ECEB 2070/2072). NOTE:

Blue names are office hours held for only 30 minutes. The rest are for 1 hour.

Names highlighted in orange are additional office hours available up to the due date of the soldering assignment.

There are no office hours during the weeks of board reviews or final demos.

Chat Room

Ask technical questions here:

Fall 2023 Instructors

Name Area
Prof. Arne Fliflet (Instructor)
3056
afliflet@illinois.edu
microwave generation and applications
Prof. Rakesh Kumar (Instructor)

rakeshk@illinois.edu
Prof. Olga Mironenko (Instructor)

olgamiro@illinois.edu
Prof. Michael Oelze (Instructor)
ECEB 2056
oelze@illinois.edu
Biomedical Imaging, Acoustics, Nondestructive Testing
Prof. Victoria Shao (Instructor)

yangshao@illinois.edu
Nikhil Arora (TA)

na32@illinois.edu
Mechanical Design, Automotive Technologies, Additive Manufacturing
Sainath Barbhai (TA)

barbhai2@illinois.edu
Design Engineering, Finite Element Method, Sensors and Actuators
Jeff Chang (TA)

kcchang3@illinois.edu
DSP/Deep Learning/Audio
Stasiu Chyczewski (TA)

stasiuc2@illinois.edu
Magnetic materials/devices, 2D materials, wireless power
Gregory Jun (TA)

hgjun2@illinois.edu
Zicheng Ma (TA)

zicheng5@illinois.edu
Distributed systems, Database systems
Abhisheka Mathur Sekar (TA)

am113@illinois.edu
Mechanical Engineering, Design, CAD Modelling and Simulation, Fluid Mechanics, MRI
David Null (TA)

null2@illinois.edu
Robotics, Computer Vision, Navigation, Coordinated Systems, Control Systems.
Jason Paximadas (TA)

jop2@illinois.edu
Power electronics, control, and instrumentation
Sanjana Pingali (TA)

pingali4@illinois.edu
Machine Learning Systems
Jason Zhang (TA)

zekaiz2@illinois.edu
Robot and human interactions
Jialiang Zhang (TA)
CSL 403
jz23@illinois.edu
Hardware Systems, Computer Architecture
Tianxiang Zheng (TA)

tz32@illinois.edu
FPGA hls and mlir; Chronic signal processing; robotics and control; 3D printing;

Other Important People

Name Office Phone Email Area
Scott McDonald 1049 ECE Building   samcdona@illinois.edu Machine Shop
Mark Smart 1041 ECE Building   mwsmart@illinois.edu Electronics Services Shop
Casey Smith 3064 ECE Building   cjsmith0@illinois.edu Instructional Lab Coordinator
Waltham Smith 1041 ECE Building   wlsmith@illinois.edu Electronic Services Shop
Skot Wiedmann 1041 ECE Building   swiedma2@illinois.edu Electronic Services Shop

GYMplement

Srinija Kakumanu, Justin Naal, Danny Rymut

Featured Project

**Problem:** When working out at home, without a trainer, it’s hard to maintain good form. Working out without good form over time can lead to injury and strain.

**Solution:** A mat to use during at-home workouts that will give feedback on your form while you're performing a variety of bodyweight exercises (multiple pushup variations, squats, lunges,) by analyzing pressure distributions and placement.

**Solution Components:**

**Subsystem 1: Mat**

- This will be built using Velostat.

- The mat will receive pressure inputs from the user.

- Velostat is able to measure pressure because it is a piezoresistive material and the more it is compressed the lower the resistance becomes. By tracking pressure distribution it will be able to analyze certain aspects of the form and provide feedback.

- Additionally, it can assist in tracking reps for certain exercises.

- The mat would also use an ultrasonic range sensor. This would be used to track reps for exercises, such as pushups and squats, where the pressure placement on the mat may not change making it difficult for the pressure sensors to track.

- The mat will not be big enough to put both feet and hands on it. Instead when you are doing pushups you would just be putting your hands on it

**Subsystem 2: Power**

- Use a portable battery back to power the mat and data transmitter subsystems.

**Subsystem 3: Data transmitter**

- Information collected from the pressure sensors in the mat will be sent to the mobile app via Bluetooth. The data will be sent to the user’s phone so that we can help the user see if the exercise is being performed safely and correctly.

**Subsystem 4: Mobile App**

- When the user first gets the mat they will be asked to perform all the supported exercises and put it their height and weight in order to calibrate the mat.

- This is where the user would build their circuit of exercises and see feedback on their performance.

- How pressure will indicate good/bad form: in the case of squats, there would be two nonzero pressure readings and if the readings are not identical then we know the user is putting too much weight on one side. This indicates bad form. We will use similar comparisons for other moves

- The most important functions of this subsystem are to store the calibration data, give the user the ability to look at their performances, build out exercise circuits and set/get reminders to work out

**Criterion for Success**

- User Interface is clear and easy to use.

- Be able to accurately and consistently track the repetitions of each exercise.

- Sensors provide data that is detailed/accurate enough to create beneficial feedback for the user

**Challenges**

- Designing a circuit using velostat will be challenging because there are limited resources available that provide instruction on how to use it.

- We must also design a custom PCB that is able to store the sensor readings and transmit the data to the phone.