Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
30 Friend Finder Armband
 David Drake
Timothy Capota
 design_document0.pdf
final_paper0.pdf
presentation0.presentation
proposal0.pdf
Many times GPS devices can not be used to locate a person in a big crowd. They are not accurate enough to tell you exactly where a person is within close distances,and sometimes the signal is unreliable.The friend finder armband aims to fill this void in the market by creating an intuitive tool to easily find others which works where GPS does not. Our product would be useful in a myriad of situations including concerts, malls, and any other
events where large gatherings of people make getting separated easy.

Our goal is to develop a compact armband that will allow the users to easily locate each other in any situation. The armbands will use a system of antennas to locate each
other. There will be increasing vibration with increasing proximity. Moreover, the armbands will have LED's to point the user in the right direction.

The Marching Band Assistant

Wynter Chen, Alyssa Louise Licudine, Prashant Shankar

The Marching Band Assistant

Featured Project

NetID/Names

wynterc2 (Wynter Chen), alyssal3 (Alyssa Licudine), shankar7 (Prashant Shankar)

Problem

Drum majors lead and conduct marching bands. One of their main jobs is to maintain tempo for the musicians by moving their hands in specific patterns. However, many drum majors, especially high school students, need to learn how to conduct specific tempos off the top of their head and maintain a consistent tempo without assistance for performances. Even those with musical experience have difficulty knowing for certain what tempo they're conducting without a metronome.

Solution Overview

Our project consists of an arm attachment that aids drum major conducting. The attachment contains an accelerometer that helps determine the tempo in beats per minute via hand movement. A display shows the beats per minute, which allows the drum major to adjust their speed as necessary in real time. The microcontroller data is wirelessly transmitted, and a program can be downloaded that not only visualizes the data in real-time, but provides an option to save recorded data for later. There is also a convenient charging port for the device.

This project is a unique invention that aims to help marching bands. There have been previous projects and inventions that have also digitized the conducting experience, such as the Digital Conducting Baton from Spring 2015. However, these have been in the form of a baton rather than a glove, and are used to alter music files as opposed to providing feedback. Additionally, orchestra conductors use very delicate motions with a baton, while drum majors create large, sharper motions with their arms; thus, we believed that an arm attachment was better suited for marching band usage. Unlike other applications that only integrate digital instruments, this project seeks to assist live performers.

Link to RFA: https://courses.grainger.illinois.edu/ece445/pace/view-topic.asp?id=37939

Project Videos