Project :: ECE 445 - Senior Design Laboratory

Project

#	Title	Team Members	TA	Documents	Sponsor
47	NFC-Enabled Menu Ordering System Area Award: RFID/NFC	Patric Takagi Patrick Ding Yau Chan		design_document0.pdf final_paper0.pdf presentation0.presentation proposal0.pdf
	There has been a push toward less dependence on waiters at restaurants. For example, Chili's and Old Chicago's currently support a product called "Ziosk" on every table; a fully-colored, multi-functional, touch-screen tablet that allows restaurant customers to pay the bill and play games from the convenience of their seat. Our idea is to take this idea in a different direction, and implement a low-cost solution to restaurants using an NFC-enabled menu. Since NFC technology is very low-profile, the menus created would look and feel like any other menu on the market. Our device will allow a customer to use our specifically-designed NFC-reader to select their menu items by hovering over the NFC tag (this can be placed underneath a picture of the item or beside the item). The menu will contain an RF module that will send the order directly to the kitchen, reducing the work that waiters need to do. This will allow the restaurant to hire less waiters and will also improve any miscommunication between server and patron. Imagine if you are in a foreign country where you do not speak a lick of the native language. Our solution will allow you to intuitively point and select the food items you want, keeping difficult communication between server and guest as minimal as possible. This product is not designed to completely replace wait staff--it is simply an additional feature that will allow orders to queue efficiently and a reduction in the total number of workers that a restaurant includes on its payroll.

Title

Team Members

Documents

Sponsor

NFC-Enabled Menu Ordering System
Area Award: RFID/NFC

Patric Takagi
Patrick Ding
Yau Chan

design_document0.pdf
final_paper0.pdf
presentation0.presentation
proposal0.pdf

There has been a push toward less dependence on waiters at restaurants. For example, Chili's and Old Chicago's currently support a product called "Ziosk" on every table; a fully-colored, multi-functional, touch-screen tablet that allows restaurant customers to pay the bill and play games from the convenience of their seat. Our idea is to take this idea in a different direction, and implement a low-cost solution to restaurants using an NFC-enabled menu. Since NFC technology is very low-profile, the menus created would look and feel like any other menu on the market. Our device will allow a customer to use our specifically-designed NFC-reader to select their menu items by hovering over the NFC tag (this can be placed underneath a picture of the item or beside the item). The menu will contain an RF module that will send the order directly to the kitchen, reducing the work that waiters need to do. This will allow the restaurant to hire less waiters and will also improve any miscommunication between server and patron. Imagine if you are in a foreign country where you do not speak a lick of the native language. Our solution will allow you to intuitively point and select the food items you want, keeping difficult communication between server and guest as minimal as possible. This product is not designed to completely replace wait staff--it is simply an additional feature that will allow orders to queue efficiently and a reduction in the total number of workers that a restaurant includes on its payroll.

Featured Project

# Automatic Piano Tuner

Team Members:

- Colin Wallace (colinpw2)

- Riley Woodson (rileycw2)

- Joseph Babbo (jbabbo2)

# Problem

Piano tuning is a time-consuming and expensive process. An average piano tuning will cost in the $100 - $200 range and a piano will have to be retuned multiple times to maintain the correct pitch. Due to the strength required to alter the piano pegs it is also something that is difficult for the less physically able to accomplish.

# Solution

We hope to bring piano tuning to the masses by creating an easy to use product which will be able to automatically tune a piano by giving the key as input alongside playing the key to get the pitch differential and automatically turning the piano pegs until they reach the correct note.

# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1 - Motor Assembly

A standard tuning pin requires 8-14 nm of torque to successfully tune. We will thus need to create a motor assembly that is able to produce enough torque to rotate standard tuning pins.

## Subsystem 2 - Frequency Detector/Tuner

The device will use a microphone to gather audio measurements. Then a microprocessor processes the audio data to detect the pitch and determine the difference from the desired frequency. This can then generate instructions for the motor; direction to turn pegs and amount to turn it by.

## Subsystem 3 - User Interface/Display Panel

A small but intuitive display and button configuration can be used for this device. It will be required for the user to set the key being played using buttons on the device and reading the output of the display. As the device will tune by itself after hearing the tone, all that is required to display is the current key and octave. A couple of buttons will suffice to be able to cycle up and down keys and octaves.

## Subsystem 4 - Replaceable Battery/Power Supply

Every commercial product should use standard replaceable batteries, or provide a way for easy charging. As we want to develop a handheld device, so that the device doesn’t have to drag power wires into the piano, we will need a rechargeable battery pack.

# Criterion For Success

The aim of the Automatic Piano Tuner is to allow the user to automatically tune piano strings based on a key input alongside playing a note. We have several goals to help us meet this aim:

- Measure pitch accurately, test against known good pitches

- Motor generates enough torque to turn the pegs on a piano

- Tuner turns correctly depending on pitch

- Easy tuning of a piano by a single untrained person

Project Videos

DemoVideo1