Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
25 Home Appliance Energy Monitor
 Guneet Sachdeva
Om Patel
Ravi Thakkar
 Zicheng Ma design_document1.pdf
design_document2.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pdf
proposal2.pdf
proposal1.pdf
video
Title: Home Appliance Energy Monitor

Team Members: Guneet Sachdeva (guneets2), Om Patel (opatel5), Ravi Thakkar (rthakk21)

Problem: As a technologically modern world, we have a lot of home devices that are consistently reliant on a lot of energy. However, we tend to overuse these devices, thus leading to dangerously high energy usage. This problem would become more apparent to users if they were able to visualize and track their energy consumption for home devices.

Solution: The solution for this problem would be to have a smart home energy monitor. This monitor would track energy consumption for the connected device over a period of time. There would be a microcontroller to process the values from the sensors and handle communication. An app would be made to display the results and send notifications to users if a certain device is consuming dangerously high amounts of power.

Components: Subsystem #1:

Microcontroller: Manage functionality and interactions of all other subsystems.

Subsystem #2:

Power Relay: Takes care of turning devices on and off. Essentially used to control the power supply to the connected devices.

Subsystem #3:

Sensors: The necessary sensors are a current sensor, a voltage sensor, and a temperature sensor. The current sensor measures the current flowing through the socket's outlet, which will be used for power consumption calculations. The voltage sensor measures the voltage level of the power supply, which will be used for power consumption calculations. The temperature sensor helps users monitor the temperature around the socket, which helps alert users if they need to adjust connected devices.

Subsystem #4: Energy Metering IC: This IC interacts with the current and voltage sensors to accurately measure the energy consumption of devices connected to the socket.

Subsystem #5:

Bluetooth Connectivity Module: Helps facilitate transfer of sensor data to app via Bluetooth.

Criterion for Success:

Goals we have for our project are to be able to accurately measure sensor data, effectively transmit the sensor data to our app, and be able to control the power to the appliance.

Answers to Commonly Asked Questions:

1.
The maximum voltage and current that we aim to measure are 250V and 20A. These are common maximum values in many regions and since we desire our product to work properly in many different locations, these would be the optimal maximum values to measure.

2.
We plan to measure active power. The reasoning behind this is that active power reflects real energy consumption and that is more important for our product’s functionality.

3.
Since this is a class project and is not expected to be industry standard, we aim for an accuracy of +- 5 to 10%. The standard we will be referencing is IEEE-Standard 1459-2010. This standard defines terms, concepts, and test methods for the measurement of electric power quantities.

4.
Since we want our product to be relevant for residential applications, we aim to measure up to the 50th harmonic, which is 2.5 kHz.

Automatic Piano Tuner

Joseph Babbo, Colin Wallace, Riley Woodson

Automatic Piano Tuner

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

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