Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
21 ClassroomClarity: Portable Teacher Support Hub
 Jesse Gruber
Kaitlin Gowens
Maddie Donku
 Aishee Mondal design_document1.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
grading_sheet1.pdf
photo1.jpeg
photo2.jpeg
presentation1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
video
# ClassroomClarity: Portable Teacher Support Hub

Team Members:
- Maddie Donku (mdonku2)
- Kaitlin Gowens (kgowens2)
- Jesse Gruber (jgruber5)

# Problem

In the classroom today, students may be reluctant to raise their hands to ask a question, or the professor may not see them. Questions that are critical to understanding the material go unanswered as a result. Asking questions and getting clarification on class material is fundamental to learning, which is why the classroom needs to be more accommodating to students’ questions.
While there are tools such as Mentimeter, these platforms require professors to use time outside of class to create slides and also take up screen space on the lectern. Another issue with the variety of sites used for student engagement is that there is no uniformity for the students. Cell phones and laptops can become clogged with numerous bookmarks for these applications for different classes. Lastly, professors may need an easily detectable, portable, physical alert to remind them to look at questions that students have posted, which cannot be provided by online means.
Professors and students can benefit from a tool that will easily show them how the class is handling material and any questions that may arise. A hub that is consistent between classes will simplify the learning experience for both students and professors.

# Solution

Our solution introduces a clarity hub to the classroom. The hub will sit in the sight of a professor with indicator lights, relaying both how the students are absorbing the class material and any questions that have been sent to the hub. The hub will have a “raise-hand” feature which will notify a professor when a student wants to vocally ask their question and host a screen that will display questions that students may send in using an app. The hub will have a specific passcode that must be entered into the app to access the hub. A wearable will vibrate when a question is present to remind the teacher to look at the hub. This could either be worn or sit near the hub for alerts.

# Solution Components

## 1) Hub Control System
The control system of the hub facilitates communication between each subsystem and allows for user input through tactile means. This system would include the microcontroller as the brain of the device, as well as a series of LEDs, buttons, and dials. The ESP32-PICO-V3 microcontroller was chosen for its built-in Bluetooth, 520 KB SRAM to store student’s questions, ample GPIOs, and is supported by the Arduino IDE. The LEDs can be obtained from the supply center and will be in the colors; green, yellow, orange, and red (606-4302H5-5V, HLMP3401, 39K995, HLMP3301). The buttons to select and resolve questions will be D6C90 F2 LFS to provide tactile input on press. The dial to scroll through the questions will consist of a knob (EH71-1SB2S) connected to a 10k rotary potentiometer (P0915N-FC15BR10K).

## 2) Hub Power System
This subsystem provides power to the microcontroller and its peripherals. To power the microcontroller, we believe a LITH-ION 3.7V 850MAH battery (1568-1495-ND) would be the best option. Its voltage and current rating provide enough range to handle the microcontroller in peak active mode (3.3V, 360mA) while reducing wires in the workspace, and increasing portability. The 3.7V is also within range to power the different colored LEDs and other peripherals. To meet the requirements of the different components, a voltage regulator (LM317T (NAT)) will be used with corresponding resistors and 1uF capacitors to step down the voltage.

### 3) Communication System
The communication subsystem works as the link between the app, main hub, and the wearable band. As discussed in #1, #4, and #5, we will be using bluetooth to transmit data from the app to the main hub and to send a signal to the band to initiate the vibration. Since we are planning to use the ESP32 microcontrollers in the band and main hub, the bluetooth functionality is already built in.

## 4) App
The app is the student interface which will allow students to submit data to the main hub to pose questions to the teacher and indicate their current understanding. We plan to use Android Studio Software to code our own app that will include sliders to rate understanding on a 1-5 scale, question submission through text or “raise hand” modes, and a way to connect to the hub via bluetooth. We want to use Android Studio because it works for both Android and IOS app development and we have worked with it in the past.

## 5) Wearable Band
The wearable band acts as a tactile notification system for the teacher. It vibrates when a new question is submitted to subtly notify the teacher. For the same reasons as discussed in #1, we are looking at using an ESP32-PICO-V3 microcontroller to control the vibrations. Similarly, to power the microcontroller, we are currently looking at a LITH-ION 3.7V 850MAH battery (1568-1495-ND). The band vibration would be made using a vibration motor like ROB-08449-ND because it requires low voltage (3V), is small and therefore wearable, and operates within the battery specifications. A voltage regulator like LM317T (NAT) along with resistors and 1uF capacitors will be used to step down the voltage.

# Criterion For Success
- Students able to send questions wirelessly to the hub through an app
- Students able to submit engagement ratings wirelessly to the hub through an app
- Hub uses lights to indicate general class understanding based on incoming data
- Hub displays questions asked by students or indicates that a student raised their hand
- Hub allows anonymous/not anonymous posting when submitting a question
- Wearable that vibrates upon a question being posted, will have different modes that allow for repeat vibrations if there is a question on the hub (reminders)
- Professor able to clear questions on the hub one by one

Bracelet Aid for deaf people/hard of hearing

Aarushi Biswas, Yash Gupta, Anit Kapoor

Bracelet Aid for deaf people/hard of hearing

Featured Project

# PROJECT TITLE: Bracelet Aid for deaf people/hard of hearing

# TEAM MEMBERS:

- Aarushi Biswas (abiswas7)

- Anit Kapoor (anityak3)

- Yash Gupta (yashg3)

# PROBLEM

We are constantly hearing sounds around us that notify us of events occurring, such as doorbells, fire alarms, phone calls, alarms, or vehicle horns. These sounds are not enough to catch the attention of a d/Deaf person and sometimes can be serious (emergency/fire alarms) and would require the instant attention of the person. In addition, there are several other small sounds produced by devices in our everyday lives such as washing machines, stoves, microwaves, ovens, etc. that cannot be identified by d/Deaf people unless they are observing these machines constantly.

Many people in the d/Deaf community combat some of these problems such as the doorbell by installing devices that will cause the light in a room to flicker. However, these devices are generally not installed in all rooms and will also obviously not be able to notify people if they are asleep. Another common solution is purchasing devices like smartwatches that can interact with their mobile phones to notify them of their surroundings, however, these smartwatches are usually expensive, do not fulfill all their needs, and require nightly charging cycles that diminish their usefulness in the face of the aforementioned issues.

# SOLUTION

A low-cost bracelet aid with the ability to convert sounds into haptic feedback in the form of vibrations will be able to give d/Deaf people the independence of recognizing notification sounds around them. The bracelet will recognize some of these sounds and create different vibration patterns to catch the attention of the wearer as well as inform them of the cause of the notification. Additionally, there will be a visual component to the bracelet in the form of an OLED display which will provide visual cues in the form of emojis. The bracelet will also have buttons for the purpose of stopping the vibration and showing the battery on the OLED.

For instance, when the doorbell rings, the bracelet will pick up the doorbell sound after filtering out any other unnecessary background noise. On recognizing the doorbell sound, the bracelet will vibrate with the pattern associated with the sound in question which might be something like alternating between strong vibrations and pauses. The OLED display will also additionally show a house emoji to denote that the house doorbell is ringing.

# SOLUTION COMPONENTS

Based on this solution we have identified that we need the following components:

- INMP441 (Microphone Component)

- Brushed ERM (Vibration Motor)

- Powerboost 1000 (Power subsystem)

- 1000 mAh LiPo battery x 2 (hot swappable)

- SSD1306 (OLED display)

## SUBSYSTEM 1 → SOUND DETECTION SUBSYSTEM

This subsystem will consist of a microphone and will be responsible for picking up sounds from the environment and conducting a real-time FFT on them. After this, we will filter out lower frequencies and use a frequency-matching algorithm to infer if a pre-programmed sound was picked up by the microphone. This inference will be outputted to the main control unit in real-time.

## SUBSYSTEM 2 → VIBRATION SUBSYSTEM

This subsystem will be responsible for vibrating the bracelet on the wearer’s wrist. Using the vibration motor mentioned above, we should have a frequency range of 30Hz~500Hz, which should allow for the generation of a variety of distinguishable patterns. This subsystem will be responsible for the generation of the patterns and control of the motor, as well as prompting the Display subsystem to visualize the type of notification detected.

## SUBSYSTEM 3 → DISPLAY SUBSYSTEM

The Display subsystem will act as a set of visual cues in addition to the vibrations, as well as a visual feedback system for user interactions. This system should not draw a lot of power as it will be active only when prompted by user interaction or by a recognized sound. Both of these scenarios are relatively uncommon over the course of a day, which means that the average power draw for our device should still remain low.

## SUBSYSTEM 4 → USER INTERACTION SUBSYSTEM

This subsystem is responsible for the interaction of the user with the bracelet. This subsystem will include a set of buttons for tasks such as checking the charge left on the battery or turning off a notification. Checking the charge will also display the charge on the OLED display thus interacting and controlling the display subsystem as well.

## SUBSYSTEM 5 → POWER SUBSYSTEM

This subsystem is responsible for powering the device. One of our success criteria is that we want long battery life and low downtime. In order to achieve this we will be using a power boost circuit in conjunction with two rechargeable 1000 mAh batteries. While one is charging the other can be used so the user doesn’t have to go without the device for more than a few seconds at a time. We are expecting our device to use anywhere from 20-50mA which would mean we get an effective use time of more than a day. The power boost circuit and LiPo battery’s JST connector allow the user to secure and quick battery swaps as well.

# CRITERION FOR SUCCESS

- The bracelet should accurately identify only the crucial sounds in the wearer’s environment with each type of sound having a fixed unique vibration + LED pattern associated with it

- The vibration patterns should be distinctly recognizable by the wearer

- Should be relatively low cost

- Should have prolonged battery life (so the power should focus on only the use case of converting sound to vibration)

- Should have a small profile and a sleek form factor

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