Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
96 Motion Sensing Guitar Pedal System
Luke Hilgart
Nicholas Oberts
Spencer Siegellak
Po-Jen Ko design_document1.pdf
proposal1.pdf
Problem:
One issue that can come up with playing guitar on stage is wanting to switch guitar pedals on and off while playing. If a guitarist wants to change the effects on their guitar as they are playing, they would either have to have their pedalboard on stage, or would need someone else controlling which pedals are turned on and off.


Solution

Our solution to this problem is a motion sensing attachment that can clip on to the bottom of the guitar. The attachment will project a lighting display on the ground, indicating which pedals’ effects are currently active, as well as using motion sensors to detect when the guitarist kicks near each light. The attachment is connected wirelessly to a custom routing box, which routes the signal through the connected pedals, allowing the guitarist on stage to control which pedals’ effects are active at any given time.

Solution Components

Subsystem 1: Lighting

This subsystem will have to display different colored lights on the ground from the guitar. The entirety of the device will have to be angled from the guitar so that it can shine directly to the ground. One color of light will indicate the effect is active, and another will indicate that it is inactive.

Subsystem 2: Motion Sensor

This subsystem will be responsible for delivering user inputs. When someone steps on a light, that light will turn off and the pedal effect associated with that light will activate. When another light is stepped on, the pedals’ effects will combine, as they ordinarily would while using a standard pedal setup. In order to remove a special effect, you need to step in that area again.

Subsystem 3: Pedal Connection Box
In order to use multiple effects, we need to use foot pedals that are turned on and connected to the box. In a normal guitar pedal arrangement the pedals are connected in series, so the box will route the audio signal in series through whichever pedals are designated by the sensing system. The box will have a wireless receiver that takes in data on which pedals should be activated, and use it to route the signal in and out of the connected pedals.

Criterion For Success
Describe high-level goals that your project needs to achieve to be effective. These goals need to be clearly testable and not subjective.

In order for our project to be considered a success, the guitarist should be able to switch between their pedals as they like despite being away from the pedal board. The criterion for this to occur would be:
1) The kick/step motion effectively toggles on/off desired pedals
2) The lights correspond with pedals correctly
3) Pedal connection box correctly routes the signal to go through the desired pedals

Assistive Chessboard

Robert Kaufman, Rushi Patel, William Sun

Assistive Chessboard

Featured Project

Problem: It can be difficult for a new player to learn chess, especially if they have no one to play with. They would have to resort to online guides which can be distracting when playing with a real board. If they have no one to play with, they would again have to resort to online games which just don't have the same feel as real boards.

Proposal: We plan to create an assistive chess board. The board will have the following features:

-The board will be able to suggest a move by lighting up the square of the move-to space and square under the piece to move.

-The board will light up valid moves when a piece is picked up and flash the placed square if it is invalid.

-We will include a chess clock for timed play with stop buttons for players to signal the end of their turn.

-The player(s) will be able to select different standard time set-ups and preferences for the help displayed by the board.

Implementation Details: The board lights will be an RGB LED under each square of the board. Each chess piece will have a magnetic base which can be detected by a magnetic field sensor under each square. Each piece will have a different strength magnet inside it to ID which piece is what (ie. 6 different magnet sizes for the 6 different types of pieces). Black and white pieces will be distinguished by the polarity of the magnets. The strength and polarity will be read by the same magnetic field sensor under each square. The lights will have different colors for the different piece that it is representing as well as for different signals (ie. An invalid move will flash red).

The chess clock will consist of a 7-segment display in the form of (h:mm:ss) and there will be 2 stop buttons, one for each side, to signal when a player’s turn is over. A third button will be featured near the clock to act as a reset button. The combination of the two stop switches and reset button will be used to select the time mode for the clock. Each side of the board will also have a two toggle-able buttons or switches to control whether move help or suggested moves should be enabled on that side of the board. The state of the decision will be shown by a lit or unlit LED light near the relevant switch.

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