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Ethan Sauret, 8, controls a FIRST robot constructed by Crescent Valley High School students at the OSU Engineering Expo Friday at Kelley Engineering Center, while his sister Genevieve, 5, looks on.

Expo shows off student innovations

Engineers' senior projects culminate with Engineering Expo, Robo*Palooza fair

By: Nick Vardanega

Posted: 5/14/07

Racecars, bridges, robots and everything in between were on display at the Kelley Engineering Center Friday afternoon as students from every department of the college of engineering got a chance to display their latest work.

The OSU Engineering Expo and Robo*Palooza filled all four floors of the building as well as the surrounding sidewalks, showcasing over 100 student design prototypes and projects that engineering students had been developing this year as part of their senior capstone projects.

"This is a point when students demonstrate that they're ready to solve real engineering problems," said Ron Adams, dean of the college of engineering. Most students had been working on these projects all year, and many of them were sponsored by companies from the engineering industry.

Part trade show, part science fair, the expo offered a very diverse selection of high-tech gadgets as well as prototype solutions for real-world problems.

Renewable energy generators had a major presence, with projects that utilized wave, wind and solar power as well as biodiesel.

"[Projects] tend to be whatever is important today," Adams said. "That's why you're seeing a lot of renewable energy."

One project was a model batch reactor that could convert food oils produced on campus and alcohol into biodiesel fuel. Researchers have been looking into the process as a way to power campus.

"The tool shows where the problems would be," said Beth Knight, a senior in chemical engineering who worked on the model. "Figuring out … how to set things up, it's been a real learning experience, the highlight of my year."

Ian McDowell and Michael Munn, both majoring in computer science, created a software program that allows buoys to more effectively measure ocean wave activity. The goal is to monitor ocean currents to determine how much electricity could be produced from wave energy. They estimated that wave energy could be commercially viable within the next five years.

Parked outside was a working electric car. Students popped open the hood to display the cheaper and more efficient controller made to convert battery power into signals that controlled different parts of the engine.

"It's working very well," said Kevin Kaatz, an electrical engineering senior. "We have a working electric car and we drove it here."

There were also several computer and Internet-related projects on display. Alex Polvi, a senior in computer science, and his group created face-recognition software called "Who." Polvi demonstrated during the expo how, using a camera phone, someone's picture can be taken and uploaded to a database, where the computer will attempt to match it with another of the pictures already stored. If it can't find a match, it sends a text message back to the phone to ask who the person is. When the person responds with a name, that name is assigned to the unidentifiable photo.

"Today's been good to test it out with a bunch of people," Polvi said. "It's not guessing incorrectly."

Polvi said that in the future this technology may be able to be integrated with social networking Web sites like Facebook, meaning a user could take a photo of a person with his phone and have the Who software match the photo with the person's Facebook profile.

Working as part of the Heli Development Project, computer engineering major Brian Hay and his group developed adaptable software that was being used to control small motorized vehicles wirelessly through the Internet. The end goal of the project is to use this technology to create a helicopter that can be flown autonomously without a pilot.