Having a green thumb may no longer be a prerequisite for cultivating a thriving garden thanks to a team of forward-thinking students in the Georgia Tech School of Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE). Team FRMBX won the Best ECE Project Award at the Fall 2023 Capstone Design Expo on Dec. 4 in McCamish Pavilion for their novel farming innovation.
The team created an autonomous system to control and monitor plant growth to combat the unpredictable environmental conditions and limitations of traditional farming. Anyone, from researchers to hobbyists, can grow plants better with the team's system of collecting and analyzing data.
FRMBX was among 15 ECE student teams that participated in this semester’s Senior Design Expo. Each semester, the Design Expo highlights Georgia Tech’s graduating seniors as they present innovative projects designed and built during the Capstone Design Course. Students work in teams to solve an industry problem and develop innovative tools to assist researchers.
"The way students acquire extensive knowledge to kick off their projects and then further develop that understanding throughout Capstone is consistently impressive, " said Lakshmi Raju, director of student engagement and well-being. "It highlights the abundance of successful students in our program."
The senior projects showcased by this year's ECE teams covered a wide spectrum. Highlights included a stadium-friendly smart drone for concession delivery, a tablet weaving robot crafting slender fabric strips, and an automatic tuner for guitars that communicates information about the tuning by assessing vibrational frequency.
FRMBX is an enclosure with a controlled environment and sensors for temperature, soil moisture, humidity, light intensity, and carbon dioxide.
Snapshot of ECE Expo Teams
Team SeaScan designed a standalone device for ultrasonic phased array for above-water surface profiling.
Team Intelligent Digital Communications VIP members (L to R) Michael Meng, Nathaniel, Gregory, and Xueqing Li designed a stadium-friendly smart drone for concession delivery.
Team AGT created a portable guitar tuner capable of automatically rotating tuning peg based on input pitch.
The tablet weaving robot produces thin strips of fabric based on user designs created by Team Tarantella.
ECE Students Contribute to Best Overall Project
Computer engineering students Steven Zhao and Ryan Kil were part of the interdisciplinary team, Big Hero 6, that tied for best overall project award at the Expo.
The team of mechanical, computer, and industrial design engineering students are developing the “Unravl Device” designed to significantly speed up the process of unbraiding hair. They worked with salon owners and customers to create their design and make it feasible for salon use, including removable parts that can be sanitized. The team is working with their sponsor, Swella Braid Bar, in Atlanta to patent their design.
“The Senior Design Capstone Expo provides an invaluable opportunity for students to collaborate across majors and engage with industry," said Arijit Raychowdhury, professor and Steve W. Chaddick School Chair. "It's a platform where genuine problems are addresses and practical solutions are developed. The display of student innovation is consistently exhilarating. I’m extremely proud of the ECE students who participated this year and appreciate all their hard work.”
The Fall 2023 Capstone Expo featured 129 teams across seven schools in the Colleges of Engineering, Computing, and Design. As one of largest student design competitions, Capstone attracts many industry and governmental sponsors.
Team Big Hero 6 created Unravl, a device that quickly and painlessly unbraids hair.
Big Hero 6 with their project sponsors Swella Braid Bar tied for best overall project prize at the Fall 2023 Capstone Design Expo.
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ECE CAPSTONE DESIGN TEAMS
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Team Assurence
We are health insurance navigation tool that puts the power of information in the hands of the general public.
VIEW PROJECT
Team Automatic Guitar Tuner (AGT)
Portable guitar tuner capable of automatically rotating tuning peg based on input pitch.
Boeing Boys
Using a nordic THingy:91 create a system that will take temperature data and store that data in an SQL database hosted through Microsoft Azure.
VIEW PROJECT
Team: Find Your Spot
A lightweight property security solution, that is affordable and effective.
Team: FRMBX
Farm Box is an environment-controlled enclosure that can be used to monitor the growth of various plants.
Team: Intelligent Digital Communications VIP
The purpose of this project is to develop an app such that the person could just order anything they want and have a drone deliver it to them
Team: Lockwatch
A lightweight property security solution, that is affordable and effective.
Team: Parallel Mind
We are demonstrating hardware acceleration of an object detection algorithm over a baseline demonstrated using CPUs only.
Team: Tarantella
A tablet weaving robot that produces thin strips of fabric based on user created designs.
Team: SeaScan
The proof of concept will be an ultrasonic phased array designed for above-water surface profiling.
Team: Smart Parking
A more convenient hybrid outdoor parking meter that combines digital and physical interfaces using RFID tap-to-pay.
Team: RentHarbor
RentHarbor is a platform tailored for mom-and-pop landlords, streamlining property management by centralizing rental listings, automating tedious tasks, and providing data-driven insights.
Team: Team 3
The software will act as a facilitator between restaurants and diners to fill empty tables while giving diners a discount to fill the table.
Team: Vibe Monitoring
An attachable device that can be mounted to the outside of a tool.
Team: Visual Mixer and Equalizer (VME)
A four-channel audio mixer that provides a human-readable representation of its output and supports remote control though a web application.
Read more about the Fall 20234 Capstone Design Expo and view all the Fall 2023 Projects.