Electric car, video game part of UAFS Senior Design Day

story info submitted by the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith

Senior Design Day on April 29 at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith will show what the seven seniors in the electrical engineering program have been working toward.

Dr. Kevin Lewelling, associate professor, says there will be a variety of projects at the 1 to 4 p.m. viewing time. The students will also be there to answer questions and do demonstrations.

“You will say ‘wow’ after you see what these electrical engineering students have designed and built,” said Lewelling. “People will see U.S. students producing technology that will keep us competitive in the world market.”

Projects will be displayed in the Baldor Technology Center in rooms 208 and 215, with the exception of the electric vehicle, which will be parked in the lobby in front of room 101, the Boreham Conference Center.

Support for senior design projects has come from ABB Baldor, Reach Technology, Sunstone Circuits, O’Reilly’s Auto Parts, Arkansas Space Grant Consortium and Arkansas Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship.

Included in the event are original video games, efficient battery chargers for automobile technology, microcontrollers, touch screen displays and alternative energy controllers with wind generators and solar panels.

“Those who visit the displays can play a video game of the future,” said Lewelling, “view a car with no need for gas, generate energy with wind and solar and see how to control your life with the touch of a screen.”

Participating students and the projects they will demonstrate are:
• Fort Smith: Chris Linam, efficient battery chargers for electric vehicle; and Jerry Williams, video game and microcontroller for EV.

• Greenwood: Josh Hunt, video game.

• Mountainburg: Russ Adams, touch screen.

• Poteau: Clint Johnson, alternative energies.

• Van Buren: Robert Self, inverter; and Josue Diaz, power supply.

The electric vehicle was first introduced to students at area high schools last spring and has been making the rounds again this year. Lewelling said more than 60 UAFS students worked on the project at some level, with Chris Linam as the lead engineering student on this project.

Linam has worked more than 2,000 hours for the past three years, retrieving a salvaged 1991 GEO Metro and putting it in working order as an Electric Vehicle (EV). Linam’s senior design project included designing, building and testing a battery charger that can charge the battery bank in under four hours.

“This project, which integrated automobile technology with electronics, is a dream come true,” said Linam.

Jerry Williams of Fort Smith also contributed to the EV by designing a microcontroller for the vehicle. Although Williams enjoyed various aspects of the work, two items stand out to him.

“The understanding of printed circuit board designs and component date sheets tie for first place in what I enjoyed most,” he said. “It felt great the day Dr. Lewelling and I first programmed the microcontroller and it worked.”

Williams, who also worked on a video game which will be a part of Senior Design Day, said the two projects were different, yet the same in many ways.

“Engineering is much the same as other fields, just with a bit more math,” he said. “For example, a writer puts rather common verbs, adjectives, nouns or other words in a new and unique arrangement. An electrical engineer does the same, but with resistors, inductors, capacitors, transistors and other components to serve a desired purpose.”

It became necessary for Williams and Josh Hunt to learn computer programming as part of their projects.

“Our code has over 14,000 lines in it,” said Williams, who is thrilled with what he has experienced on campus.

The video game Williams and Hunt created together is designed to be projected on the floor, wall or table. An application of the game would be for interactive advertising on the floor of a retail space.
 
Hunt said the best part of working on the video game was the end result.

“The video game that we designed is very interactive and allows the user to physically participate in the game as opposed to sitting on a couch and using a controller,” Hunt explained.

Hunt said he estimates that he and Williams spent 900 to 1,000 hours working on the project.

“I enjoy playing video games and love the gaming industry,” said Hunt. “Jerry and I started out discussing the idea of a game by looking at some of the interactive games with Disney and other places similar to Disney. Since we both enjoy video games, it seemed like a good choice.”

UAFS offers mechanical and electrical engineering, with UAFS providing the first two years of the program and the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville providing the junior and senior classes at UAFS.

Lewelling said in previous years other students have been involved in additional unique projects, like one in 2008 where students developed a prototype piece of equipment capable of automating some of the manufacturing processes for Exide Technologies.
 
“All of our projects are completed with the thought in mind that our students are going to be involved in real life experiences, giving them practical experience to take with them into their careers as engineers,” said Lewelling. “I’m very proud of the work done by these seniors, and I hope people will come out and see for themselves what good work they’ve done.”