For my mechanical engineering capstone design project, I designed an automatic game piece sorter. I am interested in entering the field of mechatronics and automation after graduation, and this was the perfect project to practice relevant skills. This device sorts game pieces from the board game Ticket To Ride: Rails & Sails. There are 5 […]
I worked during summer 2020 at Ocean Networks Canada, a company that streams real-time data collected from instrument arrays placed on the ocean floor. They have a backbone underwater cable that all the arrays connect to through a series of nodes. During recovery of one of the instrument arrays, staff noticed that the platform’s legs […]
During the Covid-19 pandemic, I’ve had extra time for hobby electronics. I ordered some ESP8266 microcontrollers and decided to use the skills that I had developed for my digital clock and Google Calendar automation task. I made a box that lights up an RGB LED to the colour of a currently-occurring calendar event, and a […]
This project was the main topic of my MECH 458 class (Mechatronics). We were tasked to wire an AT90USB1287 microcontroller to the black terminal block, and program it to sort objects as quickly and as accurately as possible. The system sorts 4 different types of objects into categories based on their reflectivities: black plastic, white […]
A lot of people expressed interest in my shortcut keyboard from an old cash register, there were even a few articles written about it! I decided to make another one for a gift, but this time made with parts that anyone could buy online. If you’re looking for information to make one of these yourself, […]
This spring, as I was perusing the engineering building’s “free” pile for goodies, I found a gem – an all-in-one cash register! It had all sorts of great stuff in it: A keypad with mechanical switches, Vacuum Flourescent Displays, and even a turnkey switch. I just had to have it, so I lugged it to […]
I’ve learned that the best way to learn something you don’t know much about is to take on a project. I wanted to learn how to do more things with electrical circuits, so I decided to design and build a digital alarm clock with full functionality. While this project seems relatively simple, much was learned […]
Seven segment display My first full (soldered and no exposed wires) electronics project that I wanted to tackle was a digital alarm clock with full functionality. I broke this project up into different sections as I came across different obstacles. One stipulation for this project is I wanted to use regular red LEDs – so […]
I was inspired by the channel Ben Eater, and his videos on making various components of an 8-bit breadboard computer. (https://youtu.be/wvJc9CZcvBc) I watched his video where he made a binary 4-bit adder using nothing but AND, OR, and XOR gates. I took his logic diagram, bought some components, and made it on breadboard. I learned a […]
Ocean Networks Canada had a project that they posed to us: They needed an underwater robot that could connect a cable from the source to a target. For the scope of this project, our goal was to make a robot based out of VEX components that could connect a loop of string onto a hook […]