sábado, 30 de agosto de 2008

eSlate Demo

I found this interesting demo for an electronic voting system. Some of the things I liked were: the way they authenticate the voter (with an access code) and the fact that you can do a "write in" vote on the screen. What I didnt like at all about this was the "wheel" key. It became tedious after a while (specially when I had to spell the name of a "write in").


http://www.eslate.com/files/eSlate.swf

jueves, 28 de agosto de 2008

Software Design and Visit to the Electoral Commission in Mayaguez

Today our team went off to downtown mayaguez to visit the electoral commission and acquire more research. When we arrived we met with a representative who was very helpful and provided many brochures and documents to help us understand what is needed of voters to register. The team also acquired a poster fold-out of the voting process divided in steps.


-A Photo of the outside of the commission's office-
Our team began the software design research and divided the different sections of the project among the team members. We decided to set a progress report for Friday evening to see how everyone has progressed and if any additional research is required.
After Completing the Software design, we will move on to the Hardware design. In hardware design, the team already has in mind what is needed for the design but decided to focus on one area of the project at a time.
We are doing design separately for the 3 big areas of the project:
  1. Registration
  2. Voting
  3. Counting

Each area has its own software and hardware involved to complete the voting experience.

miércoles, 27 de agosto de 2008

Hardware brainstorming and Researching

Today the team got together to brainstorm the voting procedure and consider hardware available in the market for our project.

We have agreed to meet tomorrow at 10:30 am to go the downtown mayaguez to get more information about the "Comision estatal de Elecciones"

We also called Angel Perez from Rock Solid to coordinate a meeting with him about our project.

Our biggest conflict is the budget since the color lcds are quite expensive so we are searching for economic products.

We also brainstormed with Dani Santiago about our project and different things we should consider for our project, like scaling it down.

lunes, 25 de agosto de 2008

Link regarding Fingerprint Readers

I wanted to share some information I've found while researching Fingerprint Scanners/Readers. More information to come later on this same post.

Types of Fingerprint Scanners: http://www.tech-faq.com/fingerprint-scanners.shtml

Interfacing with Microsoft Fingerprint Reader: http://blogs.msdn.com/coding4fun/archive/2007/03/06/1815291.aspx


Interesting Article about fooling fingerprint scanners with Play-Doh: http://www.engadget.com/2005/12/11/play-doh-fingers-can-fool-90-of-scanners-sez-clarkson-u/

Fingerprint Scanners available for purchase (prices range from $15 to ~$500)

http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&rls=com.microsoft:en-US&resnum=0&q=Fingerprint%20scanners&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wf

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834995509

Touch Screen and Encryption Links with corresponding research descriptions

Research for LCD Touch Screens

  • The touch screen panels go over the LCD screen so they are two different entities. We would need to program the images on the LCD and have the display change as the touch panel is touched. Consider adding a backlight to allow a better view of the screen
  • Please note that touch screen panels are sold as components–a controller is required to provide the interface between the touchscreen and the computer (or device).

Links

---------------------------Encryption Research-------------------------------

**We need to decide a programming language so that we can focus on a particular method the encryption is done in that language.

Links

E-Voting System...

Here's are some useful links regarding the general overview of the e-voting system and biometrics.

Articles
Vendor/Products

Capstone Project Approved

After giving our presentation on the "E.S.P.", the professor's Fernando and Nayda gave us feedback and suggestions on new project ideas. After all was discussed, everyone agreed that an "Electronic Voting System" would be an ideal project for our group. Now that our project approval is official, each team member is doing extensive research on the following topics:

- Previous/similar e-voting systems
- Voting process and trends in Puerto Rico
- Managing usability of the system for all age groups
- Understanding the funcionality of every device involved in the system and incorporating them as a whole.

domingo, 24 de agosto de 2008

Sunday Group Preparations


The team got together today to prepare for the 5 minute presentation tomorrow during the class hour. We also came up with a product logo design (to the right).
The team completed the power point presentation and assigned slides to each member. We also completed the brief document which contains a description of the project.

viernes, 22 de agosto de 2008

Updated Project Description

After days of research, our team has decided to return to an idea that we had before classes began. We updated the student planner (sort of a protable web ct) idea we had with more software aspects and hopefully the project will satisfy all hardware requirements as well. The planner will not be touch screen and will use buttons for navigation. It will include information that students may need on the spot when not near a computer.

This can be convenient in the case of when a student needs to find a professors office, or office hours, they can use the device to check this information out. The information will be acquired from an online source which will use additional software to synchronize the student's course information and other relevant data. The synchronization will be done via a usb cable.

We are currently brainstorming additional software and hardware features, but we feel that this project will allow us to show what we have learned and will also let us learn new things to apply to the project.

jueves, 21 de agosto de 2008

Surveillance System Project discarded, New Possible Projects

pWe have been evaluating the "doability" of the camera surveillance project and the wireless and motion detection features have proven to be too elaborate and time consuming for this semester. Currently, we are returning to an old idea we had during the summer: the student electronic agenda (name to be determined later on). We are doing some preliminary software and hardware design for this product to see what is required to build this device.

We are strongly investigating the marketing aspect of this product, since Professor Nayda Santiago advised us that it is important to demonstrate that this particular product is marketable.

Also, we are waiting on Alexandra Litchfield to provide us with more information regarding a radar project that is also a possibility for our Capstone Project.

Research is being done regarding different microprocessors since all four of our team members have a Software Engineering concentration and more expertise is required in the Hardware aspect.

miércoles, 20 de agosto de 2008

All Day Research Session

The team met yesterday in the Capstone laboratory to do research on how to make our Parking surveillance system. We discovered that we need to use IP cameras to be able to receive video wirelessly by using the IP of the camera in the software.

We checked out prices of the cameras and solar cells to power them. The cameras were quite expensive (most were above $200) so we may have to limit our prototype to 3 cameras to save money in the project budget.

We also spent the entire day researching motion detectors but were unable to find out detailed information on how to create one for the project. We are thinking of designing an additional device that works in conjunction to the parking security system which we can design.

lunes, 18 de agosto de 2008

Research Tasks

Today the team met with the Professor Nayda Santiago about our idea discussed in the previous blog, the parking security. We were told that to research each idea more extensively, finding out how things could be done and how much it would cost, as well as other aspects of the project idea.

The idea was acceptable so we can finally now begin the more focused research for the idea without fear of being way off an acceptable project idea.

The team will begin investigating online information on prices and facts for motion sensors and cameras and compile them into a small detailed report to be provided to the professor this week. Hopefully this document will reconfirm the project idea as being a more viable project since during research we may modify some ideas.

As of the moment we are going to research:
  • How to monitor battery life remotely
  • How to implement solar cells
  • How to make motion detectors and how they work (sensitivity - since we don't want birds activating the camera)
  • How to stream live camera feed to anyone who is cleared to view security cameras as well as store recorded information.
  • Find and compare prices of all items
  • How to interface everything together

The team will be meeting tuesday at 11:30 am to discuss research results, and begin an additional session of brainstorming for things that need to be researched.

viernes, 15 de agosto de 2008

Sharing Project Definition with professors

Yesterday we sent the following email to Prof Nayda Santiago and we are currently waiting for her to approve this new definition of our project.


Email excerpt:

"En el pasado han ocurrido muchos actos delictivos y robos porque hay una falta de vigilancia en el area de estacionamiento. Pensamos que esto se podra resolver creando una red de camaras wireless que se activan con "motion sensors" para solamente grabar cuando hay actividad. Las camaras y sensores podrian ser "solar powered" para poder bajar los gastos de luz. Se comunicarian con un mainframe computer con la cual se grabara el video de las camaras. Existira la opcion de ver el video online (video pasado o en vivo). Para evitar que los videos sean muy grandes se limitara el frame rate del video ya que no es necesario tener video fluido. La idea seria conveniente tambien para los JUEGOS CENTROAMERICANOS en mayaguez porque asi habra una forma de proteger la propiedad de los estudiantes y personas que visiten a la universidad. Tambien ayudara identificar los culpables de un robo o asalto (si alguien es atacado)."


In today's class we shared our project definition with Fernando and during this weekend we will begin looking at the different sections of the proposal and see what research needs to be done.

miércoles, 13 de agosto de 2008

An Idea has surfaced

Today after the capstone's class entrepreneur dynamic and seminar. I approached the professor with a prospect for a capstone project which is the following:

We can use temperature sensors that detect discrepancies in temperatures in a room with predefined conditions. For example the system must be set up knowing the default temperature of the room the system is set up in. If someone attempts to break into a room through a window the temperature will be altered due to the discrepancy in temperatures of the outside environment with that of the inside environment, thus an alarm should sound. Motion Sensors can also be placed around a room to detect heat to prevent a human being from walking about undetected. The idea is to create a security system that detects temperature discrepancies and motion detectors that may indicate an intruder or perhaps a fire where the system is installed. This should protect against intruders and fires.
Also once triggered the cameras will activate and begin recording the events taking place and should store this online for evidence. A computer will be the mainframe for the complete system. An alarm will be connected as well and may require some additional hardware programming to have it sound an alarm as soon as the computer deems it necessary or not, due to current conditions.
Add a feature to allow the motion detectors to activate a camera that streams video onto the internet so from anywhere you can view your house’s condition. Also you can view a historial of sensor activity online given every hour. Set the frequency at which videos are recorded as well as quality.
There are systems that separately include heat detection and motion detection. Ours would combine the best of both worlds. The software would include a sandbox application that allows the person setting up the equipment to draw the layout of the house and place the locations of the sensors. So they appear in the application. Should be able to detect the amount of detectors connected to the device.



The idea will be polished up of course to write a proper proposal which is due in a few weeks, September 8, 2008 I think...maybe...

The professor commented that the idea was acceptable so the battle against the storming of brains is over and now we can focus on research, budgets, time frames for milestone completions of the project.

lunes, 11 de agosto de 2008

First Capstone Blog

Our team is comprised of 4 Computer engineering software students:

1-Javier Torres
2-Laura Cruz
3-Sylvia Rodriguez
4-Angel Vega

The team has meet online a few times this summer to brainstorm ideas for a possible capstone project. So far we have ideas for:
  • A student pda which would use a device to synchronize a students college course agenda to that of an online database, keeping the student up to date with a professors updates.
  • A roomba vacuum cleaner modification, to help minimize crashes with an accessory that prevents it from scratch furniture upon approaching one before it changes direction
  • An instrument tuner that would use analog data and convert it to digital information to be evaluated using computer software
  • A temperature based security system using temperature sensors
  • A payment system that allows food delivery services to charge credit cards or atms from their cars.
  • A voice to text system to help students in class have a text form of the professors lecture, which is sent to their computers or portable devices real time as the lecture is being given.
  • Convert black board notes to a computer readable format that students can download. In case the professor missed some notes written on the board.

The team is currently individually investigating additional ideas and backing them up with facts to then brainstorm each individual idea and verify which is the most viable project. Tuesday August 12, 2008, the team will meet once again and discuss their research results and deduce the list of project ideas until one project idea remains to be selected for the capstone project.