Past Projects 2005-2006
Students selected the following list of projects to develop for academic year 2005-2006. These projects were selected from a list of prospective projects and have an advisor in the Computer Science Department supervising their technical aspects.
This year there were 17 projects. Of the 17 projects, four were selected to compete in the third annual Outstanding Senior Project Competition.
Students competed for cash prizes and recognition on the department senior project plaque. This year’s awards were made possible through donations from Cigna, Lockheed Martin, Microsoft, Brian Mitchell and SMART and Associates. As always, our students and advisors did a great job. There were many outstanding projects and the department had a difficult task in selecting those to advance to the next stage. This year there were five teams in the final competition. They were ranked as follows:
First Prize (TIE) -- $1000
Boss-Spy – Team 6
Team Members: John Novatnack (Team Lead), Brendan Budine, Paul Melici, Abbas Omar
Advisor: Ali Shokoufandeh, Ko Nishino
First Prize (TIE) -- $1000
Blind Accessible Shopping System – Team 15
Team Members: Brian McBurney, Dave Becker (Team Lead), Ben Siegl, Pat Mulhern, Sean Durkin, Micah Garnett
Advisor: Jeff Salvage
Third Prize -- $250
Joint Browsing – Team 5
Team Members: Nick Auger (Tech Lead), Scott Brams, Dave Mruczek (Team Lead), James McClure, Matt Hurst
Advisor: Dr. Werner Krandick
Fourth Prize -- $250
Nutrition Tracker - Team 7
Team Members: Ram Khalsa, Andrew Demers, Nate DiGiorgio, Fred Bowers, Peter Berger, Zack Hall (Team Lead)
Advisor: Dr. Bruce Char
The following teams were selected for honorable mention (each receive $100):
SPOT: Smart Path-planning and Object Avoidance Technology – Team 3
Team Members: Dan Rubin, Steve Chaya, Vivek Parmar, Rachna Jethwani, Brandon Sheffer (Team Lead)
Advisor: Dr. Jay Modi.
Tank Tournament – Team 4
Team Members: Eduard Papa (Admin Lead), Michael Bridges, Steve Eklund, Volodymyr Nestoyanov, Yong Ji
Advisor: Dr. David Breen
KiAsk: A Web Based Application to Create, Modify, and Manipulate Interactive Maps - Team 9
Team Members: Jimmi Heiserman, Karen Tawadrous, Jen Verghese, Anthony Massey, Chris Axt
Advisor: Dr. Jeremy Johnson.
Parallel Architecture for Simple Threaded Applications (PASTA) – Team 12
Team Members: Jeff Mercer, Heather Narwich, Ariana Gonzalez, Zchong Ng, Louis Kratz (Team Lead)
Advisor: Dr. Bruce Char.
Photo Thing - Team 14
Team Members: Travis Himes, Attila Fabian, Sean Gibbons, Mark Kerrane, Mario Andres Aguilera
Advisor: Professor Jeff Salvage.
Cobra Commander - Team 16
Team Members: Christina Morris, David Wilkie (Team Lead), Aaron Berger, Simon Galperin
Advisor: Dr. William Regli.
| # | Name and Team | Description | Outside Stakeholder | Supervising Faculty |
| 1 |  2DST (2-Dimensional Stress Transformations) Melissa McCaughey Team Lead Derek Rosenzweig Technical Lead Seyla Prak Steven Snyder |
The objective of this project is to develop a user-friendly interactive computer program for design of beams, which are used in various structural applications. Its purpose would be to serve as a new tool for learning the fundamentals of structural analysis studied by most engineering students, primarily mechanical and civil engineering. | Jonathan Awerbuch: Department of Mechanical Engineering and Mechanics | Werner J. Krandick: Department of Computer Science |
| 2 |  Joint BrowsingQuoc Nguyen Eric Brown Technical Lead Shirjeel Hassan Team Lead Karan Bal Chris Barron |
A joint browsing system allows multiple users to view the same web page simultaneously. After a session is initialized, participants can join the session at any time. | N/A | Werner J. Krandick Department of Computer Science |
| 3 |  Framework for a "House Assistant"Brandon Sheffer Team Lead Dan Rubin Steve Chaya Vivek Parmar Rachna Jethwani |
Currently the SONY AIBO ER7-M3 comes with an Entertainment Player which allows a user to remotely control the AIBO and view a video feed. However, the Entertainment Player uses primitive commands to control the AIBO (i.e. Move forward, backwards, left and right). The goal of our project is to create a more "intelligent" interface for users to interact with the AIBOs. We will design this interface to allow for not just primitive movement commands, but also a sophisticated point and click movement system using image processing, path planning, and obstacle avoidence technology to move the AIBO to a user specified target. For universal yet secure access, this interface will be located on a web server that will allow the AIBO's owner to control the robot from anywhere with an internet connection. | N/A | Dr. Jay Modi |
| 4 |  Tank TournamentEduard Papa Admin Lead Michael Bridges Steve Eklund Volodymyr Nestoyanov Yong Ji |
Tank Tournament will be an arcade-style game where two players will duel each other in a rich three-dimensional battlefield. The terrain will be made up of hills and valleys and will include areas of water, mud, trees, and other obstacles that will affect the gameplay and force the players to plan their moves carefully. Tank Tournament will aim to bring back the experience of playing classic tank games such as Armor Ambush but this time with three-dimensional graphics, better audio effects, and improved controls. | N/A | Dr. David Breen |
| 5 | JOINT BROWSING Nick Auger Tech Lead Scott Brams Dave Mruczek Team Lead James McClure Matt Hurst |
A joint browsing system allows multiple users to view the same web page simultaneously. After a session is initialized, participants can join the session at any time. | N/A | Dr. Werner J. Krandick |
| 6 |  Boss-Spy John Novatnack Team Lead Brendan Budine Paul Melici Abbas Omar |
For the modern day corporate employee, the work place is a suspicious and intimidating environment. With bosses of varying importance constantly "checking in'', an employee must be in a constant state of alertness. Boss-Spy is a product designed to relax the work environment of employees. By utilizing recent advances in facial detection and recognition, Boss-Spy provides early warning of a bosses' presence by delivering software warnings. | N/A | Dr. Ali Shokoufandeh, Dr. Ko Nishino |
| 7 |  MDiet Zack Hall Team Lead Ram Khalsa Andrew Demers Nate DiGiorgio Fred Bowers Peter Berger |
mDiet is a system designed to calculate and track a user’s daily diet using compatible mobile devices. The system will utilize multiple methods for nutritional data collection including UPC OCR recognition, UPC code entry, repository queries, and manual entry. | N/A | Dr. Char |
| 8 |  3D Virtual Environment Jonathan De Jong Technical Lead John Snyder Team Lead Timothy Siedlecki Erich Baumbach Dustin Fisher Dmitry Pavolotsky Tom Ferrant |
Every year thousands of students and their families visit college campuses. When they arrive they are provided with maps, information packets about important locations, and tour guides to walk them around the campus. We propose to take each of these items and combine them into a single digital system that anyone can pick up and use with little or no training. The system will consist of a 3D rendering engine that will display a virtual environment showing the user's current location and surroundings through a first-person point of view. | N/A | Dr. Dario Salvucci |
| 9 |  A Web Based Application to Create, Modify, and Manipulate Interactive Maps Jimmi Heiserman Karen Tawadrous Jen Verghese Anthony Massey Chris Axt |
An interactive, browser based local map building program that novice administrators can use to create and modify maps that will then be able to be viewed and utilized by end users. It is an ideal tool for various facilities, such as campuses, office buildings, industrial parks, stadiums, amusement parks, shopping malls, etc. | N/A | Dr. Johnson |
| 10 |  Environmental Website I Tao Lin Andy Chiu Tai Yuen Shum Rajat Vijayvargiya Mark Boady Sheng Loc |
The Environmental Conservation Web Site allows an organization to track various environmental activities such as conservation, recycling, etc and tabulate the results at many levels. The web site would allow a parent organization to set up multi tier tracking of activities so that each division can customize the view their participants see, while still allowing the results to aggregate to parent categories set up by the parent organization. | N/A | Jeff Salvage |
| 11 |  Aktions, UI tracking softwareKenneth Sink Jensen Zak Jaswinder Singh Adams Benjamin |
Aktions will advance usability engineering by developing a set of tools to facilitate both the users and developers of interactive software. Aktions collects, analyzes, and manages user-desktop interaction statistics on an API(Application Programming Interface) level. | N/A | Jeff Salvage |
| 12 |  Parallel Architecture for Simple Threaded Applications (PASTA) Louis Kratz Team Lead Jeff Mercer Heather Narwich Ariana Gonzalez Zchong Ng |
Given the current state of complex programming required for distributed computing, create a layer of abstraction for distributed programming using an intuitive multi-threaded model. | N/A | Dr. Char |
| 13 |  Environmental Website IISergei Petrov Travis McCrea Long Trinh Ping-Ho Lee Derek John Paul Mokkosian-Kane |
The Environmental Conservation Web Site allows an organization to track various environmental activities such as conservation, recycling, etc and tabulate the results at many levels. The web site would allow a parent organization to set up multi tier tracking of activities so that each division can customise the view their participants see, while still allowing the results to aggragate to parent categories set up by the parent organization. | Sierra Club | Jeff Salvage |
| 14 |  Photo ThingTravis Himes Attila Fabian Sean Gibbons Mark Kerrane Mario Andres Aguilera |
The Flash Photo Web Site Generator creates a web site from a series of photographs and displays them in a flash application. The generator assists the photograph in creating a dynamic web site with style and basic animation/transitions between photo viewings. | N/A | Jeff Salvage |
| 15 |  Blind Accessible Shopping System Dave Becker Team Lead Brian McBurney Ben Siegl Pat Mulhern Sean Durkin Micah Garnett |
Many businesses invest in Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to help manage inventory. This project involves the creation of computer programs which explore other uses for RFID technology. For example, the technology can allow a blind person to navigate a store by giving verbal directions as he or she walks down the aisles of the store. Also, it can benefit the sighted by giving detailed directions to a desired item within the store. | Overbrook School for the Blind | Jeff Salvage |
| 16 |  Cobra Commander David Wilkie Team Lead Christina Morris Aaron Berger Simon Galperin |
As part of a broader effort to improve the cyber-infrastructure used in the engineering domains, we propose the creation of a simulation program, which is specifically focused on the emerging field of snake-like robots. Having been of interest for the last decade, snake-like robots are nearing the point of real-world application: due to their redundancy and terrain range, they're well suited for searching collapsed buildings, inspecting container ships, and a number of other applications. | N/A | Dr. William Regli |
| 17 |  Autonomous Tracking and Navigation System for Six Degree of Freedom Robots Jeff Marker Team Lead Heeten Choxi Joseph Lee Michalis Papadopoullos Fatih Ayabakan |
This project will develop an autonomous tracking and navigation system for a micro-unmanned helicopter. This includes the ability to track moving objects while avoiding obstacles, as well as broadcasting the position of the tracked object to a human observer. Several existing algorithms will be implemented and combined in novel ways to produce the desired effects by building a high-level application for performing obstacle avoidance, navigation, tracking, and image processing. | N/A | Dr. Jay Modi |