Mind over Matter: Wireless Circuits for Brain-Computer Interface, with Apurva Mishra, PhD.

One minute highlight video (audio removed) from recent presentation. Apurva Mishra

  

 

Alumni News

Nichole Porter, who graduated from SU ECE in June 2012, wrote a wonderful featured article for the Women in Engineering segment for the IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) site: http://www.ieee-pes.org/enews-update/564-wie-nichole-porter

Video News From Your Senior Design Teams

Featured Video

Super Mario Brothers VHDL Solution to the Classic Arcade Game - Chris McDougall June 2012

Accomplishments: Create graphics engine, purely via hardware language, Created sound synthesizer via hardware language, Programmed entire game from scratch. Integrated DE2 board with screen and controls into arcade cabinet. Finished bulk of work in the span of a quarter.

Your 2012 Year End Photos

 

IEEE Sponsored Soldering Workshop - Video  

IEEE Student President  Caitlin Ryberg

 

 

 

International Mingling 
Father Bert Otten visits with Mike "The Mayor" Mullen

Story by: Mike Thee
"Father Otten, as many know, served on SU's College of Science and Engineering faculty for a number of years. These days, he's working in Chikuni, Zambia"... full article

 

 

2012 Projects Day was a great success. Check out photos

Project Center 25th Anniversary Film

Do what you love and love what you do

  

Alumnus Joe Blaschia  Jr. presented a seminar on his many lessons learned and the joys and challenges of creating and running his own engineering company. Joe graduated from Seattle University in 1973 and started his company in 1979 developing a unique approach to managing the workplace which led to his company becoming "green". ADCOMM Engineering Company

 

They say it's a surprise to finish, let alone win. 

Chris McDougall, ECE Major, 2012
For the past five months the senior design team ECE 12.3 has been racing towards a goal. The goal is the region 6 micromouse competition. Given the task to research, design, prototype, then build a final robot for the purpose of allowing Seattle University to have another competition outlet, was indeed a tall order. Luckily ECE 12.3 managed to buckle down as a team and push around 2000 man hours into the project.....read how they won!

Seattle University's micromouse team has risen from a room full of ideas, to the winners of region 6 micromouse competition.

  

 

IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference

In late October 2011, Scientists, engineers, technology professionals, academics, foundations, government and non-government organizations, and individuals engaged in humanitarian work gathered at the inaugural IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference in Seattle to present and discuss solutions for present and future humanitarian needs.  http://www.todaysengineer.org/2012/Jan/GHTC-2011.asp  

New Robotics Course

Students this quarter are studying robotic manipulators for the first time. They are finding that teachers can make even a cool toy tediously analytic. 

 

 

We design the electrical components that allow you to capture winter moments.

Science & Engineering Building
  

Saudi Arabia Conference

Over Winter Break Dr. Louie traveled to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia to give an invited talk at the Innovative Smart Grid Technologies conference. His talk focused on the benefits of professional development through the IEEE Power & Energy Society, of which he is the Vice President of Membership & Image.

Electrical & Computer Engineering Department 2010-2011 Student Videos

You can find more ECE Videos on the 
ECE Channel: http://www.seattleu.edu/scieng/ece/tv.html

 

Microsoft, Boys & Girls Club, and Seattle University ECE students team up at Kids TechFest

More than 250 Boys & Girls Club youth attended a Saturday first-ever Kids TechFest on the Microsoft Corp. campus in Redmond this October. Kids TechFest is a collaborative program of area tech companies, schools, and the Boys & Girls Club dedicated to engaging kids in the world of technology. Nine ECE students and Professor Alvin Moser provided the electronic hardware and support for a Robotics module using Mindstorms. They helped the kids get an introduction to robotics, learned some things about motivating that age level, and enjoyed a Microsoft lunch and the legendary free Microsoft pop. 

 

Fluke Corporation makes a generous donation of multimeters and function generators &Caitlin Ryberg receives the IEEE Power & Energy Society Scholarship Plus Initiative 

 

 

 11,660 miles

On June 27th our group of five; Dr. Louie, Vincent Van Acker, Karim Farraj , Josh Peavler and Ayesha Pirbhai (me) left for our immersion trip to Zambia. After 11,660 miles we arrived in Lusaka. Lusaka is the capital of Zambia and about three hours away from Chikuni, which is where we built and tested the wind turbine. From Seattle, we brought the stator, rotors, alternator assembly and some tools with us and it was our goal to build the blades, find/make a tower and to find the optimal location for the placement of the wind turbine... read more at Community Solutions Initiative website. Watch Video

 

Tour of Puget Sound Energy’s Wild Horse Wind Energy Facility in Ellensburg

Twenty ECE students and Dr. Henry Louie spent their Saturday touring the Wild Horse Renewable Energy Center in Ellensburg, Washington. The center, owned by Puget Sound Energy, is home to 149, 1.8 to 2.0 MW wind turbines and a 500 kW solar panel array. The field trip complemented theory taught in the classroom with real-world applications of renewable energy systems.

ECE Faculty Member Receives Global Grant to Develop an Experiential Humanitarian Engineering Pilot Program

Dr. Henry Louie (ECE Professor) and Steve Szablya (Director of Facilities) were awarded the competitive Global Grant from the SU Global Engagement Office. With this funding they are developing a theoretical, practical, and hands-on program to teach students about appropriate technology designs for underserved communities. The focus of this year’s program is on energy poverty. About 20 ECE students are participating in the program, which includes building a 700 W wind turbine on the Seattle University campus.       
The grant, along with additional funding from the Seattle University group Professionals without Boundaries, will allow Dr. Louie, Mr. Szablya and ECE students Ayesha Pirbhai, Josh Peavler and Karim Farraj to travel to Chikuni, Zambia this summer to assess the feasibility of using wind turbines to fight energy poverty. 

 

Undergraduate Student Joseph McIntosh Presents Research at Puget Sound Energy 

Sophomore ECE student, Joseph McIntosh, and Faculty Advisor, Dr. Henry Louie, recently completed their year-long study: Using Smart Grid Technology to Promote Energy Efficiency and Conservation in Student Housing. The project was funded by Puget Sound Energy and awarded through the Independent Colleges of Washington. Joseph and Dr. Louie were invited to Puget Sound Energy headquarters to present the results of the work. The conclusion: Seattle University students utilize less electricity when shown their electricity consumption.

 

Sponsored Project Award Announcement 

Professor Xu-Sheng Chen of the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the College of Science and Engineering is the recipient of a sub-award from the University of Minnesota for contribution to the project titled "A Nationwide Consortium of Universities to Revitalize Electric Power Engineering Education by State-of-the-Art Laboratories." The project is funded by the United States Department of Energy. The $24,999 sub-award supports Seattle University’s ongoing participation in the Electric Power Engineering Revitalization Project, which includes acquiring power electronics laboratory stations to teach University of Minnesota-developed experiments and develop new laboratory experiments. 

Power and Energy Engineers are Finding Creative Solutions to Humanity's Biggest Challenges

Even a small amount of electricity can make a huge difference to someone in a third world country. As a power and energy engineer you can make it possible for a person to have a cell phone so they're not completely isolated, or provide kids the light that allows them to study at night. Students learn that, as a power and energy engineer, not only will they have a good, well-paying job but they will be improving people's lives. Engineering is not just equations. It's doing something that's important to the nation and the world.

Do you have what it takes to qualify for the PES Scholarship Plus Initiative™? If so, you can receive up to three years of financial support (total of $7,000) and gain career experience through internships and co-op work.

How to Get Started on Your Power and Energy Career...

Read more about Seattle University's Professor Henry Louie...  

What would you expect a student to do with 500 million transistors at his/her disposal?

 

 

This is often the case in the electrical & computer engineering class ECEGR401–VLSI:VHDL. Students  design a project using an electronic chip containing a large scale integration  of hundreds of millions of transistors packed into a space smaller than your thumbnail, this is VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration).  All those transistors (the Altera chip) need to be told how to be wired together. That is where the other acronym VHDL comes into play. VHDL is a language used today to configure the 500 million+ transistors into medical imaging products, supercomputers, consumer devices, and student games.

Do you remember Mario Bros?

Chris McDougall, ECE Student, Video 
The game that my project is based on is the classic arcade game from the 80’s, Mario Bro’s. The first 2000 lines of the my VHDL code hold the images or “sprites” of the game characters and environment followed by 26 logic vectors which keep track of everything on the screen.

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 ECEGR401-VLSI:VHDL: Videos

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 Congratulations 2010 Electrical Engineering Grads!

 

Digital Signal Processing (DSP) Program

The fast pace of innovation in electronics and semiconductors requires that electrical & computer engineering laboratories keep up with the latest in high tech tools and instruments.  As part of our commitment to support innovative digital signal processing laboratory activities and development of training materials, Analog Devices, Inc., a global leader in high-performance semiconductors and digital signal processing (DSP), has granted the department SHARC DSP hardware and software development systems. The College of Science & Engineering welcomes this collaboration; both parties will reap the benefits. Students are already looking forward to getting their hands on these. They can learn more about the Analog Devices ADSP-21369 SHARC digital signal processors and the VisualDSP++ development and debugging environment. There are many applications for this technology.

 Many household products contain one (or many) DSPs:  

• The biggie: Cell Phones
• DVD players and other home audio equipment
• Your car (for example: the anti-lock braking system)
• Satellites (they have a lot)
• Digital radios
• High-resolution printers
• Digital cameras

It’s an elite electrical engineering DSP program in collaboration with Analog Devices. One of the objectives of Seattle University Professor Alvin Moser, Ph.D., is the development of a new document guide to help promote advances in signal processing technology training at other universities. The $40,000 grant of hardware and software will strengthen the field of University DSP training as an integral part of the world's technical community. 

 Special thanks to Satya Simha, Analog Devices Product Marketing Manager, and Gary Fernandes, SU Laboratory Manager, for working together to setup this grant. The University gratefully acknowledges the supportive efforts of Satya Simha, Gary Fernandes, and Alvin Moser.

Analog Devices, Inc. has had a distinctive history. In over four decades they have built one of the premier technology companies in the world. And the digital revolution continues… www.analog.com  

ECE Students Design Generators for Developing Communities  

 If you had to hike from Seattle University to the Seattle Center and wait in line to pay money to have your cell phone charged you’d be peeved…to put it mildly. Now consider that many people in developing countries must do just that, and yet the use of cellular technology is common. “Over 75% of people in developing communities have mobile signal coverage,” explains Electrical and Computer Engineering student Yousef Algannas. “These communities need a reliable means to charge their cell phones,” he adds. Student engineers Algannas, Steven Cruz, Vinh Ho and Wayne Urubio are designing an arrangement of magnets and wires that can be used to harness human motion or the power in moving air to generate electricity. Click HERE for full story.

 

 

 Lego Mind storm community outreach for SHPE – September 18 

The Puget Sound chapter of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers (SHPE) hosted an event on September 18 to introduce Hispanic teenagers to programming and design using Lego Mind storms. The event took place in Bannan 204 in our Electrical and Computer Engineering department. Participants teamed up in pairs and each team was mentored by one or more professional engineers. Each team assembled a robot and learned to program the robot to accomplish various tasks using measurements from the robot sensors. At the end of the event the teams competed for prizes in the final challenge. Margarita Takach, the faculty advisor for the SU SHPE student club, helped with the design and implementation of the challenges.

Conferences

 

Singapore Conference on Probabilistic Methods Applied to Power Systems	IEEE Power & Energy Society	American Society for Engineering Education
Dr. Louie presented his research on the modeling of wind power at the Probabilistic Methods Applied to Power Systems conference in Singapore	Dr. Louie presented the Small Human Powered Generator concept at the IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting in Minneapolis, Minnesota	Drs. Miguel and Louie participated at the American Society for Engineering Education conference in Louisville, Kentucky

 

      

Verizon Wireless Field Trip

On May 12, Dr. Neudorfer and Dr. Moser led a group of ECE students on a field trip to visit a cell site base station and a mobile switching center that handles most of Seattle, all of the Eastside, and most of Kitsap County for Verizon Wireless.

      

Congratulations Igor!

Congratulations to Igor Parkman, senior Electrical Engineering major, who received the Seattle University 2010 Mission Award for Outstanding Leadership in Academic Excellence!

 

Undergraduate Research

Junya Motoike presented his work at the National Conference on Undergraduate Research. The conference was held from April 15-17th at the University of Montana at Missoula, Montana. Junya's poster was titled: Assessment of Rooftop Wind Resource for Renewable Power Generation. Dr. Henry Louie was Junya's research advisor and the travel was funded by: SUURA (Seattle University Undergraduate Research Association) through the Office of the Provost at Seattle University. Congratulations, Junya!
 

Congratulations Aziz!

Congratulations to ECE student, Aziz Yuldashev who was selected as one of the eleven Bannan Scholarship recipients for the 2010-2011 academic year! This scholarship program is named for its benefactor, Thomas J. Bannan, a man with a long and devoted affiliation with Seattle University, and a leader in manufacturing, commerce, engineering and applied sciences both in Seattle and in Los Angeles. Bannan Scholars are students with junior or senior standing chosen on the basis of academic achievement and commitment to service to the campus and greater community. 

Projects Day

 

Seattle University student Eric Hee showcases one of the solar panels he and his team of electrical and computer engineering students designed to be installed at the PACCAR/Kenworth building in Renton, Wash. This is just one of the many creative engineering and business projects that will be on display at the annual Projects Day, sponsored by the Project Center and Albers School of Business and Economics

 

Senior Theadora Rupp explains a human-powered electrical generator that she and her team designed to address the needs of villagers in rural Zambia who are largely off the national power grid. The group was among teams from the College of Science and Engineering to present their senior capstone at the Project Center's Projects Day. Students showcased their work—and solutions to real dilemmas—for area businesses, government and non-profit sponsors. The center also focuses on one international project each year. 

Congratulations 2010 Electrical & Computer Engineering Grads!

 

The Electrical & Computer Engineering faculty and staff held a lunch to honor the ECE department 2010 graduates. Click HERE to see more pictures from this event.

Verizon Wireless Field Trip

 

On May 12, Dr. Neudorfer and Dr. Moser led a group of ECE students on a field trip to visit a cell site base station and a mobile switching center that handles most of Seattle, all of the Eastside, and most of Kitsap County for Verizon Wireless.

      

ECE Students Learn About Renewable Energy at Wild Horse Renewable Energy Center

Twenty ECE students enrolled in the Department's Renewable Energy Systems course spent their Saturday touring the Wild Horse Renewable Energy Center in Ellensburg, Washington. The center, owned by Puget Sound Energy, is home to 149, 1.8 to 2.0 MW wind turbines and a 500 kW solar panel array. The field trip complemented the theory taught in the classroom, showing students real-world applications of renewable energy systems.

     

Thank you Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc.!

 

Our department recently received a generous donation of power system protection and testing equipment from Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc. (SEL). The donation includes transformer, distribution and distributed generation protection relays as well as SEL relay test hardware. The equipment will be used to expand and enhance the power and energy systems courses offered by the department. The donation, valued at over $16,000, was secured by Professor Chen and Professor Louie with assistance from the Seattle University Project Center.    

Seattle University Awarded Grant to use Smart Grid Technology in Student Housing

 

This summer, 20 units of Seattle University's Murphy Apartments will be outfitted with smart grid technology to provide students with real-time information on their electricity use, its price and the related environmental impact. The effort is part of a year-long research project to determine if exposing students to such information will promote energy conservation habits.

The study is headed by Dr. Henry Louie of the ECE Department, Steve Szablya of Facilities, and Joseph McIntosh, student in the ECE Department.
The project is funded by Puget Sound Energy and awarded through the Independent Colleges of Washington.  

ECE Professor Teaches Local High School Students about Solar Energy       

On April 21, 2010, Dr. Henry Louie met with 60 high school students in Physical Science and Ecology classes from the nearby Garfield High School. The students are studying energy, circuits, and climate change. Dr. Louie gave a presentation on solar panels, did a short demonstration, and took the students on a tour of the Student Center's 5.3 kW Photovoltaic array.

          

What is Senior Design?

During your senior year, you bridge the gap between your academic experience and professional experience by participating in yearlong design projects that involve real projects and real clients. It is a time to roll up your sleeves and put into action all of your training.  Design groups are formed each with a design and product objective. This year one group has been given the heavy task to design a solar photovoltaic  and wind turbines system to be used as alternative sources of energy for a new 7000 sq ft PACCAR technology and manufacturing center. Read more on Senior Design...

  

Prepare for a Fall Chorus of Changes

Come fall students will settle into a newly remodeled Bannan 205 (Circuits & Systems Lab)!

The remodeling of the lab will be a revolutionary transformation in laboratory layout and furniture design. This summer’s remodeling of 205 takes last summer’s successful remodel of Bannan 204 (Circuits & Electronics Lab) two steps further by implementing a custom instrument on wheels approach and delivery of new high performance Agilent scopes.     Read more...

 

Partnerships with Industry-Leading Technology Suppliers

With a generous donation of the latest leading-edge technology development boards from Altera Corporation, student Hao Nguyen interfaces a Microprocessor to a LCD screen in course 405 Advanced Digital Design. This is one of the building blocks of a cell phone; Interfacing the brains of the phone (the microprocessor) to the screen. The Altera development board is packed with features including a state-of-the-art Cyclone® II FPGA, LEDs, LCD, SRAM, SDRAM, 24-bit audio, TV Decoder, VGA, Ethernet and more. Altera Corporation is the pioneer of programmable logic solutions. You can find their chips in nearly all industries including automotive, consumer, and medical products.

 

Circuits & Electronics Lab Renovation

We celebrated the completion of the renovation of Bannan 204, the Circuits and Electronics Lab. Come visit the new lab.

 

What would you expect a student to do with 500 million transistors at his/her disposal?

Build a game box, of course!

 

This is often the case in the Seattle University’s Electrical & Computer Engineering class ECEGR401–VLSI:VHDL.

"For my final project in class ECEGR 401 I designed a two-player version of pong using VHDL and implemented it on the Xilinx Spartan 3 board. The game is displayed on a VGA monitor and the score is displayed on four seven-segment display on the Spartan 3 board. Read the full article...

Internships open doors to possible careers

In an unstable economy, internship experience plays an even more vital role in landing professional employment. Employers are reducing their risks by hiring employees within established work of experience, particularly within the company or organization.. In the last year, the amount of internships available to students has risen 68 percent. "Practices are shifting within the recruiting mechanism; it's more profitable now to see prospective employees perform in a work environment," says Daniel Pascoe, director of Career Services at Seattle University.

Joseph McMichael, senior electrical engineering major, hopes his NASA and Boeing internships will give him a leg  up in the job market.Read the full article...

Engineers help computers understand cocktail chatter

If you have ever been to a noisy cocktail party, you know how difficult it can be to hear one person talk among the voices of many.

Professor Alvin Moser, of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at Seattle University, along with the help of two students, is developing a speech processing system meant to reduce "cocktail party noise," which can be a problem particularly for the hard of hearing. The project has involved designing an analog input system-a four-way microphone-as well as a system to convert a stream of sound into digital information.
Read the full article...