IEEE Regional Contest 2008
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department -Senior Design
Derek Roberts and Mark John Merin (Electrical & Computer Engineering) finished in the winner’s bracket taking 2nd and 3rd place and walking away with cash prizes while participating in the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Student Paper Contest at Seattle University. A total of seven teams presented including teams from the University of Washington, Seattle Pacific University, Seattle University, and DeVry University.
Derek Roberts presented on the topic of his research from
last summer at NASA. At NASA Derek worked in the Power System
Analysis branch to develop modeling tools for the Orion Crew
Exploration Vehicle solar array. The modeling tools were
developed to take into account the thermal and shadowing
characteristics of the new solar array configuration that will power
the Orion CEV on its missions to the Moon and Mars starting in
2019. Derek Roberts will continue on to the northwest
regional competition. Derek has also accepted an engineering
position from Intel's microprocessor group and will relocate to
Intel's Hillsboro, OR (near Portland) facility after graduation.
Merin, collaborating with his senior design team members Riley Higa, Andrew Kurniadi, Min Kyeong Lee, and Robert Nguon to
present their design project “RFID Technology for Ultrasound”,
tied DeVry University for 3rd place.
Their team project was sponsored by Philips Healthcare and involved the
automation of the patient data entry process in hospitals and
diagnostic ultrasound clinics using RFID.
Traditionally, hospital patients are identified by wristbands, medical notes are physically carried from place to place, and schedules are hastily rewritten as things change. Mix-ups can result in patients having the wrong records, the wrong drugs being administered, and even the wrong surgery being performed. RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) is a method of storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags. When you buy a pair of pants it often has a RFID tag attached so why not tag a patient’s wristband?
In support of
Philips Healthcare's commitment to quality
patient care, Merin and his team presented an innovative RFID
solution using:
- Texas Instruments microprocessor-controller.
- Designing and building of a miniaturized printed loop antenna.
- Advanced Encryption Standard 256 bit keys for personal data security.
- Compression Algorithm based on a combination LZ77 and Huffman Coding to store the quantity of data on the tag.
Participating in the IEEE Paper Contest gave our senior design team valuable experience on presentation skills to an audience of engineers with similar backgrounds. "It was a chance for us to see what students from other schools were capable of doing and just how diverse electrical engineering really is. In addition all the participating student papers will be published to our department IEEE branch website." Mark John Merin
IEEE - Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers
The purpose of the IEEE Student Paper Competition is to offer student members the opportunity to exercise and improve both written and verbal communication skills. As we move towards a global community, effective communication skills are becoming increasingly important. Whether you go into graduate studies, research and design engineering, sales, or management, you will be required to write reports and give presentations. Skills that you develop and use now will give you an edge when you enter the working world. IEEE is the world's leading professional association for the advancement of technology. It currently has the largest number of members out of any other technical professional organization in the world with more than 365,000 members in over 150 countries.
Electrical & Computer Engineering Department IEEE Branch Website.
For additional information please contact the department desk: ecedept@seattleu.edu