Electrical and Computer Engineering seniors excel in space and satellite student competition

Tama Moni — Wed, 08 Jun 2022 13:28:09 +0000

Electrical and Computer Engineering seniors excel in space and satellite student competition Tama Moni Wed, 06/08/2022 - 09:28

In This Story

Peter Pachowicz

A team of seniors from the Electrical and Computer Engineering (ECE) department combined their knowledge and skills to win the Space and Satellites Professionals International (SSPI) student prize competition.

Kelsey Schneider, the team’s leader, says they designed a satellite radar system to extract and transmit data from one antenna to another. Schneider says the satellite radar systems at space stations contain large and expensive antennas for this purpose. She says space stations use the Synthetic Aperture Radar System – SARS – to monitor a planet’s environment.

“The goal was to build a low-cost, low-size, weight and power synthetic aperture system,” Schneider said. “Our antennae was only about four inches in diameter.”

She said the satellite radar system transmits electrical waves and transmits data when the radar detects an object. Then the electrical waves bounce off the object and get sent back to the radar system. The radar then transmits the data through the antennas. They used a computer algorithm to convert the received data into an image.

Schneider said the hardest part of the competition was finding a balance between the technical and non-technical language used to explain the project to an easy-to-understand presentation. “You can’t be so nontechnical that it just doesn’t make sense,” Schneider said. “You don’t want it to sound silly.”

The competition featured a variety of competitors, ranging from graduate students to PhD students both competing as teams and individuals.

“We just felt really grateful. There were a lot of other really good projects and presentations we got to see. So, we were just really honored that they chose us out of the other teams.”

The competition was hosted by SSPI, who had reached out to Electrical and Computer Engineering professor Peter Pachowicz and Jay Deorukhkar, a PhD student and teaching assistant in the ECE department.

Deorukhkar was assigned to the team’s senior design class. While looking for projects to nominate, he reached out to Qiliang Li, a professor in the ECE department, who is the faculty advisor for the senior design projects.

As for how he feels about this team’s win in the SSPI competition: “Since we did not compete last year, it was great to see them participate and win this year."

The team also won the ECE award for their senior design project. The competition took place on May 12, 2022.

Topics

Space

satellite

Radar

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Students' sustainable fridge supplies solution to food waste

Tama Moni — Tue, 12 Apr 2022 18:26:17 +0000

Students' sustainable fridge supplies solution to food waste Tama Moni Tue, 04/12/2022 - 14:26

In This Story

Nathalia Peixoto

This fridge contains four coolers regulated by temperature
and humidity, using a computer program created
by Cameron Flores.

Mason engineering students are known for being resourceful in finding materials for their design projects all on an affordable budget. Electrical and Computer Engineering students, Cameron Flores and Nestor Arellano did just that with their senior design project building a sustainable refrigerator. This four-person team funded their project with their own money before receiving a $1,000 grant from the Patriot Green Fund.

Flores says his team looked at places like Facebook Marketplace and private sellers to find an average-cost fridge that would work for their project. “We went with what would be one [fridge] that we know that worked, two that did not smell, and three, was not infested with any ants or insects or cockroaches,” Flores says. They settled on a model, just under six feet tall, from a warehouse in Woodbridge and transported it from Arellano's work truck to their lab on the fourth floor of Peterson Hall. “Our budget was considerably smaller, and we had to go pick it up ourselves and move it around campus,” Arellano says.

Flores says the fridge works by regulating the temperature and humidity in the four coolers through manual input and automatic control. “They [consumers] put in one of the four pre-selected temperatures that they want.” The automatic setting evaluates the temperature and humidity of each cooler and balances it. “It will check the temperature levels and the humidity levels in each of them and look at the greatest difference.” The team’s goal is for produce to last longer in the fridge and reduce food waste, The students used fruits and vegetables such as kale, tomatoes, apples, and celery to test their hypothesis and a computer program for enabling the settings in the coolers.

These students received help from electrical and computer engineering Associate Professor Nathalia Peixoto and food science Associate Professor Margaret Slavin. Peixoto says the students were independent in building their project but that she helped them verify the technical components of it. “They wrote the proposal for the Patriot Green Fund, so they are the ones who got the money, which I’m really proud of,” Peixoto says.

Slavin says she produced the idea for a sustainable fridge after observing that most standard fridges in the U.S. do not lengthen the shelf life of produce. She contacted Peixoto, who presented the idea to the students. “I pointed them in the direction of the statistics,” Slavin says, in helping them design protocols and test the coolers’ preservation process. “We don’t foresee any decrease of energy consumption in our project,” Arellano says. “The original designers of the fridge probably achieved optimal energy consumption.”

The seniors and the faculty advisors both hope this project impacts Mason and beyond by raising awareness of food sustainability and healthy living. “I think its impact will be in a reduction of food waste and create a kind of domino effect. Also, influencing people to eat healthier if they are given that option,” Arellano says. Peixoto says she hopes more people will pay attention to food waste and take steps to lessen it. “I hope more people will be aware of the options when buying a fridge or that they can add, you know, a compartment to their fridge to make it more sustainable.”

Topics

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Sustainable Food Systems