Year 2 Projects Summary

Project 1: Smart Glove Project

Topic: Coding, software recognition

This project translates sign language into understandable English. By doing this, it removes a communication barrier between the deaf and the hearing making our community more accessible. This project, whilst left unfinished, relies upon motion detectors that will store the signs by hand as signals in a matrix that will then be translated into sound. However, when this was tested, the stored code would work but would be highly inaccurate. This requires a lot of coding and AI recognition which is rather unexpected for an electrical engineer. Further development of this project would be highly beneficial for many in the future.

Project 2: Reaction Optimiser

Topic: Chemistry, electronics

This project aims to reduce the greenhouse effect produced by the release of methane and carbon dioxide for a specific chemical reaction. It does this by catalysing the reaction with DBD (Dielectric barrier discharge) which is created in the electrical discharge between two electrodes separated by an insulating barrier. The plasma catalyst improves the conversion rate therefore reducing air pollution as a result of the reaction. They optimised this reaction through the aspects of discharge power and discharge frequency when producing the DBD.

Project 3: Biogas Reforming Machine Learning

Topic: Chemistry, machine learning, coding

This project focuses on the conversion of biogas to syngas. The team developed a machine learning model of a neural network using Python and a hybrid machine to analyse and predict the activity of catalysts in this conversion. The model's visualisation is affected by multiple parameters and the learning and analysis is based on 1180 entries of reaction related data, using 20 parameters.

Project 4: Renewable Power System

Topic: Weather, electronics and detection

This project used a combination of three renewable energy generation techniques: wind, water and solar energy. This was to tackle the current affairs related to global climatic change: stepping towards carbon neutrality on a local scale within this system. A challenge to the project was wind direction and they had to redesign the wind turbine blade to be able to create energy from wind blown from all directions. This resulted in the use of a vertical blade, rotating in any wind direction which maximised the efficiency. It incorporates a water gathering system from a home alongside rainwater collection, reducing waste. They used an LDR and Arduino board to generate solar energy. This is innovative and I liked it because it focuses on modern-day challenges which are highly relevant.

Project 5 : ISS Tracker

Topic: Space, tracking and electronics.

This project focused on the tracking of artificial satellites, more specifically, the international space station. The group’s idea was to have a way of tracking the location of the ISS and the aim was to have a light up cube when the station would be above Liverpool, as well as a touch screen to display the pathway the station would be taking. They did this by creating a light control system and then using a raspberry pi to act as the control system, which then would allow the light to be controlled by a remote control: which the group created. The importance of the project comes from an underlying aim of eventual space travel, and the students emphasised a good tracking system would be an essential in order to locate satellites/stations/rockets etc. The design was innovative and an interactive way of viewing the data of the ISS's location with ease visually, I like how the group did this off of the back of the prospect of potential space exploration in the future.