Project

# Title Team Members TA Documents Sponsor
33 Budget Clip-On Posture Checker
Ashit Anandkumar
Destiny Jefferson
Edward Ruan
Wenjing Song design_document1.pdf
final_paper1.pdf
presentation1.pptx
proposal1.pdf
Title: Budget Clip-On Posture Checker


Team Members:
- Ashit Anandkumar (aa97)
- Edward Ruan (eruan3)
- Destiny Jefferson (djeff4)

# Problem

Describe the problem you want to solve and motivate the need.

Today, people work long hours at desks, either using their computers or mobile devices. This leads to poor posture whether it be through rounding shoulders, slouching, or tilting their head forward. These poor habits can lead to chronic neck, back, and shoulder pain, fatigue, and possibly some spinal and musculoskeletal issues. Most of the time people subconsciously fall into a position of poor posture and don’t notice its negative effects until they experience discomfort. Current solutions include either having a brace which is restrictive and expensive, an application that uses cameras which require users to sit in front of which is tedious and impractical, and reminders that occur without measuring actual poor posture which people tend to ignore. There needs to be a discreet solution that can accurately monitor posture in real time, provide immediate feedback, and is portable. There is currently a product on amazon that does this, but this product is expensive and no one should be emptying their wallet for a simple but useful posture checker device.

# Solution

Describe your design at a high-level, how it solves the problem, and introduce the subsystems of your project.

The Clip-On Posture Checker will be an affordable small wearable device that is clipped onto the user’s upper shirt or upper body. This device will continuously monitor the body’s orientation and its deviation from proper posture. Everyone’s proper posture is different which is why the device has a calibration button the user can press when sitting/standing in their proper posture, after a set time the device will be calibrated. Within a set parameter, a deviation outside of this calibrated range will trigger immediate feedback. When the user slouches or leans forward a lot, the device will immediately provide haptic feedback which will prompt the user to correct their posture.







# Solution Components

## Subsystem 1 - Sensory

This sensory subsystem will detect the user’s orientation and motion. The component(s) required will be something like an ICM-20948, which contains an accelerometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer to properly detect user posture deviation from their calibrated proper posture.

## Subsystem 2 - Processing/MCU

For the processing subsystem, we will use the Arduino Nono 33 BLE or ESP32 to handle all the sensor data collection, filtration and feedback control. Both these microcontrollers have a compact size and will help fit into this wearable project. The microcontroller will continuously read the orientation and acceleration sensors and be able to calculate whether the posture is correct or not. Additionally, there will be a filtration system to calculate the tilt/change in posture from the calibrated position. Additionally, the filtration system will also be able to detect if it is just a slight movement by the user or a posture change. Lastly the microcontroller will be in charge of sending feedback to the user to help indicate to the user that there is a change in posture.

## Subsystem 3 - Feedback

This feedback subsystem serves to notify the user in real-time when they have poor posture. It will be a simple vibration motor for haptic feedback, a ERM motor will suffice, optionally LEDs or a buzzer can also be included.

## Subsystem 4 - Power

This power subsystem will provide stable power and lasting operation to ensure proper posture checking behaviour. The components required would be a small rechargeable 3.7V LiPo battery @200-500 mAh, a voltage regulator for the MCU, and a battery charging circuit.

## Subsystem 5 - Enclosure

This mechanical subsystem serves to enclose the entire device and its components, the components could simply be a plastic shell to hold all the components and a metal clip so the user can clip on the device to their body.

# Criterion For Success

Describe high-level goals that your project needs to achieve to be effective. These goals need to be clearly testable and not subjective.

For the device to be successful, the device shall detect the user’s torso tilt angle within ±5° accuracy relative to the calibrated upright posture. The device shall provide real-time feedback (vibration or LED) within 1 second when posture deviation exceeds a threshold angle (e.g., 15° forward lean). The device shall operate continuously for at least 8 hours on a single battery charge. The device shall log posture data with a time resolution of at least 1 minute and store or transmit a minimum of 24 hours of usage history.

Smart Frisbee

Ryan Moser, Blake Yerkes, James Younce

Smart Frisbee

Featured Project

The idea of this project would be to improve upon the 395 project ‘Smart Frisbee’ done by a group that included James Younce. The improvements would be to create a wristband with low power / short range RF capabilities that would be able to transmit a user ID to the frisbee, allowing the frisbee to know what player is holding it. Furthermore, the PCB from the 395 course would be used as a point of reference, but significantly redesigned in order to introduce the transceiver, a high accuracy GPS module, and any other parts that could be modified to decrease power consumption. The frisbee’s current sensors are a GPS module, and an MPU 6050, which houses an accelerometer and gyroscope.

The software of the system on the frisbee would be redesigned and optimized to record various statistics as well as improve gameplay tracking features for teams and individual players. These statistics could be player specific events such as the number of throws, number of catches, longest throw, fastest throw, most goals, etc.

The new hardware would improve the frisbee’s ability to properly moderate gameplay and improve “housekeeping”, such as ensuring that an interception by the other team in the end zone would not be counted as a score. Further improvements would be seen on the software side, as the frisbee in it’s current iteration will score as long as the frisbee was thrown over the endzone, and the only way to eliminate false goals is to press a button within a 10 second window after the goal.