Sponsors

LabEscape Escape Room

Sponsored Projects

  • LabEscape Ultrasonic Directional Speaker (Spring 2026)

Adherascent

Pill dispenser with reminder based on scent.

Sponsored Projects

  • AdheraScent Pill Container (Spring 2026)
  • Adherescent (Team 2) Auto Time Setting Scent Reminder (Spring 2026)

Cypress Semiconductor Corporation

Sponsored Projects

  • Automatic Toothpaste Dispenser (Spring 2019)
  • Automatic Toothpaste Dispenser (Spring 2019)
  • Smart Electric Toothpaste Dispenser (Spring 2019)
  • Smart Electric Toothpaste Dispenser (Spring 2019)

FadeX

Nicotine addition recovery device

Sponsored Projects

  • FadeX: Automated Nicotine Tapering Device (Spring 2026)

Illinois Quantum and Microelectronics Park.

Sponsored Projects

  • Facial Quantum Matching Mirror (Spring 2026)

Illinois Robotics in Space

Illinois Robotics in Space (IRIS) is an RSO at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Every year IRIS competes in the NASA Robotic Mining Competition at Kennedy Space Center, works on smaller robotics-related projects and teaches younger students at local schools about what IRIS does.

Sponsored Projects

  • IRIS Localization System (Spring 2015)
  • IRIS Localization System (Spring 2015)

Illinois Tool Works Inc.

Sponsored Projects

  • Weld Gun Spatial Tracking System (Spring 2019)
  • Weld Gun Spatial Tracking System (Spring 2019)

LabEscape POV

Sponsored Projects

  • LED Sphere Display (Spring 2026)

Micron

Sponsored Projects

  • Soccer Team Gameplay Metrics (Spring 2019)
  • Soccer Team Gameplay Metrics (Spring 2019)
  • Traffic Sensing Bicycle Light (Spring 2019)
  • Traffic Sensing Bicycle Light (Spring 2019)

PowerBox Technology

Sponsored Projects

  • PowerBox Technology Power Meter (Fall 2024)

Siebel Center for Design

Sponsored Projects

  • Reconnaissance robot (SCD pitch) (Spring 2019)
  • Reconnaissance robot (SCD pitch) (Spring 2019)

Sound Sleep

Sponsored Projects

  • Acoustic Stimulation to Improve Sleep (Spring 2026)
  • Slow Wave Sleep Enhancement System RFA (Spring 2026)

Illini Solar Car

Sponsor

While Illini Solar Car started as a handful of engineering students in 2014, it takes more than that to create a solar car. Today we have grown into a much larger operation harnessing the skills of students from four colleges at Illinois to create one beautiful product.

Sponsored Projects

  • CUSTOM MPPTS FOR ILLINI SOLAR CAR (Spring 2024)
  • Active Cell Balancing for Solar Vehicle Battery Pack (Spring 2021)
  • Modules for Safe Power Distribution in an Electric Vehicle (Spring 2019)
  • Modules for Safe Power Distribution in an Electric Vehicle (Spring 2019)
  • Standalone Steering Wheel for Solar Racing Vehicle (Spring 2019)
  • Standalone Steering Wheel for Solar Racing Vehicle (Spring 2019)
  • Integrated Li-ion Battery Sensors (Fall 2018)
  • Integrated Li-ion Battery Sensors (Fall 2018)

LASSI

Sponsor

Laboratory for Advanced Space Systems at Illinois

Sponsored Projects

  • Power Board for Illini-Sat3 (Spring 2019)
  • Power Board for Illini-Sat3 (Spring 2019)

Lextech

Sponsor

Northrop Grumman Corporation

Sponsor

Northrop Grumman Corporation has provided funding for laboratory equipment and supplies in the area of applied electromagnetics, as well as support for the following groups.

Sponsored Projects

  • Filtered Back – Projection Optical Demonstration (Fall 2014)
  • Filtered Back – Projection Optical Demonstration (Fall 2014)
  • Wearable UV Radiation Sensing Device (Fall 2014)
  • Wearable UV Radiation Sensing Device (Fall 2014)
  • Radio Jammer (Fall 2005)
  • Radio Jammer (Fall 2005)

Advance Devices

Supporter

ARM

Supporter

Boeing

Supporter

Dr. Joy O'Keefe

Supporter

Sponsored Projects

  • Mobile Hive Checker (Spring 2026)

Intel

Supporter

National Instruments

Supporter

Raytheon

Supporter

Rockwell Collins

Supporter

Rockwell Collins has provided funding for laboratory equipment and supplies in the area of applied electromagnetics. A number of RF student projects have directly benefited from these improvements to the laboratory.

Sponsored Projects

  • Quadcopter - Sense and Avoid - Revised RFA (Fall 2014)
  • Quadcopter - Sense and Avoid - Revised RFA (Fall 2014)
  • Continuous-frequency Synthesizer (Spring 2005)
  • Continuous-frequency Synthesizer (Spring 2005)
  • football position tracker (Spring 2005)
  • football position tracker (Spring 2005)
  • Point-to-Point RF Communication for Wildlife Project (Spring 2005)
  • Point-to-Point RF Communication for Wildlife Project (Spring 2005)
  • RFID-based parking meter system (Spring 2005)
  • RFID-based parking meter system (Spring 2005)
  • Smart Inventory Management System (SIMS) Using RFID (Spring 2005)
  • Smart Inventory Management System (SIMS) Using RFID (Spring 2005)
  • Wireless Laptop Alarm (Spring 2005)
  • Wireless Laptop Alarm (Spring 2005)
  • Car rooftop antenna (Fall 2004)
  • Car rooftop antenna (Fall 2004)
  • Portable Wireless Locator System (Fall 2004)
  • Portable Wireless Locator System (Fall 2004)
  • Transmission line modeling in SPICE (Fall 2004)
  • Transmission line modeling in SPICE (Fall 2004)
  • Wireless Heart Attack Detector with GPS (Fall 2004)
  • Wireless Heart Attack Detector with GPS (Fall 2004)
  • Wireless switch of household appliances for handicapped (Fall 2004)
  • Wireless switch of household appliances for handicapped (Fall 2004)

Skot Wiedmann

Supporter

Sponsored Projects

  • Interactive Proximity Donor Wall Illumination (Fall 2018)
  • Interactive Proximity Donor Wall Illumination (Fall 2018)
  • Modular Analog Synthesizer (Fall 2017)
  • Modular Analog Synthesizer (Fall 2017)
  • AUDIO - ANALOG/DIGITAL SYNTHESIZER - ANALOG VOLTAGE CONTROLLED OSCILLATOR TO DIGITALLY CONTROLLED STEP-SEQUENCER (Spring 2017)
  • AUDIO - ANALOG/DIGITAL SYNTHESIZER - ANALOG VOLTAGE CONTROLLED OSCILLATOR TO DIGITALLY CONTROLLED STEP-SEQUENCER (Spring 2017)

TAKE Solutions

Supporter

Funded Project 39 (smart door) Spring 2015

Texas Instruments

Supporter

Texas Instruments has donated laboratory equipment for DSP and RFID based projects. A number of student projects have directly benefited from these improvements to the laboratory.

Sponsored Projects

  • Miner Tracking Devices (Spring 2006)
  • Miner Tracking Devices (Spring 2006)
  • Quantum Cryptography Project 1 (Spring 2006)
  • Quantum Cryptography Project 1 (Spring 2006)

Xilinx

Supporter

Musical Hand

Ramsey Foote, Thomas MacDonald, Michelle Zhang

Musical Hand

Featured Project

# Musical Hand

Team Members:

- Ramesey Foote (rgfoote2)

- Michelle Zhang (mz32)

- Thomas MacDonald (tcm5)

# Problem

Musical instruments come in all shapes and sizes; however, transporting instruments often involves bulky and heavy cases. Not only can transporting instruments be a hassle, but the initial purchase and maintenance of an instrument can be very expensive. We would like to solve this problem by creating an instrument that is lightweight, compact, and low maintenance.

# Solution

Our project involves a wearable system on the chest and both hands. The left hand will be used to dictate the pitches of three “strings” using relative angles between the palm and fingers. For example, from a flat horizontal hand a small dip in one finger is associated with a low frequency. A greater dip corresponds to a higher frequency pitch. The right hand will modulate the generated sound by adding effects such as vibrato through lateral motion. Finally, the brains of the project will be the central unit, a wearable, chest-mounted subsystem responsible for the audio synthesis and output.

Our solution would provide an instrument that is lightweight and easy to transport. We will be utilizing accelerometers instead of flex sensors to limit wear and tear, which would solve the issue of expensive maintenance typical of more physical synthesis methods.

# Solution Components

The overall solution has three subsystems; a right hand, left hand, and a central unit.

## Subsystem 1 - Left Hand

The left hand subsystem will use four digital accelerometers total: three on the fingers and one on the back of the hand. These sensors will be used to determine the angle between the back of the hand and each of the three fingers (ring, middle, and index) being used for synthesis. Each angle will correspond to an analog signal for pitch with a low frequency corresponding to a completely straight finger and a high frequency corresponding to a completely bent finger. To filter out AC noise, bypass capacitors and possibly resistors will be used when sending the accelerometer signals to the central unit.

## Subsystem 2 - Right Hand

The right subsystem will use one accelerometer to determine the broad movement of the hand. This information will be used to determine how much of a vibrato there is in the output sound. This system will need the accelerometer, bypass capacitors (.1uF), and possibly some resistors if they are needed for the communication scheme used (SPI or I2C).

## Subsystem 3 - Central Unit

The central subsystem utilizes data from the gloves to determine and generate the correct audio. To do this, two microcontrollers from the STM32F3 series will be used. The left and right hand subunits will be connected to the central unit through cabling. One of the microcontrollers will receive information from the sensors on both gloves and use it to calculate the correct frequencies. The other microcontroller uses these frequencies to generate the actual audio. The use of two separate microcontrollers allows for the logic to take longer, accounting for slower human response time, while meeting needs for quicker audio updates. At the output, there will be a second order multiple feedback filter. This will get rid of any switching noise while also allowing us to set a gain. This will be done using an LM358 Op amp along with the necessary resistors and capacitors to generate the filter and gain. This output will then go to an audio jack that will go to a speaker. In addition, bypass capacitors, pull up resistors, pull down resistors, and the necessary programming circuits will be implemented on this board.

# Criterion For Success

The minimum viable product will consist of two wearable gloves and a central unit that will be connected together via cords. The user will be able to adjust three separate notes that will be played simultaneously using the left hand, and will be able to apply a sound effect using the right hand. The output audio should be able to be heard audibly from a speaker.

Project Videos