E-Week and Lincoln Chapter Banquet

E-Week Senior Design poster competition at UNL.

Come down and support the seniors as they demonstrate their projects.

The senior design segment of the Open House will be Friday, April 24, from 12 to 3 p.m., in the Othmer Hall lobby. Alumni and industry judges will evaluate each project and prizes will be awarded for top displays from each department based on outlined criteria. The general public is encouraged to vote for "Best of Show" by completing a ballot.

http://www.eweek.unl.edu/seniordesigns.shtml

http://www.eweek.unl.edu/

Parking http://www.eweek.unl.edu/parkingmap.shtml

The Lincoln Chapter Banquet is online and ready for reservations. 

This is held on Friday at the end of the E-Week after Senior Design projects are showcased. The RSVP date is April 17th.

IEEE_Banquet09studentuno.pdf

Using the Humidity and Temperature Sensor

The sensor is part number HUMTEMPSENS from www.futurlec.com. The datasheet lists the part number as hht02d and provides a good pinout diagram. At first glance the interface is not very simple and I could not find any arduino code for it.

Lukily it uses the same interface as the popular SHTXX sensors. This example provides code that works well and spits out the humidity and temperture to the serial port after you send it 'h' or 't'. Quick hint: the arduino IDE provides a serial monitor so you don't have to mess around with Hyperterminal. It is the far right button next to the 'upload to I/O board' button.

The sensor doesnt appear to be the most accurate, it claims pki 340 was 79 degrees.

Using the PIR module

The pir module is part number PIR_MODULE from www.futurlec.com.

• datasheet

This module is really simple to use. Power, Gnd, and TTL output pin you can connect up to one of the arduino digital input pins.

Here is some really simple code that dumps 0 (no activity) or 1 (activity) to the serial port.

int inputPin = 2; // choose the input pin (for the PIR)
void setup(){
pinMode(inputPin, INPUT); // declare pir as input
Serial.begin(9600);
}
void loop(){
Serial.println(digitalRead(inputPin));
delay(100);
}

Once the sensor is tripped it keeps the output high for ~5 seconds and wont trip right away again. This behavior can be adjusted with the small pot on the side of the sensor.

Using the RFID reader

We are using the ID-12 rfid reader from sparkfun. When a card is read it just spits out the ID serially on a pin. The atmega168 only has one USART and it is already hooked up to the USB port. You will need to use a software uart to read the ID-12.

Here are some useful links.

• ID-12 datasheet
• example tutorial that we had working last night(includes simple schematic, code, and needed library)

Arduino quick start guide

This guide is pretty simple. Here is some more info.

1. We are using a Seeduino, it is a Diecimila clone.
   
2. flip the switch labeled ext_pwr_usb to the usb powered setting
3. let windows find the drivers on the net, you'll have to click through two sets of prompts
4. download and extract the arduino IDE.
   
5. follow the guide for uploading an example program

I'm still experimenting with programing it in C. hopefully i'll get some of those directions up as well.

April Meeting

Start Time:	Thursday, April 2, 2009 at 8:00pm
End Time:	Friday, April 3, 2009 at 8:30pm
Location:	PKI 252

Besides the end of the year banquet this will be the last General Meeting of the year.

Since most people are busy with projects, we will have an informal meeting to discuss projects (including the UP Design Contest) eat some Pizza or other delicious food, and socialize. Also the new officers can introduce themselves and we can transition the authority to them.

2009-10 Officers

I present the election results. It was a close runoff in all the contested positions.

2009-10 Officer Team

President (Chair)-Nick Spintig
Vice-President- Zach Booth
Secretary-Scott Kenealy
Treasurer-Ronnie Tyson
Parts Manager-Aaron Mills

Congratulations.