Main / CoursesESProjectIdeas

Here are a few project application ideas:

  • Location and/or orientation discovery
    • Wireless nodes using RSSI (received signal strength)
    • Sonar-based acoustic distance estimation
    • Using light-sensors (more info)
    • Accelerometer-based position estimation
    • Bluetooth tags
  • Remote controlled car control
    • Interface to a PC
    • Interface to a better controller (wii-mote?)
    • Interface to phone
  • Home/office automation
    • Intelligent lighting and temperature control
    • Multi-function learning remote controller (PC programmable)
    • Intelligent remote control range extenders
    • Multimedia controller with information display
    • Interface to X10
    • Smart door locks
  • Automotive information display (OBDII)
    • Display diagnostic codes and reset if necessary
    • More info here
  • Car Alarm
    • Interface with cel network
    • Camera or other sensors
    • Remote start
    • Remote monitoring and alerts (e.g. current consumption)
    • Report location
  • Next generation controller (mouse?)
    • Using gyro and accelerometers
    • Smart phones
  • Use a PC peripheral in new ways
    • Do computation on a graphics card
    • Use audio processor for doing something else
  • Encryption / Decryption or security hardware
    • Perform the algorithm on your hardware
    • Is ok to read/write data to/from a PC (e.g. serial port)
  • Programmable Holiday Lights
    • Get creative! Make it programmable
    • Sync to music
    • Scriptable
  • Game
    • Recreate several classic LCD-type games
    • Emulate an Atari 2600?
    • Emulate NES, SNES, or C64? This may be more difficult though it may be possible.
    • Interface to a C64 DTV to for example provide ability to load and run arbitrary programs from some memory bank or a PC.
    • Interface to some other game device
  • Video surveillance
    • Using low-cost imagers to do surveillance
    • Simple object tracking
    • Check CMUCam for some ideas
  • Robotics
    • There are plenty of ideas to explore in this domain. Of course keep the main project focus in mind.
  • Network monitoring
    • Packet sniffer
    • Wireless/wired network analyzer
    • Bandwidth monitor
    • Firewall or router
  • Android
    • Interface with a wii-mote
    • Cloud-based projects