Senior Project Proposal –
Draft 3
Ken Lafleur
Throughout my life I’ve always been interested in technology and figuring out how everything works. When it came time to select a topic for senior project, I tried to think of what interested me and what I didn’t know much about. After a couple other ideas I came up with remote signals. My essential question is what are the different types of remote signals, such as infrared and radio controlled and how do they work? From this main question I have generated a list of sub-questions; some of those include why can’t we see any of these signals? What is the difference between infrared and radio? Which signals are used for which purposes?
Information about remote signals is plentiful.
On-line there are many companies advertising their advances in radio controlled and
infrared technologies, as well as older
models of transmitting/receiving devices. Another good source I found is different
technology journals and magazines. Popular Science has an FYI
section where readers ask questions and the answers get printed in one of the next few
issues. This could be a good way to find out a specific piece of
information if I run into a sub-question that I can’t answer. The main challenge to
this research is getting all of the information because there is so much
variation between one remote system and another even while staying within the boundaries
of a certain type of signal.
Here is a list some of other
material resources that I’ve found.
· http://rcvehicles.about.com/library/glossary/blglossaryelect.htm
· http://www.howstuffworks.com/rc-toy.htm
· Infrared
technology: an old dog sporting some new tricks. Relevancy: 100; ( Computer Dealer News ) Belanger, Sue; 09-20-1995
· Invisible,
Incredible, Infrared Relevancy: 100; ( The World & I ) Steve Voynick; 06-01-2000
I work at a company called MuShield, which
makes custom magnetic shields for companies such as Deka and Boeing . There I work mainly
with the engineer making files to be run
on the laser machine, and teaching him the new CAD program that MuShield just upgraded to
called Inventor. I know most of the people there pretty well
and could use any of them in the design of my radio controlled application piece.
My mentor for my senior project is Angela Keef. The first time I met her was as a possible mentor, so the most significant reason I am working on my senior project with Angela is that time was running out and I needed a mentor. My outside expert on the other hand, I have known since the middle of last school year. Dave Palance, a teacher at Milford High School was the perfect choice for my outside expert. He teaches a class called pre-engineering II, but digital electronics is a more accurate description of the class. He has a very inventive and technical mind accounting for his three patents. He has been self-employed for ten years solving companies engineering problems. He has also worked for the government, designing military countermeasures. He has an associates degree in engineering at Keene state, a bachelors in science at DW college, and is almost through an electrical engineering degree at UMass Lowell.
The product of my project is not all sorted out
yet, but I have been working with Angela to narrow the possibilities down a little. What I
would like to do is create my own novel
application for remote signals and actually build the product with a working remote
system. I realize that this might be too much of a challenge; so another
possibility for the product is in its most simple form a remote controlled car.
