Dashboard

Project Overview

Dashboard is a web application that came about because business coaches needed a way to track information about the different business that they were coaching. The desire for this application came about because these coaches wanted to rid themselves of manually creating reports. By designing an application to receive client data and automatically generate reports, much time would be freed up so these coaches could focus on generating new business.

My Contributions

My contributions for the Dashboard Reporting System mainly came in the area of user interface design. The framework for the application was created using ASP.NET (VB) and SQL Server stored procedures by another developer. This framework was well constructed, but the user interface was confusing and hard to use. I spent some time using this application and determined which aspects of this application needed to be revised. I created a wizard using ASP.NET web forms and SQL stored procedures to step a user through a common task and reorganized the navigation structure and terminology to make navigation less confusing. I also implemented the logout functionality and corrected a number of user privilege errors.

I also used my graphic design skills to create a new visual layout. I redesigned the logo and created a number of icons to help the user recognize each section and provide some continuity through the different sections of the website.

Technology Used

ASP.NET, SQL Stored Procedures, Photoshop, Microsoft Visual Studio .NET 2003, Enterprise Manager

CertainSale

Project Background

CertainSale was a realty management company located in Lancaster Pennsylvania, Nebraska, and North Carolina. CertainSale was a small business with only a few employees, but since the company was spread across a number of different locations, management needed a way to exchange documents and messages between offices. Due to the distributed nature of the company, a web application was a perfect fit. CertainSale's public website was also in need of a redesign. I used my graphic design skills to create a professional public face for this company on the web.

My Contributions

My favorite part about the CertainSale project was that I got the chance to try on a number of different hats while completing this project. Since this was a private consulting job, I was the salesman, project manager, and developer all at once. I especially enjoyed meeting with the client and determining exactly how I could best support their business.

Phase 1
The first phase of this project was to redesign the public website. The goal was to create a clean, professional site that could display relevant information, be updated dynamically, and receieve user inquiries. I created a web form to receieve user input linked the public website to the web application to allow statistics to be updated. CertainSale has recently gone out of business so I am unable to provide a link to the public website at this time.

Phase 2
The second phase of this project was to create the webAdmin application. webAdmin was an application built with PHP and MySQl to allow users to send messages, post files, and update the dynamic public website. There were also administrative tools to manage users to the system and change access privileges.

Technology Used

PHP, MySQL, PHP MyAdmin, Dreamweaver

SciCom

Project Background

SciCom, founded by my summer 2005 room mate Raja Bobbili, is an organization that collects technical articles from college students and publishes them in a Zambian newspaper to encourage Zambians to get involved in technology. I truely believe that education is the key to solving the poverty and AIDs issues in Africa, so this organization was a natural fit for me.

My Contributions

I designed the site to be XHTML and CSS 2.0 complient and tables are not used for formatting. Due to this, it makes it easy to update the design of the site even though all the pages are static HTML. PHP and some sneaky redirecting was used to handle the submit article and join features.

Technology Used

XHTML, CSS 2.0, Gimp

Toy Talk

Project Background

Toy Talk is a small business which specializes in selling diecast replica vehicles. Toy Talk does business online at http://www.toytalkreplicas.com and also attends many toy shows to sell their merchandise. The owners of Toy Talk needed a way to manage inventory while on the road at shows and also while in the office. This is where I came in.

My Contributions

While interning at Io Intelligence Systems, Inc. in the summer of 2004, I was assigned to the Toy Talk project. I began by collecting information on the current way that Toy Talk managed their inventory. I looked at old reports and spent some time reviewing project specifications. Since Toy Talk needed to be able to manager their information from anywhere in the country, a web application was the natural fit.

I first began by creating the data model and setting up the SQL database. Next I created the basic page layout and designed a navigation system. One key request from the Toy Talk representatives was that the inventory management system needed to be easy to use. For this reason I created a number of large buttons and limited the number of navigation options. This made it less confusing when navigating the application. Using Classic ASP I created a number of web forms to allow for data entry. I also created a number of pages for reporting. One key challenge that I had to overcome for this project was handling the layout of printed reports. I used CSS to build page breaks into the document so that the reports would print out nicely. When the project was complete, I got the opportunity to demo the product for the client and answer their questions. This project was a major success.

Technology Used

Classic ASP, SQL Server 2000, Microsoft Visual Interdev, Microsoft Enterprise Manager

Smart Car

Project Background

The smart car was a project for a Laboratory Introduction to Embedded Control class at RPI. For this project, I worked with my partner Paul Ireifej to achieve the project goals.

My Contributions

The goal of the Smart Car was to create a vehicle which could follow a path marked on the ground with black rubber and white tape. To achieve this goal, my partner and I built the microprocessor-to-car interface circuitry and wrote a C program. This circuitry included an optical tracking subsystem, a steering subsystem, and a speed control subsystem. The optical tracking system consisted of 2 photodectors matched with infrared LEDs to track the position of the car on the track. To steer the car, the input from the optical tracking system was analyzed by the C code to control the servo motor which turned the wheels to keep the car on the path. The speed control subsystem took input from the on-board tachnometer and used a speed control algorithm to send the proper signal to the DC motor.

Technology Used

C Code, Intel 8051 Microcontroller, 7400 series chips

Media

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IED "Robot"

Project Background

Introduction to Engineering Design (IED) is the most feared/loved class at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institue. This class requires teams of approximately eight students to work on a design project. In the fall of 2005, Professor Larry Ruff gave my class the option of building competition robots instead of the assigned project. Everyone in the class instantly agreed. The rules were simple:

1) The robot must be 18"x12"x12"
2) The robot must collect balls off of the ground and from a pipe sticking out of the wall 12" above the ground.
3) The robot must deposit the balls over a 12" high wall.
4) The robot must weigh less than 25lbs.
5) The cost of the robot must be less than $450

My team chose to build a radio-controlled robot (which makes it more of a vehicle). The robot collected balls off of the ground using a golf-cart-like collection wheel in the rear of the robot. These balls were desposited into the large blue collection bucket which doubled as a collector for the balls which came from the pipe in the wall. To score the balls, an actuator raised the bucket up so that the balls tumbled out of the bucket and over the scoring wall.

The robot was propelled by two large wheels in the front and a caster wheel in the back. The large wheels were powered by two cordless drill motors. The robot steered via a skid-steering system.

My Contributions

All of the aforementioned functionality was controlled by a control subsystem which contained four separate parts: wireless communications, power subsystem, propulsion control, actuator control. My key contributions came in the areas of wireless communications and control. To complete the wireless communications system, I reverse-engineered two remote control cars. By measuring the output voltage when different commands were sent from the transmitter to the receiver, I was able to identify the necessary number of signals to control our vehicle. After I was able to produce signals to control the robot, I wrote code for the C8051 microcontroller to connect these inputs to the appropriate output devices (actuator and driver motors). I also setup the H-Bridges to properly control the drive motors and wired the robot.

Technology Used

C Code, Intel 8051 Microcontroller, 7400 series chips, H-Bridge Controllers