These are projects from the past and ideas for the future...inspiration for students looking for a projects to take on!
IASC Files
Image Processor
Intelligent Hat
Kuiper Sphere
Skyprint 3-D
Smart Eyepiece
Solar Scope
STARS Uploader
USB Linux Drives
Zero Robotics
Ideas for the future:
Sensor Boxes
Goal: Make sensor boxes more easily than now
Will learn:
- Arduino/ Electronics Basics
- Soldering Basics
- Design Basics
- Efficiency/Consistency
Prettify the Server
Goal: Make the Stars Server pages look prettier.
Will learn:
- Web Design Basics
- HTML/CSS basics
- Consistency
- Some possible displays could be...
- A short film about why Pluto is no longer a planet.
- A display that shows off students' and astronomers' astrophotography taken at the Observatory. This display could also give a short blurb about what astrophotography is and its role at the Observatory. We could tie this into the plate vault and the SOFIA project.
- It would be interesting to have a project dealing with solar and lunar eclipses; perhaps transits also.
- It would be nice to have a feedback wall or system, so that students could give us ideas for new things they would want to learn about and then we could develop new displays based off what they say.
Virtual Tours
Goal: Update some of the... outdated pages on the actual Yerkes Website (astro.uchicago.edu), specifically this instance (astro.uchicago.edu).
Will learn:
- HTML5/CSS (as usual)
- Panoramic photo stitching
- Virtual Tour creation
- Layout of Visible Yerkes (if you haven't already)
Audio Camera for the Visually Impaired
Goal: Develop a camera that converts visuals into 3D audio to allow visually impaired students to hear the position of stars.
I came up with the idea from a personal project I wanted to pursue. I play games that use 3D audio to locate enemies, and I thought that it'd be pretty cool to use it to locate stars.
What I think is necessary:
- Program should be able to convert star images into "audio maps"
- Brightness determines loudness of sound (distance from "viewer")
- Size of star determines pitch of sound (Big = Low, Small = High)
- Position of star from center determines quadrant of sound to be played in (distance from other sounds)
- Each star receives an individual tone at its own time (sounds don't overlap)
- Stars should be identifiable from an image (pixel cluster registers as a star) (blob detection and coordinate gathering)
- Languages + Libraries planned on use:
- OpenAL (Python)
- For 3D audio
- Using python-openal currently, may opt for pyAL, maybe eventually move to C/C++
- OpenCV (Python)
- finding stars in the image (blob detection)
- locating star coordinates
- Yerkes as a site to be Weather-Ready Nation Ambassadors
- http://www.weather.gov/wrn/ambassadors