Description:

1. Identify needs that justify an electrical and computer engineering problem-solving effort

2. Develop a design proposal that justifies the need to develop a technical solution to a problem

• Objective (why?)

• Background (who? where?)

• Methodology (how? when?)

• Expected results (what?)

• Costs (how much will it cost?)

Program Outcome 5: (Teaming and Leadership)

5.2 (Teamwork) Students will participate in a modest-sized team to develop initial ideas into a full project, with the final objectives of the team evolving from the collaboration rather than being defined a-priori.

GalleryGuild.net - Artist Community Website

Project Duration: 3/3/24 - 5/4/24

Needs:

Spaces for artists online over the years have consolidated into two different types of websites: either social media that prioritizes artists that garner a lot of attention on their post, or websites that prioritize making money off of artwork. There aren't many spaces online that focus on artists connecting to and learning from each other through their artwork without the pressure of making money or being popular.

Our Proposal:

To create an online platform dedicated to artists that focuses around creating and sharing artwork and fostering communities dedicated to specific things, such artwork of specific mediums or genres, fanart of specific characters and franchises, and any other special interests in artwork. Our platform would also include a tagging system that allows artists to tag their uploaded artwork with tags that describe their artwork they uploaded, such as what medium they used, what the subject(s) there are (franchise, characters, etc...). Users then can search using these tags to find specific artwork they're looking for and also find communities this way too.

1. • Objective (why?): Other platforms that allow artists to post their artwork does not focus on the community aspect of creating and rather focuses on making money

   • Background (who? where?): Artists online

   • Methodology (how? when?): Creating a website that utilizes groups and tagging to connect artists with each other

   • Expected results (what?): The formation of communities/networks of artists who learn from each other and form connections based on what kind of artwork they create

   • Costs (how much will it cost?): Cost of website hosting, domain name, moderation labor, maintenance labor

Cost:

Initial labor is free, since it's just us, but the addition of back-end and front-end developers would create labor costs. Domain name and website hosting would also be costs. The GalleryGuild.net domain name is $12/yr. Since we're just starting out, it would make more sense to host with a hosting service before buying servers ourselves. The cost for a basic web hosting service is around $50/month.

Total initial cost is $FREE.99 + $12 so $12.99

Total monthly cost would initially be around $50/month to pay for the web servers and any ongoing costs for the beginning platform, but as the platform grows larger and the need for larger databases and faster servers increases, the monthly cost would increase greatly as the need for mass storage and redundancy increases with an ever increasing amount of data needed to be stored on the platform. If the platform takes off and becomes a large platform storing large amounts of artwork and daily uploads from users, the cost likely will exceed $1,000 per month and increase even more with the growing platform. 

Underground Location Yield Searching and Scouting Environment System (ULYSSES)

Project Duration: 2/10/24 - 5/4/24

Needs:

The need for a reliable and fast location sharing method for people entirely underground such as communicating between miners underground or from the surface to deep underground. The system should ideally function underground while consuming minimal battery to allow for the devices to be easy to carry on miners or other people underground.

Our Proposal:

To find the positions of miners that work in mines that may be susceptible to cave-ins, a global positioning system that can be used underground would let rescue services know where miners are when accidents occur. This would lower the mortality rates of miners in accidents. The cost of this technical solution would involve the cost of each miner’s piece of equipment, as well as the cost of a machine that uses a wireless positioning network to find where each miner’s piece of equipment is in the mine.

1. • Objective (why?): To find the positions of miners and find them if there is accidents. A lot of miners lose their lives to cave-ins. 

   • Background (who? where?): Miners in mines are in danger of being lost in cave-ins and other accidents

   • Methodology (how? when?): A global positioning system would let rescue services know where miners are when accidents occur

   • Expected results (what?): Lower the mortality rates of miners in accidents

   • Costs (how much will it cost?): Cost of individual equipment, cost of company equipment (wireless positioning network)

Cost:

Individual equipment would probably be in a cost range between a combination of Walkie Talkies and individual GPS systems. This is a range of $110-$300 per miner. The average Coal Mining business in the US has 40.8 employees, so this would equal to around $4,510-$12,300.

Company equipment includes a radio network tower that would be positioned at the entry point of the mine (Bottom of Elevator Shaft) and above ground (Above Elevator Shaft), along with any signal extenders that may be needed to strengthen the connection. Online research reveals that a radio tower typically costs ~$25,000 to $500,000 to build, but these are the big ones that handle car radio and cell signal. In reality, the range would be around $150 per foot for steel construction or $200 per foot for concrete construction. Our towers would ideally be around 4 feet tall and made of concrete, so our cost would be around $800.

Labor cost of maintenance for the Wireless Towers would include one technician being paid around $30/hr. According to indeed, The average salary for a network technician is $25.91 per hour in the United States, so it would be around that ballpark. The technician would only need to be called to do maintenance checks and repairs, so they would only need to be called in around 8 hrs a week, which makes a monthly cost of about $960.

The role of who uses the towers when it's needed in an emergency would be added to the responsibilities of an already employed administrator or IT personnel, so a raise of about $5/hr would be appropriate. The employee is full-time so they would work about 40 hrs a week, which would make 160 hrs a month. The raise would make a monthly cost of $800.

Total initial cost is around $5,310-$13,100.

Total monthly cost would be around $1,760.