On May 17th & 18th, 2014, the 10th edition of the international “Digilent Design Contest” took place at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Romania. What started 10 years ago as a small contest held at the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca has turned into something much bigger.
As you’d expect, in 10 years these contests have gotten better and better. This year we had nearly 60 applicants, and after a selection process, 30 teams (students working alone or in pairs) were chosen to present at the contest. They came from universities in Cluj-Napoca, Brasov, Iasi, Targu Mures, Timisoara, Baia-Mare, Bucharest (Romania), Gdansk (Poland), Subotica (Serbia). On Saturday, all 30 of these teams presented their hard work in front of nine judges. After that, the nine best projects were chosen.
On Sunday, May 18th, those nine teams went head-to-head in front of all the participants and judges in order to determine who would be the victor. It was hard work deciding between them, and the results speak for themselves.
The former and current President of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca, Prof. Radu Munteanu, Ph.D. and Prof. Aurel Vlaicu, Ph.D., were also present at the award ceremony and congratulated the winners and organizers for the achievements.
Author(s)
Description
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Alin Adochitei
Sergiu Costenciuc
Gheorghe Asachi University Iasi, Romania
First Prize
Autoscaling Impedancemeter – The “Autoscaling Impedancemeter” is used to measure the impedance parameters for elementary or complex unknown impedance. The device will measure directly the R and X parameters and then calculate the impedance parameters based on an algorithm. It has two modes of operation:
a) manual mode
b) auto-scaling mode
Cristian Ignat
TUCN
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Third Prize
Real time digital circuit design tool in FPGA with VGA interface – Real-time logic gates simulation tool using FPGA board and VGA interface. The interface includes the schematic design area and Logic analyzer area, where the output signals can be visualized.
Augustin Togorean
Flavius Vlasa
TUCN
Cluj-Napoca, Romania
ARM Award
Driver drowsiness detection system – A system that detects the fatigue of the driver with the help of a video camera and the ZyBo board form Digilent. Face, eyes and mouth recognition is realized with the help of Viola -Jones algorithm, implemented in VHDL and C++ and then based on some common reactions of a tired driver we detect fatigue and then trigger some alarms and preventive warnings even before the driver will fall asleep.
Marius Carp
Sebastian Pascu
Gheorghe Asachi University Iasi, Romania
Microchip Award
Smart Storm Hunter – The Smart Storm Hunter (SSH) project is intended for remote monitoring of meteorological parameters with automatic alerting in case of approaching a lightning storm. The SSH contain two components: Sensor Module (SM) and Monitoring Center (MC). The SM is located in the place from which are retrieved weather data. The MC is located on the place where data from SM are processed.
Catalin Marian Miu
Jullia Cristiana Birsan
University Politechnica of Bucharest,
Bucharest, Romania
Microchip Award
Drive Assistant – A prototype system which is best suited to the car of tomorrow. The main goal of our project is not to replace the human driver, but to improve security together with comfort while driving.
Diana Asofiei
Maxim Ciuntu
Gheorghe Asachi University, Iasi, Romania
Honorable Mention
Sharp House – The project’s goal is to create a Smart House application, which will assist the inhabitants in comfort, security and energy efficiency areas. There will be several types of modules in our system, which will be physically located in the house or near it.
Alexandru Savu
Transilvania University of Brasov
Brasov, Romania
Honorable Mention
CPU Analyzer – The project implements a generic in circuit debug solution for custom processors. The proof of concept is implemented using a Z80 core. The Z80 core is debugged using a Microblaze core. The connection of the Microblaze core to the host computer is made using UART communication. The project can be used in two use cases:
– to debug the program that is being written to the custom core
– to debug the custom core using benchmark software.
A PC software implementing a graphical user interface is created to allow easy debugging.
Iulian Cosmin Calciu
Ioan Vladimir Oltean
University Politechnica of Bucharest,
Bucharest, Romania
Honorable Mention
Persistence of Vision RGB – POV (Persistence of vision) is a principle based on which an image of a moving object appears continuous on the retina, even after its position has changed. The project exploiting this effect by rotating a panel of LEDs, which are changing the column of an image they are displaying at a regular amount of time. Thus, being able to simulate a full 360 degree display just by using two vertical LED panels.
View all the contest entries here
View more pictures of the event here