BETTER BIKING: A group of students from fall semester’s ME trade show created Visiobike, a sensor that monitors a rider’s speed, distance, time, and heart rate. The safety benefit of this device is that it doesn’t distract you. The data display is mounted into the helmet so riders don’t have to look down at their handlebars to get information. The group envisions installing the final device in a pair of sunglasses.

ME trade show spotlights student ingenuity

At the end of every fall semester the second floor of Etcheverry is transformed into a student showcase of cutting- edge technology and inventions, all based on the tiny sensors and motes under development at Berkeley.

Student groups had a month and a half to conceptualize and implement a new product for an ME graduate class. Funding was provided by Ford Motor Co., and the work was carried out in Etcheverry’s Ford Prototyping Lab.

Each project was based on the motes developed by Professors David Culler and Kris Pister as part of a Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS) initiative, and are now produced by Crossbow Inc. Motes are wireless, sensor-based computer platforms that are the brains inside each “smart” product.

ME grad students teamed up with students from the Haas and School of Information and Management Sciences to bring the world inventions so clever and pragmatic they prompted observers to wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

The display of final projects from ME221 drew local press, students and tech junkies to glimpse products that don’t currently exist, but certainly should.

Imagine a device that finds empty parking spaces in a crowded parking lot?

The device works by equipping every parking space in the lot with a pressure sensor that lets drivers know it is empty.

Other products included a bicycle alarm system that sends a warning to the owner if someone tampers with his or her lock, a “smart shopper” that lets customers access product information in a variety of languages, and a device that checks your blind spot before you change lanes in your car.

Many of the groups took products that already existed and made them “smarter” with the addition of mote technology.

For example, there was a self-timed heat or ice pad that helps patients figure out how long and how often to attend to an injury.

How about an electronic bulletin board that delivers messages targeted to individual readers? The board responds to sensors located on key chains, which beams personal preferences and interests to the bulletin board.

“We designed a product like this to use in an existing community like a nursing home or office building to help increase the sense of community,” says group member Katherine Newman.

Another group melded an alarm and a pillow to create a personalized alarm pillow that gently wakes you, but not your partner, with a silent vibration.

For more information on ME221 go to kingkong.me.berkeley.edu/html/Me221/me221_tradeshows.htm

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