Wifi Boom Box

Using a Netgear router and a stereo boom box, installed Linux on the router, connected USB sound card, wired to the boom box, and configured system to automatically connect to available open wireless networks and play streaming music over the internet. (Perl, Bash, C++). More Details…

Simon FPGA

For my Digital System Design class we were given the option of implementing our own independent project. I chose to make a clone of the Matel electronic Simon memory game on a Field Programmable Gate Array. I used VHDL and Xilinx ISE on a Digilent Basys development board. I learned a lot as a result of this project and had a lot of fun doing it.

Median Filter & Histogram Stretching FPGA

Implemented a median filter and histogram algorithm on a FPGA Spartan 2 Development Board. The FPGA connected to a PC via parallel cable. The PC sends a PGM image file to the FPGA. The FPGA stores the image on an external ram chip. Then, the PC sends a command to start processing the image. The FPGA processes the image, writing the result back to memory. The PC program then requests the image from the FPGA and displays the processed image on the PC monitor.

Heart Beat Monitor

The point of the project was to implement a complete automatic data acquisition system. Specifically, it monitors and reports a human’s heart rate. The system works using an opto-isolator that emits IR light through an LED that is then picked up by a photo transistor. So, for the heart rate sensor, a human finger rests on top of the opto-isolator that produces a varying voltage as a result of the blood flow through the finger. The signal is then passed through an amplifier and low pass filter to condition it for the microcontroller. The signal was connected to the ATD of an HCS12 microcontroller programmed to calculate the heart rate and display it to a PC monitor via serial connection. More Details…

VLSI Brent-Kung Adder Physical Layout

Designed and implemented the layout an 8-bit Brent-Kung adder with BIST using TSMC 0.35 micron N-Well process technology. More Details…

Quiz System

Designed and implemented a quiz administering system written for the RIT CS Department. Through this project I learned a great deal about webdesign from the front end user interface to the backend database and server side code.  I woked on this project as an Independent Study along with Robert Peaslee.  (Python, MySQL, LDAP, XML, JavaScript, and XHTML).

Educational Spelling Game

Led a team of three of my classmates in developing an education game intended to teach first through fifth graders how to spell (Java).

Puzzle Solver

Implemented an abstracted puzzle solver in C++ using a depth first search algorithm. Implemented three games that used the solver to determine moves for the AI (C++).

Virtual RoadTrip

Over the summer of 2008, I drove across the country (CA to NY and back). On my way back, I thought it’d be cool to take a bunch of pictures to show my family/friends. I also wanted them to know my location as I progress. Since I was going to be driving half the time and sleeping the other half, I wanted all of this to be done automatically. Using my camera, my laptop, and my phone, I implemented a pretty hackish Perl script to accomplish this. The laptop would send commands to the camera via USB every hour to take a picture, connect to the internet via tether to the phone, and upload the images to my website. It worked fairly well, except the camera’s implementation of the USB-PC control interface was spotty at best. After taking a picture or two it would freeze and I’d have to disconnect and power cycle the camera. That proved to be quite a pain, so I ended up taking the pictures myself and using the laptop to upload them manually. I also used twitter and my phone’s built in gps to update my location every hour or so. Next time I go on a road trip, I’ll try this again with a new camera and do some proper geotagging (and it will be 100% automated).

Twitter & CSH Infosys

I recently became a fan of twitter. It’s a “micro blogging” service that allows users to see what other people are doing. Being a member of CSH, I have a lot of friends that use this service and I thought it’d be cool to aggregate their updates. On CSH, we have an LED marquee display that we use to show news. So, I wrote a script to aggregate member updates and display them to the sign.

Git source code repository: http://git.dbrenn.com/

Some additional project information: http://www.david-brenner.net/category/projects/