Sean Sylwester

Graduate student at
Oregon State University

Resume (Last updated: October 17, 2020)

Github

Education:

• Honors B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Oregon State University, 2014-2018
• (In Progress) PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering
  Oregon State University, 2018-Present

Occupations:

• Graduate Teaching Assistant
• Classes that I've assisted in:
• ECE 112 – Introduction to Electrical and Computer Engineering (Roger Traylor) (W16, W18)
• ECE 272 – Digital Logic Design Laboratory (Matthew Shuman) (F16, F17)
• ECE 351 – Signals and Systems I (Dr. V John Mathews) (W19, W20)
• ECE 375 – Computer Organization and Assembly Language Programming (Dr. Ben Lee) (F18)
• ENGR 201 – Electrical Fundamentals I (John Sweet) (Su 16)
• ENGR 202 – Electrical Fundamentals II (John Sweet, Dr. Larry Cheng) (Sp16, Su16, W17, Sp18)
• Graduate Research Assistant
• Member of the Information Processing Group, headed by Dr. V John Mathews.
• Researching signal processing techniques to improve control of neuroprostheses.

Contact Information:

• Email: sylwests@oregonstate.edu
• Phone: (541) 954-6346
• Office: Kelley Engineering Center 3040
  2500 NW Monroe Ave
  Corvallis, OR 97331
  

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Last updated: October 17, 2020

Senior Design Project – Navigation Assistance for the Vision Impaired

• Project description:
  • This wearable system consists of a headband of sensors and a waistband mounted with 8 haptic feedback motors.
  • The system improves navigational ability of the vision impaired by translating visual information that the individual is lacking into tactile feedback.
  • 360° visual information picked up by the headband sensors is analyzed to determine the locations of nearby objects. This information is relayed to the wearer by vibrating the waistband motors.
    • Motors in the direction of detected objects vibrate, with increasing vibration intensity corresponding to closer objects.
  • The system has a rechargeable 12hr battery life, a range of 1m in 360° and 5m in front of the user, a response time of 200ms, is completely waterproof, and weighs less than two pounds.
• Components I was responsible for:
  • All system PCBs: laser rangefinding sensors, haptic feedback modules, and the sensor and feedback controller boards.
  • All the code: initializing sensors on an I2C bus, reading laser and ultrasonic sensor data, analyzing sensor data, and outputting directions to the haptic feedback modules.
  • Design of the charging and power management systems.

Scripts and Demonstrations:

• Convolution.nb, DiscreteConvolution.nb - Mathematica convolution demonstrations
  • Mathematica notebook demonstration of continuous-time and discrete-time convolution using Mathematica's Manipulate[.] functionality.
  
• matlab_basics.m - MATLAB basics
  • MATLAB script file demonstrating the basics of MATLAB coding.
• discussion_crawler.py - Python Canvas discussion post crawler
  • Given login credentials and a class ID, this Python script controls a web crawler that downloads and parses all the discussion posts.
  • Outputs a Python Object containing a list of discussion threads, each containing all the student replies and file uploads.
  • Requires the Google Chrome driver binary in the same directory as the Python script.

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Last updated: January 28, 2020

Github Repositories:

• Cabinet Lighting – Automatic cabinet interior
  • Small PCB with LEDs and a magnetic Reed switch for automatically lighting cabinet interiors when the door is opened.
  • Github repository includes:
    • EAGLE CAD files
    • DigiKey Bill of Materials
• Amplifier Relay – Audio-controlled relay
  • Switches on a standard North American 60Hz 120V outlet when a sufficiently high audio signal is detected. The relay stays open until no audio is detected for 30 seconds.
  • Useful for turning on a stereo amplifier (often have high standby power usage) when you start playing music.
  • Github repository includes:
    • EAGLE CAD files
    • DigiKey Bill of Materials
    • LTSpice Simulation
    • Laser-cut box drawing
• Clock Controller – Clock control PCB
  • Low-power ATTiny85-based clock driver for an antique schoolhouse wall clock. Ticks every minute, and has buttons to correct for time drift
  • Github repository includes:
    • EAGLE CAD files
    • DigiKey Bill of Materials
    • Arduino controller code

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Last updated: January 28, 2020