Sean Sylwester Webpage

Graduate student at
Oregon State University

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

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)

Last updated: October 17, 2020

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.

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.

Last updated: January 28, 2020

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

Last updated: January 28, 2020