Senior Exit Project

[iisthemuffin]

At my school we have to do a Senior exit project before we can graduate. The project consists of a 10 page research paper and 2 visual aids to acompany a 10 minute speech.

We also have to do a hands on project ( one of the my visuals would be explaining the project)

Ive decided to do mine on electrical engineering as that is the carrer on plan on going into.

I want to build something for my hands on project.

It has to be electrical though since that is my topic. It could be anything.

Im jsut curious if anyone on here has a suggestion on what i could make.

I do not want it to be too simple but i want it to be accomplishable within a few months.

Ive got a few ideas but nothing to really run with. Any input is appreciated.

[explsvcookie257]

I have an idea you could make a laser and you could make the circuit to power it and explain how it works and why you used the components in the driver for it and you can make a quite powerful one 150mW or more.

go to www.laserpointerforums.com and read about it there or you can pm me and i will try and find all the links you need

Its not hard to do

I cant remember if its against the rules to tell about another forum but if it is feel free to delete my post

Ok hope this helps

[gotbass7]

this probably isnt a very good idea, because it probably isnt complicated enough, but you could mod a guitar hero controller to work with your pc, and write/download software to make it into a binary based instrument. its pretty sweet, even if you do it just for fun

[Pyro Ninja]

A nice tesla coil?

[TurboSuper]

I built a clap-activated lightswitch in a few hours, you could always try that.

[starman]

There is an unlimited universe of things you can build, as you must already know. Take a look here to get some practical ideas.

You could also build a combustion spud gun and design a home made spark source and fan controller.

[rp181]

tesla coil, coilgun or railgun (that would be cool). If you were to do a railgun, you could make a compulsator.

[mark.f]

The one we had to do had to be a really specific topic. If you just choose "electrical engineering", it's not really a research project, now is it? It's more of a report.

We had to choose something that actually required research and compiling of very spread out sources. Basically, you had to cover an angle nobody's covered before (or few people have covered before).

So... maybe choose your topic as "Electrical Engineering and Its Implications in Future Weaponry"? You'll have to choose your "official" topic soon enough, so you might as well figure the angle you're gonna write from (unless you don't have to follow this criteria).

My advice: just get it done. Senior projects are a pain in the ass, and if you put it off or dawdle you'll wind up with crap.

[TurboSuper]

Erm...I dunno about you guys, but all the "educational" projects I've done had a strict ban on weapons or other "unethical" things.

You may be able to pass off a simple coilgun as a science project, though.

I'll repeat what I said in the other thread though: You should really get a multimeter.

[microman171]

I passed of a coil gun... It had a large camera flash bank and could shoot through notebooks. I got to the regional finals with it

[sniper hero]

http://video.google.nl/videoplay?docid= ... t=lf&hl=en

hope you play an instrument

[brogdenlaxmiddie]

I'm with Sniper Hero.... That would be completely bad ass. Of coarse you'd have to let us know how to make one ourselves (By that I mean use the coil as a amp)

[Pilgor]

you should build an EMP generator. or you can take a look at "electronic gadgets for the evil genius" books, there are two of them. The books teach how to make so many things: anti-gravity projects, electro kinetic guns, mass accelerators, all types of lasers, tesla coils, nightvison, and more. I love these books and I can send you a copy of the ebooks if you need them.

[rp181]

audio modulating is actually quite easy, the video is of a DRSSTC. A SSTC (solid state tesla coil) Is easy to build, safer, and easy to modulate then a DRSSTC. Look up a SSTC, to audio mudulate it, you just feed auido signal into pin 4 of the 555 half bridge driver. Look up steve wards mini SSTC circuit.

[DYI]

Erm...I dunno about you guys, but all the "educational" projects I've done had a strict ban on weapons or other "unethical" things.

Hmm... No one has suggested he make any type of weapon so far, and he never inferred that this was his plan

Anyhow, I think it all depends on whether or not you get funding for this from the school. If it's all to be done with your own money, use something you already have. Otherwise, a tesla coil would be nice, or even a Marx generator if you're going for (relatively) cheap'n'easy. You have to remember, the vast majority of projects will end up being well below Grade 8 level by our standards, so you really don't have anything to worry about from the competition (unless the populace of your school is vastly different from that of mine).

And seriously, a railgun? Overkill is nice, but spending several thousand dollars on a high school project might be going just a bit too far (unless, of course, you're going to be building one anyway).