ESE 350 Project Proposal
- Project Title: Smart Paddles
- Team: Meta Knight
- Laura Kingsley, Software Lead
- Catherine Yee, Hardware Lead
- TA Mentor: Aadu
- Motivation:
There are hundreds of thousands of competitive swimmers in the United States alone. For years, innovative coaches have been eager to use swimming equipment to improve the performance of their athletes including resistance bands, drag chutes, tempo trackers and more. Despite the high demand for performance tech for swimmers, no one has ever built a device that can measure the isolated force and acceleration of a swimmer’s arm stroke. With this kind of device, the collected data could be analyzed to identify weak points in a swimmer’s arm stroke to improve performance in the water.
- Goal:
Our finished product will be a wearable hand paddle that swimmers can use to measure the position, acceleration, and applied pressure of their arm strokes. It will be able to capture these measurements and wirelessly transmit the information to a computer for analysis.Our system will be waterproof, lightweight, and hydrodynamic.
- Methodology:
Our first steps are to do research on potential components and perform preliminary land tests with an IMU. We will record the data collected by the on-chip sensors for circular, stroke-like motion and observe patterns that we can use to analyze collected data. We will also order additional pressure sensors, waterproofing materials, and all other materials.
The next step is to develop hardware, software and mechanical designs. The hardware design will incorporate all necessary power supply solutions, sensors, wireless communication, and waterproofing. More on-land testing will be done to ensure data collection is still accurate in this stage. Software development will include writing algorithms for stroke pattern recognition using MATLAB, interfacing with the sensors, programing modes of operations, and wireless communication. Preliminary SolidWorks designs will be made to construct the physical paddle.
Finally, we will bring the hardware, software, and physical paddle together to create our waterproof prototype. At this stage, we will be doing most of our in-water testing in the pool at Pottruck with a variety of different swimmers to test our software and determine how to qualitatively present the data in a way that makes sense for users.
- Project Components:
Hardware: We will be using ARM mbed M0 cortex microcontroller for ADC functionality and ability to interface with wireless communication chips. We need a microcontroller that is small, lightweight, and low power. We don’t need the functionality of a more sophisticated microprocessor because our application doesn’t involve image or audio capture. An IMU will be used to collect position and acceleration information. Additional pressure sensors will measure exerted force. Switches, buttons, and LED’s will be placed on the paddle so that swimmers can control the different operation modes.
Software: Using MATLAB, the transmitted data will be processed to graphically display the generated position, acceleration, and force curves as a function of time. Extensive in-water testing will allow us to match the signals to different stages in a swimmer’s stroke. Distance per stroke calculations will be displayed as an indication of efficiency.
Mechanical: The physical paddle will be 3D printed to maximize hydrodynamics and provide more waterproofing for the enclosed circuitry. Latex surgical tubing will allow swimmers to secure the paddle to their hands. All hardware components will be waterproofed with CorrosionX or Silicon sealant to prevent shorting. A second “dummy” paddle will be built that is symmetrical to the Smart Paddle, but doesn’t contain the hardware so that swimming is more natural.
- Testing and Evaluation:
We will evaluate our project by the way we accomplish our milestones. First, we want to see that our paddle does what we intended it to do and that our hardware is functioning - paddle responds to button presses, captures data, transmits data to computer, is waterproof. The next area of evaluation is software - we want to see that the data is meaningful, can be displayed in a way that gives relevant information to swimmer, the software disregards meaningless data, the graphical interface is user friendly, and derives swimmer metrics. Water tests will include data captured from the paddle, the manually captured time it took the swimmer to get across the pool, and underwater video for us to improve data analysis.
- Deliverables:
Baseline 1: Waterproof hand paddle that can measure position, acceleration, and force in the water in capture mode.
Baseline 2: Ability to transmit data wirelessly to computer in send mode.
Baseline 3: Graphical display of collected data on computer with some data/signal processing to make data more qualitative and understandable for users.
Reach Goals - Extra Credit:
Wireless charging: We want our paddle to be cordless and lightweight. We will need a power supply solution that isn’t too bulky or heavy. Wireless charging would be an elegant solution to this problem, but would definitely require more advanced hardware design and much more research in an area that is somewhat unrelated to our project.
A Second Smart Paddle: We think we’ll have our hands full by just constructing one Smart Paddle, but adding a second unit would allow swimmers to identify differences between the two sides of their stroke.
- Overall Timeline:
3/22 - 3/25: Research components and waterproofing methods, complete proposal and abstract, start preliminary IMU land testing, order components materials, make webpage
3/26-3/29: Start working with MATLAB to develop graphical data display and stroke analysis, begin designing hardware for wireless communication and power, begin SolidWorks paddle design
3/30-4/2: More land testing and programming, hardware waterproofing, preliminary water tests (bucket) for pressure sensor
4/3-4/6: Construct waterproof paddle and prepare for water testing, make second dummy paddle
4/7-4/10: Start water testing with Catherine, ensure functionality of capture and send modes
4/11-4/14: Water testing with other swimmers, including data capture, manual time, and video, keep developing MATLAB code
4/15-4/18: More water testing and programming to ensure accuracy in data analysis, start filming for final demo video, consider attempting reach goals
4/19-4/22: Debugging, start compiling final demo video
4/23-4/24: More debugging and finishing touches
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