| Windows Embedded Student ChallengE 2006 -- winning projects |
(Jun. 25, 2006)
Representatives of 30 student development teams from seven countries converged on Microsoft's Redmond, Wash. campus June 23-25, to compete in the third annual Windows Embedded Student ChallengE, which featured the theme, "Preserving, protecting, and enhancing the environment." Five winning teams collectively were awarded $24,000 in cash.
 The teams, which each comprised three or four undergraduate students plus a faculty advisor, were tasked with designing a computer-based system that solves a "real-world problem" corresponding to the competition's annual theme. The projects were required to run on top of Microsoft's Windows CE embedded operating system, and had to reside on the x86-based eBox II platform hardware (shown at right).
According to Microsoft, 367 student teams submitted their products for judging. Of those, 30 projects were selected to compete in the finals, and five finalists were chosen as winners.
Among the seven countries represented in the group of 30 finalists, China accounted for nearly half, at 14 entries. The U.S. was second, with five teams, followed by India (four), Romania (three), Mexico (two), and Brazil and Australia with one each, Microsoft said.
The five winning projects included systems to: prevent forest devastation; reduce the eradication of protected and rare birds in fish farms; conserve electricity through controlled street lamp lighting; identify and classify bird species; and, improve the lot of coal miners.
This article profiles the five winning teams and their projects. Additionally, it provides a list of all 30 finalists, with links to each project's online final report.
1st Place -- $8,000 Award:
44 Tech, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania
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Project -- "Forest Watcher," a monitoring system for preventing forest devastation
Team members -- Christian Iuliu Pop, Iaona Romelia Bratie, Omar Choudary, Mircea Dan Gheorghe
According to 44 Tech, the most significant cause of deforestation is illegal logging, representing 40 percent of the trees cut in Romania and rising to as much as 80 percent in some countries of South East Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The team's project addresses this problem with a network of sensors placed in the forest, which gather information about cutting noises, temperature, humidity, pressure, and carbon monoxide in the area. Data is processed, and the forestry is automatically informed of problems such as fire or illegal logging.
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Forest Watcher incorporates a network of up to 200 wireless sensors covering a forest area up to 200 hectares. The sensors communicate with a Central Unit (CU) built on an eBox II device running Windows CE. Forestry officials receive alerts from the CU on Pocket PC PDAs. The CU is also connected to the Internet.
This project's final report can be accessed here (Word file download).
2nd Place -- $6000 Award
Erebus, University of Southern Florida
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Project -- The "Erebus Scarecrow," an intelligent system to reduce eradication of protected and rare birds in fish farms
Team members -- Albert Ng, Jimal Ramsamooj, Francisco Blanquicet, Scott Werner
The Erebus Intelligent Scarecrow addresses a problem faced by commercial aquaculture operations that are subject to predation by endangered bird species such as Blue Herons and American Egrets. The Erebus team cites an article from Sept. 2001, claiming that Mississippi Valley fish farms suffer predation losses as high as $18 million annually. Existing techniques such as random noise makers are ineffective, and killing the birds is undesirable from an environmental viewpoint -- and illegal in the case of endangered species.
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Erebus uses a video camera and image processing techniques to identify and classify intruders. The eBox II discriminates the type of intruder based on characteristics such as color, and responds in an appropriate manner such as playing high-volume sounds, such as gun shots or bird distress calls, or attempting to physically hit the bird with a high-pressure spray of water.
Additionally, the scarecrow performs event analysis, to monitor pest intrusions and gauge the system's effectiveness through its system interface. The system can record events to a log, and provides user notification through email or SMS messaging.
This project's final report can be accessed here (Word file download).
3rd Place -- $4,000 Award
Stars, Xidian University, China
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Project -- "Starswave," a system designed to conserve electricity through controlled street lamp lighting
Team members -- Mingming Cheng, Ling Qiu, Wenbo Li, Shaofu Zhang
"Just imagine that in one pitch dark night, there is a brilliant light wave along the lonely road and that when one brightens, another dims out. And the very center of which is you!" Starswave aims to substantially reduce the amount of electricity devoted to nighttime street lighting, by intelligently turning high-power LED lights on and off in response to the presence of pedestrians and vehicles.
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Starswave uses infrared sensors to detect vehicles, and a "pyroelectric" sensor to detect people. A series of light-on devices (LOD), each controlling one LED light, is connected through CANbus to an Ebox that controls a street full of lights.
By connecting the Eboxes to the Internet, information such as sunrise and sunset times can supplement the control algorithm, as can weather information about fog or rain that may require the lights to be on during daylight hours. The sensors can also provide useful traffic information.
This project's final report can be accessed here (PDF file download).
4th Place -- $3,200 Award
The Release Candidates, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania
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Project -- "BirdSpot," a system for identifying and classifying bird species
Team members -- Alin Lazar, Andrei Gheorghe, Mihai Ciureanu, Radu Nedelcut
The Danube Delta, located in Eastern Romania, is on the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites and Biosphere Reserves. It is also home to over 300 different bird species, some of which are very rare or unique, such as the cormorant and the white pelican. BirdSpot is an automated tool for studying these birds without too much "anthropic interference."
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The BirdSpot system automatically detects, identifies, and classifies bird species based on visual information, in order to determine the evolution of the population density of distinct species in a designated area. Energy-efficient and affordable wireless devices are placed in remote natural habitats to gather visual data. The data is transmitted to a processing server for aggregate interpretation, based on intelligent image processing and adaptive machine learning algorithms. The output results, consisting of the identified bird species and their locations, are integrated into a database and are accessible via a user-friendly web interface.
The team suggests that BirdSpot can also be useful in managing the spread of avian flu, by identifying the arrival of species suspected of carrying the various and automatically notifying authorities.
This project's final report can be accessed here (PDF file download).
5th Place -- $2,400 Award
BUPTUNITED, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
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Project -- ACES, an A1 coal mine enhancing system
Team members -- Xingrui Ji, Yi Shi, Lei Wang, Chenpeng Hu
Approximately seven million Chinese mineworkers collectively produced over two billion tons of coal in 2005 under very "unstable and hazardous" conditions, according to team BUPTUNITED. Common hazards include explosions, frequent and prolonged exposure to airborne contaminants such as rock dust, and excessive noise and heat stress.
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ACES consists of ad hoc, multi-hop, collaborative wireless sensor networks (WSNs) coupled to eBoxes, and ultimately to a central PC that performs complete analysis and permanent storage. The system employs a "three-layered time-critical prediction" strategy that includes sensor layer alarming, CE layer analysis, and finally, PC layer prediction. In this manner, algorithms with different complexities are allocated to different layers, balancing the tradeoff between hardware capability and system requirements.
To address the unique requirements of underground mines, the team developed SHARP (threSHold Adaptive Routing by ordering Protocol). SHARP aims to deal with the "belt-like" nature of underground mines and the mobility issues related to workers carrying sensors.
This project's final report can be accessed here (PDF file download).
Summary of All 30 Finalists and Their Project Reports
Click each project title below, to download the team's final "final report" (PDF or Word file): - Team Haxors, RMIT University, Australia
Project: Greenbox360 -- A cost-effective energy saving control system for households
- Team UNESP, Universidade Estadual Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho, Brazil
Project: MySensorNet -- A low-cost solution to aggregate sensors that collect environmental data in embedded hardware
- Team InfoBay, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, China
Project: SafeInFire -- An intelligent fire-monitoring, escape-and-rescue guiding solution designed for personal use in crowded public spaces
- Team BUPTUNITED, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
Project: ACES -- An A1 coal mine enhancing system
- Team GAIA Ray Studio, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
Project: INAUMAS -- An intelligent and automatic marsh gas system
- Team YME, Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, China
Project: SmartHeat -- An intelligent room-heating control system
- Team Aeolus, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, China
Project: Aeolus Robot -- An intelligent robot designed to inspect, monitor, and service nuclear power plants
- Team Lily Studio, Nanjing University, China
Project: AntiHunter -- A system used to discover and trace illegal hunting activities
- Team Explorers!!!, Nankai University, China
Project: Smart Hand -- An intelligent control system designed to enhance solar energy use
- Team Stork, Sichuan University, China
Project: STORK -- A PC-driven ultrasound system
- Team Pluto, Southeast University, China
Project: Solar Eclipse -- A system designed to improve night-driving conditions
- Team Winter Sun, Tianjin University, China
Project: Unlimitary Rescue System -- A rescue system designed for mine collapses
- Team T1, University of Science and Technology of China
Project: WAWAMA -- A water-saving washing machine
- Team T8, University of Science and Technology of China
Project: AWQMS -- An automatic water quality monitoring system
- Team Orient Eagle, Xidian University, China
Project: REMinders -- A real-time system designed to measure, display and monitor various environmental conditions within cities
- Team Stars, Xidian University, China
Project: Starswave -- A system designed to conserve electricity through controlled street lamp lighting
- Team Three of a Kind, Global Institute of Technology, India
Project: GreenWay -- A real-time embedded environmental system designed to enhance and preserve roadside plant life
- Team Mandrake, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, India
Project: MOBiLIT -- A littler prevention system for India's crowded railways
- Team Nsitspirit, Netaji Subhas Institute of Technology, India
Project: Forest Watch -- A real-time network for detection of forest fires and illegal logging
- Team Prodigy, Padmasri Dr. B.V. Raju Institute of Technology, India
Project: Pollution Buster -- An automated real-time vehicular emission monitoring system
- Team Mariscos, Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus Guadalajara, Mexico
Project: CleanPlanet -- A monitoring system for dynamic pollutants in automobiles
- Team Ecologics, Instituto Tecnologico de Monterrey Campus Guadalajara, Mexico
Project: ecoTech -- A system designed for the protection of water reserves
- Team 44 Tech, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania
Project: Forest Watcher -- A monitoring system for preventing forest devastation
- Team Release Candidates, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania
Project: BirdSpot -- A system for identifying and classifying bird species
- Team Neptune, Politehnica University of Bucharest, Romania
Project: Pi-CoPS -- An automated system for the detection of contaminants in water pipes
- Team S3I, California State University at Long Beach, United States
Project: Swarm-Cast -- An early warning system for desert locusts swarm outbreaks
- Team GT Earth, Georgia Institute of Technology, United States
Project: e-house -- An intelligent home automation system designed to lower household energy consumption
- Team Georgia State, Georgia State University, United States
Project: RAIN, the ReActive Irrigation Nexus -- An automated system for lawn irrigation
- Team Hybrid Control Systems, Oregon Institute of Technology, United States
Project: HCS-Hybrid Control System Conversion Kit -- A conversion system in automobiles to allow switching between electric and diesel engines
- Team Erebus, University of Southern Florida, United States
Project: The Erebus Scarecrow -- An intelligent system to reduce eradication of protected and rare birds in fish farms thought this was a harmless way to protect fisheries from predatory birds
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