Features: Dec. 3, 2001

IED Presentation: Engineering Home Safety

Forty-three student teams in Introduction to Engineering Design (IED) will present their final projects Friday, Dec. 7, from 4 to 7 p.m., in the Darrin Communications Center Great Hall. The campus is encouraged to attend.

IED is a sophomore-level design course in which student teams are assigned a theme-this semester they had to apply technology to increase safety and convenience in households.

Among the projects displayed will be a smart stove that is capable of detecting, suppressing, and preventing stovetop fires and burns; a self-propelled stair cart to tote items up and down stairs, allowing the climber to focus on the stairs; a smart medicine dispenser that is voice activated, tracks medicine inventory, and checks for potentially harmful drug interactions; a safe faucet that controls the maximum temperature from each faucet in the house and also monitors usage; and an intelligent fire detection, warning, and escape system that alerts the homeowner to fire and lights the escape route with floor-mounted lights.