VANCOUVER, Wash. Five students from Washington State University Vancouver will head to Beijing, China in June to compete in the 2011 International Contest of Application in Nano-Micro Technology (iCan).
The senior design team – engineering students Joel Hamlik, Hunter Wickert, Pat Rucker, Corey Stephens and Nathan Piccola – is one of the top two teams (out of 19) from the United States contest (uCan) that will travel to the competition.
Hamlik said the team received materials, then created a system to calibrate locations into a computer and retrieve them with a sensor. To make the technology practical, the group created a computer application launcher and a virtual piano.
“We’re using just pieces of paper and drawing interfaces to show how flexible the system is,” Hamlick said.
After calibration to the paper “piano,” the sensors detect where they are located physically and play a tone, essentially allowing the user to play a song on a flat piece of paper.