2024 Electrical & Computer Engineering Capstone Designs

Community Compass, aims to foster community cohesion and enhance safety by enabling users to report incidents and create local events. With an intuitive interface, Community Compass empowers individuals to actively participate in their neighborhoods. Members can promptly report incidents, such as safety concerns or suspicious activities, allowing users to stay informed and vigilant. Additionally, the app facilitates event creation, encouraging residents to organize events that improve community cohesion. By promoting communication and collaboration, Community Compass strives to create safer, united, and thriving communities.

Moving is deemed among the top five most stressful life events. Taking down all your wall decorations and placing them back up in your new home is very difficult and time consuming. The objective of our project is to design a wall décor placement assistant, using a projector, camera, distance sensors and image processing, to project images of your wall decorations onto the wall, to scale and perfectly level no matter how the projector is placed.

In today's competitive job market, applicants want to know how employers are evaluating their applications. Imagine having a powerful tool that accurately parses, just like Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) used by employers, and displays your resume's key information to you in a matter of seconds. ResuMate is precisely that tool - a user-friendly web application designed to optimize your resume parsing experience. By leveraging our team's knowledge of web development, data processing, parsing, and algorithm design, ResuMate offers a free and easily accessible solution.

CrowdQuote is a versatile crowd estimation system designed to provide real-time data and future predictions on the total number of people in specific locations. This data is collected from camera footage and is counted efficiently and accurately using image processing. The non-intrusive design and easy/cheap scalability means this system can be used in many situations ranging from fire safety to simply finding a quiet time to visit the library.

In power grids, polymer insulators leverage hydrophobic surfaces to operate; as a result, their effectiveness diminishes over time. This project focuses on developing a convolutional neural network that uses deep learning to classify these insulators, and then categorize them into the IEEE-defined levels of hydrophobicity ranging from 1 (high) to 6 (low). With augmented training datasets and select preprocessing techniques, the EfficientNetB0-based model will be able to provide timely, accurate assessments via web and mobile applications, lowering the barrier of entry to maintaining such insulators.

Classimple is a web application that addresses the challenges of course selection at the University of Waterloo by providing students with insightful information to streamline the process. It allows students to input their desired courses for the upcoming semester and presents schedules in a user-friendly calendar view and intelligently recommends related courses based on the student's academic history. Our application offers the advantage of a calendar preview feature and the generation of personalized curriculum plans tailored to each student's unique interests and academic history.

Activity Finder is an innovative web app for university students to post and find activities based on time and location. It offers personalized recommendations through machine learning and a diverse database system, enhancing socializing beyond academics. Unlike Facebook, it prioritizes hosting and discovering personalized activities, fostering a vibrant campus community. Challenges include user engagement, data privacy, scalability, and competition from existing platforms. Nevertheless, with the right execution, it has the potential to significantly enhance the social experience of students.

Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) as a hobby has seen a resurgence in recent years and is expected to keep growing. Our project, "AI Dungeon Master", recognizes that a capable Dungeon Master is vital for an engaging D&D experience. Unfortunately, many friend groups lack access to such dedicated individuals. To bridge this gap and make D&D more accessible, we are developing an AI-powered Dungeon Master. We aim to create an AI system that can weave stories, portray non-player characters (NPCs), manage battles, and maintain game continuity, offering an immersive text-based gaming experience.

Youth often face challenges in adhering to physiotherapy routines due to lack of motivation and enjoyment, with 28% not completing their exercises. TheraPlay, an innovative app integrated with video game-based physiotherapy, aims to address this by making exercises more engaging. Utilizing myoelectric sensors, exercises control the game, providing a fun performance tracking method and encouraging a 15% improvement on average. Suitable for various skill levels, TheraPlay enhances engagement and motivation by combining therapy with interactive gaming while offering a unique, enjoyable approach to physiotherapy for youths.

Voyager is an online vacation itinerary scheduling and suggestion tool whose mission is to make travel planning simpler and collaborative. Given a few parameters, the user receives a baseline itinerary they can edit as they please, and the suggestion tool is always available to help schedule events. All voyages can be shared with friends and family so that everyone can make the most of the vacation. By providing this service free of charge and readily available online, anyone can plan their dream vacation.

Accelerating climate change has increased the innovation of technologies based on renewable energy sources. There are existing technologies that harvest solar energy on a small scale for powering low-power devices such as smartphones. However, their solar intake efficiency reduces by up to 40 percent by being stationary. The SolarSaver is a portable and low-cost structure for powering low-power devices that harvests the Sun's energy optimally through innovative sun-tracking technology.

ChromaScape is a series of lights that can display arbitrary patterns according to their physical position, with an AR-like interface to control the patterns they show. The lights in the array are identified using computer vision and labelled physically, where they sit in 3D space, to make programming light arrays more accessible.

Motion Capture techniques are used extensively in the entertainment, sports, and robotics industries, but usually require expensive and elaborate setups. Our project, "Motion Capture Lite" aims to develop a low-cost and streamlined motion-capture solution using semi-passive imperceptible LED markers ("beamers") and photosensors ("tags"). The tags detect light that is emitted by the beamers through grey-coded masks. The recorded motion data is sent to a computer, where a software tool utilizes signal processing to convert the data into a visualization.

We help lead the blind to the braille. Our phone app and sensor combination allows blind users to better navigate unfamiliar indoor spaces and locate nearby braille signage. This increases their independence and confidence in navigation, without sacrificing braille literacy. The app will beep or vibrate with increasing frequency to indicate proximity. Building owners can use the companion admin app to set up and manage all of the tags within their building.

This project aims to create a real-time monitoring system that uses cameras to detect symptoms of distracted driving and provides timely feedback to ensure safe driving. Implemented as a mobile application, the system analyzes driver behavior for signs of inattentiveness due to unforeseen circumstances. Additionally, the app offers analytics, allowing drivers to review their journeys and gain insights to improve their driving practices. The portability of this solution sets it apart from embedded vehicle systems, making it universally applicable to any car.

TempoTracks aims to help users improve their workouts by adjusting the pace of music according to their workout plan. TempoTracks will find and use the best songs from your playlists for your workout, and fine-tune the speed of the song so the user keeps up with the pace of the music. Utilizing live health data such as cadence or heart rate from smartwatches, TempoTracks can adjust the speed of the music to match the current pace with a desired goal.

Our project aims to establish a distributed locker booking/management system for University gyms (CIF and PAC). Users can book specific lockers, accessed within a grace period using a wireless locking mechanism. Verification will be done through a web-based platform on their cellular devices. This system aims to enhance existing locker facilities, addressing issues of first-come, first-serve access and the need for personal locks. It will improve organization, prevent item displacement, and enhance physical security.

Statistics Canada found that around 2.3 million Canadians had unmet mental health needs due to limited access, costs, and discomfort in sharing emotions. SoulScribeAI aims to address these concerns by making therapy accessible for everyone through AI-assisted journaling. We provide empathetic and introspective responses generated by fine-tuning instruction-based large language models on proven therapy methods. SoulScribeAI provides a calm interface to enhance user experience and protects users from detrimental model responses. Additionally, our cloud infrastructure ensures scalability, fault-tolerance, and data privacy using encryption.

Weed removal is a task that must be carried out to abide by provincial laws and prevent the spread of invasive species that deteriorate the health of surrounding plants. Equipped with a camera for weed identification, the BOTanical eliminates the need for manual weed removal by carrying out the process autonomously using a mobile arm once lawn weed is identified. A comprehensive extraction procedure which minimizes the regrowth of weeds and an Android application to manage the device gives the BOTanical a competitive advantage.

Reeltime is an Automated Sports Analyzer System aimed at enhancing sports viewers' experience by automatically generating highlight reels from soccer matches. The system utilizes computer vision and deep learning techniques to identify key events, such as goals, assists and saves. A custom machine learning model, trained on video segments of important soccer events, efficiently extracts highlights. The design ensures accuracy and seamless integration while enabling sports enthusiasts to stay updated without time investment.

In Canada, 58% of food produced is lost or wasted, with 60% of that amount being avoidable through better planning, storage and awareness. According to the WHO, a leading cause of adult disease stems from poor adolescent food and health habits. FridgeBuddy is a tool to provide young adults with healthy eating habits while reducing food waste. The service leverages Image Recognition and Label Scanning to take inventory of your food and expiration dates, and intuitively recommends recipes for the user for upcoming expiring food.

SmartFlagger is an AI solution for construction firms, to automate their process of directing traffic affected by roadside construction. It uses computer vision to detect vehicles approaching a bottleneck created by a construction site, and then uses decision making algorithms to direct traffic through these sites in a manner that improves traffic throughput through the affected street. Using SmartFlagger will also provide constriction firms with the added benefit of moving skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen from directing traffic on the street to working on the site. 

Over 68% of Canadians in communal living situations encounter unsatisfactory experiences due to factors such as differences in lifestyles, common household responsibility disputes, and encroachment of personal and shared spaces. As housing demand rises, these issues will become more prominent.

RoomEase is a shared household management mobile application whose objective is to increase the quality of life among roommates by alleviating shared living issues, done through an implementation of a chore incentive system, a non-confrontational notification mechanism, and a user-friendly virtual assistant mediator.

The objective of this project is to solve navigation and information challenges faced by both new and returning students, professors, and visitors. We aim to provide a central application to navigate indoors and outdoors on campus using 360 images for orientation, and information pages for professors and classes.

AutoGlide is an inexpensive add-on to aftermarket automobiles designed to improve vehicle control and comfort through an advanced suspension system. Using GPS, accelerometers, stepper motors, and intelligent control algorithms, AutoGlide allows the driver to directly control the suspension settings or automatically adjust them by analyzing the road conditions for optimal performance. By either lowering the stiffness on bumpier roads or tightening it for better handling on flat stretches, this project provides a more comfortable and performance-oriented ride all without having to lift the hood. 

Every year across the world, a majority of young adults struggle with food preparation. Easy Eats is an application that empowers users to efficiently access personalised & community-verified recipes that target their specific lifestyle/dietary needs. The application will store user-uploaded recipes on a centralised database, and community-verify them through a real-time feedback system. An intelligent recommendation algorithm, will rank recipes to provide the user a personalised dashboard. The application's novel and innovative approach provides accessible curated recipes to help eliminate any barriers/stigmas associated with cooking.

The current grocery store self-checkout system has always been rather frustrating to use. By utilizing advanced computer vision, our innovative self-checkout solution addresses many pain points with improved accuracy, reduced user interaction, and maintained cost-effectiveness. Along with seamlessly integrated conveyor belts and sensors, our system enhances detection, eliminates the need for manual item search, and significantly reduces theft. Say hello to a more straightforward, less bothersome self-checkout experience - making those grocery runs a tad less of a hassle.

The objective of our project is to design and implement a mobile indoor navigation system that identifies the location of a user inside a building using WiFi signal strength data and other phone sensor data. This information is sent to a remote server, which sends predicted position information and navigation data back to the device. We use a pathfinding algorithm and statistical analysis to determine the user's likely position. Our design does not require any costly installation of new hardware unlike a Bluetooth solution.

Active noise cancelling headphones can greatly increase efficiency and productivity. As their popularity has risen, so has its price to approximately $100 for a cheaper pair that likely sacrifices sound quality and comfort. This project aims to create an attachment for existing headphones that will implement active noise cancelling at a low cost without sacrificing sound quality or comfort. Using a digital signal processing noise cancellation algorithm, ZenAudio will provide a flexible, reusable, and economical option in the active noise cancelling headphones market.

Motivation is a large factor in the success of rehabilitation. However, nonadherence to home rehabilitation is estimated to be as high as 50%, hindering the success of clinical results. The SoleQuest is a smart insole that, paired with a mobile device, gamifies rehabilitation programs for patients with lower limb disabilities to increase motivation and encourage training participation. This allows patients to have a gamified experience while allowing them to adhere to their rehabilitation program in an environment they are comfortable in, such as their home. 

In our everyday lives we often take for granted how much we rely upon our vision. From identifying the colour of our clothes, to reading the fine print on a medication bottle, "Theia", a pair of assistive glasses helps low vision users interact with their environment independently through visual question answering.  As an accessible low-cost solution, we hope to provide users vision through sound.

FinEval leverages Zero Knowledge Proofs (ZKP) to securely share financial data amid rising credit reliance and fraud risks. This cutting-edge solution verifies financial details without exposing sensitive information, addressing the urgent need for secure data sharing. With a ZKP prover for individuals, FinEval ensures local data authentication, minimizing exposure. This initiative boosts consumer financial health, operational efficiency, and speeds up loan approvals, offering a robust answer to the challenges of financial data protection and privacy.

Fashion empowers confidence. FitCheck serves as a style companion, igniting people's fashion inspiration. FitCheck can take a photo of clothing items people see in their day-to-day life and identify similar clothing items. Additionally, FitCheck allows people to seamlessly save any items for outfit creation and for future reference. Plus, easily share your latest fashion finds with friends for instant style approval.

Currently, no intuitive means exist to consume digital 3D content. Traditional 2D, AR and VR technologies fall short in allowing multiple viewers to simultaneously observe objects from various angles. Voxogram seeks to change how we perceive digital 3D media. Using a rapidly-rotating screen to sweep a volume, we can precisely ""paint"" pixels of light in 3D space to produce a digital image that retains the lifelike attributes of real-world objects. 

This opens up possibilities for immersive 3D modelling, transformative video calls, and captivating art displays.

Herbert is a robot companion that links to a self-help app focused on building good habits and keeping resolutions. Users can keep Herbert healthy and happy by completing their tasks and making sure they meet their goals.

Pigeon is an interactive AI-powered app that empowers users to quickly understand the valuable information in municipal government data. With user-friendly representations of numeric data and curated answers, it empowers citizens to explore and understand valuable information ranging from social welfare resources to apartment building scoring. It fosters civic engagement, guiding users through popular datasets and recommending questions. Pigeon bridges the gap between constituents and local governments, creating a feedback loop for data quality and transparency.

VisiWarn is an affordable wearable solution designed to assist individuals with visual impairments in navigating their surroundings safely. Utilizing ultrasonic sensors, it detects obstacles and employs multiple vibration motors to alert users to the distance and direction of obstacles. The detection distance can be adjusted to accommodate both indoor and outdoor environments. Additionally, VisiWarn is equipped with the capability to capture and send images to emergency contacts in the event of a fall. 

Golf courses spend up to $2 million annually on water management. To reduce costs and enhance playing experience, efficient water management is crucial. However, current methods such as handheld moisture sensors are expensive and imprecise. To address this, a remote sensing system would enable non-invasive and user-friendly data collection to accurately determine water content in different areas of golf greens and reduce the risk of overwatering.

Soccer is the most popular sport with hundreds of millions of players and fans around the world. Many times, a key save can be the difference between winning and losing a game. KeeperVision is a training tool which aims to help goalkeepers in tackling their greatest hurdle - positioning. Using computer vision, image processing, and machine learning, KeeperVision physically guides goalkeepers in real-time to the best position to defend against any incoming shots.

With 80% of engineers actively seeking new jobs, mastering interview skills is crucial. For entry-level job seekers, mock interviews are key to improvement, with 87% believing in their effectiveness. MockMe.ai aims to provide a comprehensive platform that realistically simulates engineering job interviews through tailored questions, real-time feedback, and coding hints, leveraging LLMs. It evaluates soft skills through behavioral questions generated from the resume and job description. Unlike current platforms that rely on real engineers, MockMe.ai offers unlimited personalized mock interviews for various roles.

Current campus emergency mechanisms fall short of information-era expectations, lacking responsiveness and clarity. Protocols like lockdowns are often unclear to those in danger. We aim to develop a campus-specific threat management software. It includes a mobile app for reporting threats and guiding individuals during emergencies, an admin panel for campus authorities to access data and statistics, and a backend system. By utilizing existing protocols and algorithms, this system enhances emergency response, making it more immediate and personalized, surpassing traditional methods like fire alarms and posters.

The past decade has shown an immense growth in consumers entering an unregulated digital realm. ProtoShell implements a third-party protocol between the user and the company which adds a permission layer necessitating the company to request access to the data they collect on users. This grants users the ability to lock access to their data through the ProtoShell platform, enabling informed consent and awareness on corporate data collection while building stronger trust between companies and consumers.

In the rapidly growing field of data science and analytics, the increasing number of connected tools, users, and technologies necessitates efficient data visualization. For example, Facebook generates 4 million gigabytes of data daily. This project aims to create a user-friendly tool that helps professionals and laypeople effortlessly visualize and comprehend large datasets. Existing bulky visualization tools often demand specific expertise, leading to reduced productivity. By abstracting complexities, this tool enables users to interact and visualize their data in plain English. 

Advanced Driver Assistance Systems (ADAS) can prevent 1.69 million injuries (about 60% of total traffic injuries). As of 2022, only 10% of cars have an ADAS, which can be very costly due to sensor technology and ongoing software development. PADAS is a portable advanced driver assistance system that uses a camera, RADAR sensor and Bluetooth to enable features such as lane departure warning, traffic light detection, object detection and blind spot detection. This system is affordable, accessible, and simple to deploy in any vehicle. 

Around 300 million people globally suffer from colour vision deficiency, with 8% of men and 0.5% of women experiencing colour blindness. This project aims to help those individuals by designing software that uses recolouring, edge enhancement, and pattern superposition algorithms integrated into a Mixed Reality headset. The user's video feed is enhanced based on their settings, creating a customizable solution to address their type and severity of colour blindness in real-time. This technology offers fine-tuning of hue, saturation, and brightness for optimal results.

Fink is a wireless pen stylus that tracks the user's handwriting on a user-defined surface and displays it, via Bluetooth, to any phone, tablet, or PC. The user's motion is tracked by a series of inertial measurement units, wireless ultra-wideband probes, and force sensors. The motion of the pen is reconstructed in real-time and displayed to the user on their screen of choice. The user may then save their notes in the Fink App for later use.

Human line judges in volleyball games are prone to inaccuracies in reaction time and perception, while international-level line judging systems are too expensive for typical players. LineRef's objective is to provide an accurate and affordable line-judging solution for recreational and lower-level competitions. Using computer vision, it tracks a volleyball's path and location to determine whether it lands in or out of court. Taking advantage of mobile devices, LineRef is easy to use, portable and affordable for consumers in any level of competition.

Canada's major telecom providers only cover less than half of the country, resulting in inadequate coverage for remote regions. Natural disasters further exacerbate communication challenges, as cell service is often disrupted. To tackle these issues, our project aims to develop a smartphone add-on for reliable satellite communication in areas with limited or no internet or cellular service.  The goal is to offer affordable alternatives, ensuring accessible communication for all with efficient energy usage. 

The MediVault is a sophisticated piece of hardware that comes equipped with a medication reminder kit and a medication tracking system. The medical reminder kit is a smart box that gives physical reminders through alarms and lighting and contains verification measures to ensure that each patient is getting their medication. Additionally, the MediVault also includes a medical tracking system that tracks the frequency of medication and optimizes the distribution of medication. Thus, allowing hospitals to have another metric that they can gauge patients' recovery with.

Currently, only around 50% of Canadians meet the weekly physical guidelines of at least 150 minutes per week of moderate-to-vigorous intensity physical activity. About one-third of Canadians experience difficulty falling and staying asleep. Physical activity, diet, and sleep are a vital part of a healthy lifestyle and reduce the risk of health complications. The objective of this project is to design a mobile application that contains personalized schedules for workout routines, diet, and rest, along with sleep improvement and adaptive alarm features.

Every year public transportation companies lose millions of dollars due to long dwell times, fare evasion, and rider inconvenience. On busy lines, long dwell times caused by inefficient fare payment methods account for substantial delays. The objective of this project is to design a secure, contactless, no-tap fare collection system that tracks illegitimate riders and requires no interaction for riders to pay their fare. PresGo implements bluetooth low energy angle of arrival antennas and infrared sensors to detect a passenger boarding and automatically collect fares.

Introducing CuttleCal, an advanced monitor calibration tool designed to harmonize colour settings across dual-monitor setups. This innovative solution analyzes and compares the color profiles of two monitors, providing precise data and recommendations to achieve identical color outputs. Ideal for anyone working remotely or on multiple monitors, CuttleCal ensures that colour's appear uniform, enhancing workflow and accuracy. With its user-friendly interface, you can easily adjust and set both monitors to display the same colors, ensuring a seamless and visually coherent workspace.

The price of grocery basics has increased 10.6% year over year with no signs of slowing down. Flourish aims to help financially conscious and low-income users save money by taking the existing couponing and flyer searching experience one step further by bringing the deals to them. Powered by data from the biggest grocery chains coupled with the implementation of a robust yet optimal price comparison algorithm, Flourish aims to help users save their time, money, and effort and optimize their overall grocery shopping experience.

The objective of this project is to design a new data collection model that provides users transparency and financial rewards for the use of their data. This model utilizes a browser extension, allowing users to control their data collection and publish it for sale. Users can sell their data to third parties on a public blockchain network and receive cryptocurrency as a reward. This new model offers increased transparency in data exchange and the ability for users to earn royalties from their own data.

Research reveals 41% of gym-goers get injured due to incorrect form, straining the wrong muscles or joints. The mobile app FitCam tackles this issue by tracking workout form through a phone camera, and offering real-time audio and visual feedback, guiding users to prevent injuries and optimize exercises. Unlike existing alternatives, FitCam allows for instant form improvements without interrupting the workout. This helps users of all skill levels learn exercises more effectively, maximizing their workouts and reducing their risk of injury.

TypeCash is a seamless SMS money-transferring application that allows users to securely send and receive cash by sending text messages with commands. With this, users do not need any mobile apps nor do they have to authenticate their bank account every time; they simply register with their phone number and can use phone authentication methods (e.g, Face ID) to process electronic payments.

Introducing PerfectSip - the ultimate solution for coffee enthusiasts! Many coffee drinkers resonate with the frustration of returning to a cold cup after becoming distracted. PerfectSip is a reusable coffee sleeve that collects and transmits sensor data via a Bluetooth Low Energy embedded controller to a mobile application. Experience real-time thermodynamic modelling using distributed computing, alerting users when their beverage is ready. Embrace convenience, sustainability, and unparalleled flavour - make every sip count with PerfectSip and say hello to a sustainable revolution!

The Foodie Food Review App aims to revolutionize the traditional food review landscape dominated by Yelp and Google Maps. By leveraging existing data from Yelp and Google, combined with user ordering preferences and reviews, the app will generate personalized recommendations from a machine learning model and prioritize them based on user feedback and reputations. This project seeks to address the "where to eat" dilemma and empower small businesses to compete with established restaurants, ultimately enhancing the overall dining experience for users.

This project's objective is to develop an application tackling the critical issue of medication adherence by introducing a gamified approach to the often challenging task of taking prescribed medication. Designed for parents of young patients, the app serves as a reliable tool while also incorporating a game/electronic pet feature to make the experience enjoyable for children. Our solution focuses on positive reinforcement through play, while encouraging safety and proper medication procedures. Our focus on child acceptance sets this project apart from existing solutions. 

WAVE, a Smart HomeKit harnessing innovative image processing techniques for recognizing hand gestures, ensuring an intuitive, inclusive shift from voice commands. WAVE caters to the mute and doubles as a home-monitoring system during periods of absence. Utilizing computer vision, gesture and facial recognition, users interact using simple gestures like waving, pointing, or specific hand shapes. WAVE tailors control to individuals, tracking and recognizing users for personalized, effortless home environment manipulation.

FlexFlow is a smart scheduler and journaling app powered by machine learning. The user inputs their tasks and it plans out their daily schedule, stress relievers and deadlines. Tasks are analyzed using our model to determine their complexity and time commitment in order to effectively create the most functional schedule. It uses language processing and feedback from the user to analyze their mood and stress levels to better plan out their schedule to reduce overall stress levels.

DrinkMaster,  a Smart Bartending Machine, resolves the issue of lengthy bar queues and drink inconsistencies by automating and refining the pouring process. Customers enjoy personalized beverages and a diverse menu, all while a unique safety feature monitors alcohol consumption limits. This innovation reduces wait times and reliance on human labour, transforming bar service into a consistently high-quality experience.

According to CAA, over 70% of cycling accidents involve motorized vehicles, with road safety rules disrespected in 1 of 3 fatalities. As cycling popularizes, these incidents become more frequent. We aim to design a solution to reduce risks for cyclists. StreetSmart is a device attachable to a bicycle, featuring automatic brake lights and user-driven turn signals, as well as rear collision warnings using Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) and haptic feedback. With StreetSmart, riders can confidently navigate the roads with safety in mind.

Serendipity is an intelligent web-based service that personalizes travel planning using artificial intelligence. It processes user preferences to generate detailed itineraries, offering travel advice, recommended attractions, and dining options. With an easy-to-use interface, robust data management, and a one-stop integration of secure transactions and real-time trip information updates, Serendipity is revolutionizing the travel planning process, making it more personalized, efficient, and user-friendly.

Tuning a guitar can be tedious yet essential. Many artists opt for alternate tunings, which can be time-consuming. OtterTuner is a guitar tuning system using control theory and a motor system controlled by a microcontroller, paired with a mobile app. It automates precise tuning of all 6 strings, and offers preset storage. The main advantages of this design over other alternatives include a cleaner user interface and enhanced logical processing for tuning a guitar.

ProcrastiFighter is an AI-driven cross-platform to-do app designed to mitigate procrastination and enhance productivity among students. It offers adaptive task scheduling and supports collaborative studying. Users can add friends, join groups, and view their rankings. Unique features include a one-click focus timer to help users kick-start a task and an automatic task breakdown system, which divides large tasks into manageable subtasks. Each user also benefits from a personalized bot companion, which offers motivation and suggests schedule adjustments based on user feedback and study patterns.

YouTube's rapid growth since 2005 has posed significant challenges in meeting bandwidth requirements, especially with the surge in high-definition and 4K videos. The objective for this project is to decrease the bandwidth utilization of centralized video streaming services while still maintaining a high user experience for multiple users. Our proposed solution aims to leverage the temporal locality of trending videos, where videos recently viewed are likely to be revisited in the near future.We aim to create a decentralized video streaming service for all users.

City of Waterloo Driver Mobile App is a comprehensive city-wide traffic application that streamlines all traffic-related tasks into a single, user-friendly platform. By registering with their driver's license information, users gain access to a range of features, including receiving notifications about traffic violations and making payments directly within the application. The application will be developed primarily for mobile, incorporating Stripe's payment API for ticket transactions. The app also allows users to dispute tickets and view digital forms of evidence without having to visit a courthouse.

FeedMe is a newsletter subscription service aimed at increasing user engagement with world news. Users receive personalized daily email digests and can explore news articles through the accompanying web application. The system sources news articles from a wide array of news outlets for diverse content, catering to people's diverse interests. The AI-powered engine enhances user retention by delivering relevant and engaging content. FeedMe elevates the newsletter subscription by leveraging user behaviour and interests for a personalized and engaging user experience.

The Genie Vision Detection tool is an innovative device designed for the visually impaired to conjure their environment. It employs a camera system and real-time image processing through artificial intelligence. This tool provides audio feedback to convey information about the surroundings, aiding in navigation and awareness. It enriches the quality of life of individuals by offering a simple, and intuitive way to understand and interact with the world around them.

Ever had tedious or repetitive tasks when using your PC? AutoHelm is an easy-to-use program that helps users create their own automated scripts, or ""workflows"". It also offers a machine-learning chatbot that can generate workflows from plain English, which helps individuals of all technical abilities to utilize AutoHelm to its highest potential. With the offering of a marketplace function, users can share their workflow, which further helps users explore the endless things you can do with AutoHelm!

To tackle the growing issue of food waste in restaurants, AR Bytes is a web app allowing customers to access precise menu item visualizations through QR code scanning. Leveraging photogrammetry techniques, the platform transforms food images into immersive 3D models using augmented reality. This solution's advantage lies in tracking portion sizes, meals, leftovers and statistics, enabling cost and resource savings for restaurants, while providing customers accurate depictions of orders by using their cameras. This reduces misleading representations and reliance on verbal descriptions. 

Computer usage is becoming increasingly prevalent worldwide, spurring a global increase in repetitive strain injuries (RSIs). Notably, traditional computer mouse designs are controlled using motions not natural to human physiology. HandSense is a lightweight, wearable device that facilitates computer interaction through safe and natural gestures that can be performed at any distance and angle relative to a user's computer. Motion sensors capture user movements and transmit them to their computer in real-time, while a microphone allows for the use of dictation to minimize keyboard necessity.

Cloud service providers offer a wide range of services and platforms, the extensive documentation and understanding required to effectively utilize these services can be daunting and time-consuming for those who may be new to cloud deployment. Stratosphere aims to streamline the cloud deployment process by using natural language processing, decision-making algorithms, and interactive diagrams, thereby enhancing efficiency and accessibility.

In the context of modern workflows, a significant challenge arises when users must identify tasks in assignments, find information to complete tasks, and figure out how to complete these tasks in their schedules. The objective of Project Pulse is to provide an easy-to-use modern task management workflow for businesses and individuals that helps them manage time. By incorporating features such as task extraction from documents and images, AI prioritization and intelligent timeline generation, this app helps users plan their schedules and jumpstart their projects quickly.

As students are continuing to use more online tools to enhance their learning experience, we noticed that they often have to jump between many websites and apps for different purposes such as having discussions and checking notes. This leads to more time wasted gathering information and resources. Nexus is meant to be a centralized social platform where university students can crowdsource notes, participate in Q&As and chat with other students. Students can tailor their experience by subscribing to various courses and getting personalized feeds.

This project aims to develop a Meeting AI Assistant that enhances virtual communication by integrating with video conferencing tools. By joining meetings, transcribing voice, and performing real-time tasks, the assistant offers insights and triggers actions based on a company's knowledge bases. Advanced features include similarity searches across large documents, semantic understanding, and automatic task generation, with integrations like Jira for ticket creation and Outlook/Google Calendar for scheduling. This AI solution surpasses existing ones by providing a fully integrated, actionable service, not just transcription.

GuidingLite arises from the challenges faced while navigating in indoor spaces, especially for visually impaired individuals, where traditional navigation aids are limited. By leveraging UWB technology, accurate and accessible indoor positioning is enabled for users. The approach involves deploying UWB anchors throughout environments to accurately triangulate user position. This technology provides real-time position updates, enabling users to reduce their reliance on assistance. Moreover, the system can be integrated with assistive technologies, such as voice-based directions, further enhancing the navigation experience without extra user-facing hardware.

We are seeking to speed up machine learning computations while reducing power consumption by leveraging the inherent characteristics of analog computing, as opposed to the transistor-based digital approach which is nearly ubiquitous in the industry. Our solution - a custom differential mixed-signal 16-bit matrix multiplying circuit board - is particularly suited for running ML models in resource-constrained environments on the edge, where power consumption is critical. The AiNalog system is simple and can be rapidly deployed.

This project aims to design a physically immersive remote card game experience which quickly and correctly transmits live information about the cards played between multiple players with minimal processing. SmARt Deck is an AR card game simulator that uses image processing to identify unique patterns tied to the individual cards of a custom card deck to project the correct card faces for each player, and network communication to support live multiplayer gaming.

CoastalQ addresses the escalating risks of sea level rise and storm surges to coastal properties in the face of a changing climate and unpredictable weather patterns. It provides a digital platform that allows realtors, investors, and homeowners to search an address and assess the associated risk efficiently. Utilizing high-resolution aerial photography and inundation analysis, CoastalQ ensures accurate risk evaluations without the need for extensive surveys, making it simpler for users to make informed decisions regarding coastal property investments.

Tripsynced is a one-stop platform that simplifies the travel planning process for groups. It constructs robust itineraries made from personalized suggestions and group collaboration. Through the use of third party APIs and machine learning, tripsynced is able to provide suggestions for activities other than to walk around endlessly in circles. tripsynced erases the stress of planning and and synchronizing with a group, and optimizes flexibility for everyone involved. Whether with friends or solo, tripsynced provides a solution to create unforgettable memories around the world.