Commack Future Engineers: The Future of Technology: April 2013

On Tuesday, April 9th, for the second year in a row, Commack was lucky enough to attend the New York Institute of Technology(NYIT) Engineering Showcase. This is one of the biggest events throughout the whole year for technology members in Commack. This is a time where students from various schools get to display their ongoing projects to a panel of judges. The judging panel consists of NYIT staff, Cradle of Aviation members, Verizon workers, Motorola staff, and even students of NYIT or other colleges. The top three winners are chose by the judges each receiving a monetary prize.
In order to prepare for this event, about 10 of us worked together and stayed after until around 9:00 at night or later almost everyday. To help pass the time, we had some delicious meals as well as some fun times. Below are pictures of us preparing for the showcase:

This year, Commack had three groups; The Eye Hand, A Facial Identification Quadcopter, as well as a Body Motion Controlled Quadcopter. The first group consisted of Daniel Lukach, Jon Raitses, and Daniella Azoulay. The Eye Hand was an innovation in Blind-Sensory technology. This device allows people to detect things at different distances based on the rate of vibration of the prototype. For example, if a student were to walk into a wall while holding the device, the closer the student gets to the wall, the stronger the vibration will be. In the future, making this contraption into a small glove can easily assist the blind and make finding objects more efficient.
The second Commack group was the Facial Identification Quadcopter by Anthony Bisulco, Ashley Cooper, and Binoy Daniels. The goals of this project were to build a stably flying quadcopter that can identify faces. In addition, we thought this project would improve the amounts of surveillance throughout the world. With the use of a small camera, the Quadcopter is successfully able to detect/identify people's faces. In the future, low scale Quadcopters can be used on planned investigations as well as solving a crime.
The third Commack group was entitled the Body Motion Controlled Quadcopter. Stephen Mendez as well as Kayla Houshmand believed this project demonstrated a unique way of controlling a wifi remote Quadcopter with the help of a Mircosoft Kinect. By standing in the view of the kinect, whatever direction your body moves, the quadcopter moves with it. For instance, if you move your body left, the quadcopter will shift left as well.
Overall, Commack did very well. We placed in two of the top three monetary winners. The Eye Hand recieved first place which earned a $1,000 check. However, the Facial Identification Quadcopter recieved third place, as well as $600. The Body Motion Controlled Quadcopter received the Creativity Award. Commack came home with the most Creative award as well as $1,600 all in one day. Below are our pictures from this amazing experience as well as a video of the Body Motion Controlled Quadcopter!