Total Phase is pleased to partner with educational institutions and non-profit organizations targeted at developing the skill sets of future engineers. These groups use our donated tools to help ensure quality and safety during their project development processes. Check out how our tools helped them succeed with their unique and impressive projects. Seeking sponsorship and tools for your educational group?  Contact us at sales@totalphase.com.

 

Carthage College - Space Sciences Program

As the lead institution for the Wisconsin Space Grant Consortium, the Space Sciences Program at Carthage College works on a number of cutting-edge projects ranging from Modal Propellent Gauging experiments to their Canopy Near-IR Observing Project CubeSat. These projects are all run and developed by a team of undergraduate students from a diverse set of fields and backgrounds.

Their team will utilize the Beagle USB 480 Protocol Analyzer to assist with several projects that use USB sensors and other equipment. For instance, their CubeSat's payload is a USB camera used for Earth imaging, and another project plans to use USB fiber optic sensors as part of their propellent gauging experiments. Both of these are High-speed USB devices that are being developed using custom software, therefore being able to accurately monitor bus communications will be helpful for their development.

Learn more about the Beagle USB 480 Protocol Analyzer that will be used to monitor High-speed USB data on their USB devices here:

  

Duke University - Hyperloop Team

The Hyperloop Team at Duke University is a student organization dedicated to furthering the collective research of the Hyperloop concept. The Hyperloop concept was introduced by Elon Musk in 2013 as a high-speed transportation system that uses near-vacuum tubes to allow pressurized vehicle pods to travel up to 700 mph. The Hyperloop team at Duke University is involved in the 2021 SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition, which was first initiated to accelerate the develop of the Hyperloop concept and allows over 100 Hyperloop teams from across the world to test their pods and compete.

To achieve successful operation of the pod, including meeting speed, deceleration, and self-propulsion requirements, this team relies on support from various organizations to help them advance their project developments within multiple divisions of their team.

Total Phase’s products, including the Komodo CAN Duo Interface and CAN/I2C Activity Board Pro, are both used to debug and develop electronic components within their own Hyperloop pod. The Komodo CAN Duo Interface monitors data readings from the navigation sensors, while the CAN/I2C Activity Board Pro is used to troubleshoot the connection of the Komodo interface with Sparton navigation tools. To learn more about this team and their objectives with the Hyperloop concept, please visit the Duke University Hyperloop page.

Check out the Komodo CAN Duo Interface and CAN/I2C Activity Board Pro that are used to develop this project here:

 

Littleton Robotics 2018

Littleton Robotics is a STEM Education Foundation, whose mission is to promote STEM education opportunities in Littleton and the surrounding towns. Littleton Robotics' team, Mechanical Advantage 6328, competed at the FIRST® Robotics Competition 2018. The Robotics Competition is a 6 week program allowing 9th-12th grade students to use their knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and math to compete in building challenges across the United States. The students, with the aid of mentors, design, build and test robots. During this stage of the competition, Total Phase's tools aided in the testing and development of these mechanisms; specifcally, team Mechanical Advantage 6328 used our Komodo CAN Duo Interface to find bugs during this stage to get their competitive advantage:

Find out more about the Mechanical Advantage 6328 team that we had the opportunity in supporting.

Check out the Komodo CAN Duo Interface that was used to develop this project here:

 

 

Littleton Robotics 2021

Littleton Robotics is a STEM Education Foundation, whose mission is to promote STEM education opportunities in Littleton and the surrounding towns. Littleton Robotics' team, Mechanical Advantage 6328, competed in the FIRST® Robotics "At Home" Competition 2021. The Robotics Competition is a 6 week program allowing 9th-12th grade students to use their knowledge of science, technology, engineering, and math to compete in building challenges across the United States.

In the 2021 competition, the students along with the aid of mentors worked together to design, build and test their robot virtually. During this year, the team has also been working to create custom team-built operator interface boards to operate the robot in competitions. These are Arduino-based controllers that support a flexible set of controls inputs & outputs, enabling custom operator boards to be built. They interface over USB to the PC that transmits commands to the robot. The students developed and implemented a custom command protocol using serial-over-USB. The Arduino also uses an open-source library to simultaneously present as a USB HID joystick. With the help of the Beagle USB 480 Power Protocol Analyzer - Standard Edition, the students have been able to monitor and better understand the USB traffic the operator interface board is sending to the "driver station" software running on a PC. They are working on reproducing certain issues with the board that have been observed in previous competitions. Since the controller is also powered by the USB connection, being able to monitor the power draw using this USB analyzer has been helpful.

Here, you can see the students working with the Beagle USB 480 Power Protocol Analyzer and how this tool is connected to a custom team-built operator interface board - the wooden box with buttons/controls and blue LCD - which is designed for controlling the robot.

 

 Learn more about the Beagle USB 480 Power Protocol Analyzer - Standard Edition used to develop their project:

 

University of Washington - CubeSat Project - Satellite 

The University of Washington has been involved in a project within the CubeSat standard, which allows organizations like universities and educational institutions to be involved in affordable space projects that aid in the advancement of space exploration. Specifically, the University of Washington has been working on their own developments for NASA CubeSat, and with the help of Total Phase, has been able to make substantial progress on their launch.

This CubeSat project requires many phases, including testing and performing simulations. Using Total Phase tools, including the Aardvark I2C/SPI Host Adapter and the Promira Serial Platform, the university was able to perform sequences of tests to ensure the system was behaving accurately. Developers for this project first performed initial sensor validation using a demo board where they were able to quickly validate the datasheet data commands. For the custom PCB sensor implementation, they needed to design their own version of a sensor breakout board. During this portion, they sometimes needed to remove or add features, and Total Phase’s hardware was used to validate that the sensors continued to worked as expected. For their microprocessor software development, they used Total Phase hardware to validate their own I2C/SPI library and drivers that they had written.

Here, they have implemented a sensor and microprocessor, which required debugging engineering model boards:

 

In this photo, we see an engineering model of two different boards which are docked in the development motherboard. Total Phase’s hardware was used to drive the I2C data buses. This helped them quickly determine if all the sensors were behaving properly. For both boards, pull up resistors were erroneously left out of the design, and Total Phase’s tools helped determine this root cause.

Find out more about the tools they used to develop their project: 

            

 

Stanford Solar Car Project

The Stanford Solar Car Project is comprised of a group of undergraduate students who design, build, and race solar powered racecars in the World Solar Challenge. Founded in 1989, the Stanford Solar Car Project is an entirely student-run, non-profit organization fueled by its members’ passion for environmentally sustainable technology. The project provides a unique opportunity for Stanford University students to gain valuable hands-on engineering and business experience while raising community awareness of clean energy vehicles. The team generally operates on a two-year design and build cycle and then enters the finished car in a cross-continental solar race.

Total Phase proudly supported the 2017 Stanford Solar Car Project as a Silver Sponsor. The 2017 car project – Sundae – was entered in the 2017 Bridgestone World Solar Challenge, an 1,800-mile race across the Australian Outback.

Stanford University students consistently have one of the best undergraduate solar car teams in the world. The Stanford Solar Car Project Team used the following, donated, Total Phase products in the development of their vehicle:

       

MIT - Hyperloop II

MIT started a new Hyperloop team in 2019, named MIT Hyperloop II, to design and build an air levitated pod that can achieve 200+ mph for the SpaceX-Hyperloop Competition IV. Their team consists of about 30 engineers with disciplines ranging from mechanical, aerospace, electrical, software, systems, and business. The Hyperloop white paper release in 2013 brought much publicity and focus to Hyperloop development. The previous MIT Hyperloop team won Best Overall Design, Safety & Reliability, and Innovation Awards at the SpaceX-Hyperloop Competition I in 2016 for their magnetically levitated vehicle. With the SpaceX-Hyperloop competition reaching its 4th iteration, developing a new pod in a shorter timeline has been a challenge, but they have now made it to the Top 20 Finalists to compete at SpaceX’s mile-long vacuum tube in Summer 2019. Total Phase's Komodo CAN Duo Interface has been aiding the team in debugging the vehicle propulsion’s controller and high voltage battery management system that interface with the vehicle control unit over CAN bus as can be seen in the pictures below. You can find out more about the MIT Hyperloop II team that we had the opportunity in supporting here.

 Learn more about out the Komodo CAN Duo Interface that was used to develop this project here: