• 02/03, First day of class. Plan for the semester. Please get your wiki page ready (check email from Wai Khoo for access information) for sharing in class- 10 minutes each team!
  
• 02//17, Biweekly Updates (1)
  
• 03/02, Biweekly Updates (2)
• 03/09, Please all attend a talk on Fish 'n' Robots: not a take-out food  by Professor Maurizio Porfiri  from NYU Poly. Time: 11:30 - 12:30. Location: Steinman Hall Exhibit Room (note the change of location: next to the GSOE main office). Each of you is required to write a one-page summary (double spaced) of what you learn from the talk and post it in your wiki page. If you cannot make it, you need to write a similar report based on your study on the work in the speaker's lab.
  
• 03/16, Biweekly Updates (3)
• 03/30. Biweekly meeting moved to 04/06.
  
• 04/06, Mid-Term Team Presentations using PPT Slides.  CREATE TEAM will do a Dry-Run preparation.
  
• 04/12,The Annual CREATE Symposium will be held on April 12 (Tuesday), 2016 at the Legislative Office Building in Albany. NYSID will fund transportation, food and lodging for two members from each student team, the professor, and one representative from the NYSID member agency on the night before the event.
  
• 04/20, Biweekly Updates (4)
• 05/04, Biweekly Updates (5)
• 05/18, 2016, FINAL TEAM PRESENTATIONS using Video and PPT Slides (Schedule Here); Report Submission Due by the end of the week midnight. For the Video and the Final Reports, all teams (including the three CREATE teams) shall follow the guidelines of the Guidelines for CREATE Deliverables. Note in front of the five page report you can add one additional page for the information such as the title, team members, mentors, advisors, and acknowledgment. Please use 1 inch margins, 10 point New Time Roman font, and single space. Event Location: ST-124 (Exhibit Room). Schedule (1) 11:00 am - 12:00 pm  Invited PRISM talk by Dr. Cecilia Feeley from CAIT at Rutgers to address transportation and mobility issues for individuals on the autism spectrum (details will follow). (2) 12:00 - 12:30 pm Work Lunch Break; (3) 12:30 - 3:00 pm Student Team Presentations (8 x 15 minutes - with a 10 min presentation + 5 min QAs), and a panel of 7 judges (including Cecelia) from Goodwill, Lighthouse Guild, Rutgers and CUNY will evaluate your projects on the following  10 aspects: 1) Background, 2) Statement of the Problem, 3) Rationale, 4) Design, 5) Development, 6) Evaluation, 7) Discussion, 8) References, 9) Acknowledgements, and 10) Presentation.  
• 05/30,2016. Final Grading will be submitted on June 2 (Thursday), 2016. For your information, here is the team presentation grading and comments. Enjoy your Summer!

• September 02, First day of class:Course  Introduction by Prof. Z. Zhu and Prof. Jizhong Xiao, and Human and Machine Vision by Prof. Zhu. (Assignment 0 - resumes )
  
• September 09, Vision: Image Enhancement and Feature Detection (Slides | Lecture Notes by Zhu) (Assignment 1 - due Sept 30: please only submit your soft copy via email to me; details see Assignment instruction)
  
• September 16, Introduction to Robotics [Slides] (Xiao); Autism Spectrum Disorders and Assistive Technology, [Slides] by Celina Cavalluzzi, Director of Day Services, www.goodwillnynj.org
  
• September 23, No Classes
• September 30, Vision: Stereo Vision and Visual Motion (Slides | Lecture Notes on Stereo and Motion by Zhu) (Assignment 2 - due extended to Oct 21 ->Nov 11 due to the early proposal due date: soft copy only and the programming question is not required!)
• October 7,  Visit Day Services in Brooklyn (Groups and Directions) (Proposal 1 will be TEAM PROPOSAL with team members and a quad chart (template) - Due Oct 26 !!!. We set a new due date since the CREATE/GoodWill project proposals will be due Nov 06, 2015. Please come up with ideas for ASDs. The proposal should include a specific project title and be a brief discussion of the project under the following headings: Background, Statement of the Problem, Rationale, and Design. Detailed Instructions for the CREATE Proposal can be found here. Please also select your mentor from the capstone mentor team)
  
• October 14, Multimodal and Alternative Perception for the Visually Impaired People (Reading List) by Wai Khoo; Project Mentor Introductions (I):  Virtual Environment (Wai L. Khoo),  Vista Wearble Devices (Edgardo Molina), Smart Environment for VIPs (Martin Goldberg)
• October 21, Project Mentor Introductions (II): Mobile Vision with Glass (Feng Hu), Facial Computing with a Smartphone (Wei Li ),  Multimodal Facial Recognition (Farnaz Abtahi),  Crowd-Sourced Navigation (Greg Olmschenk /Wai Khoo), Beacons and IMU (Bing Li), Google Project Tango etc (J. Pablo Muñoz). Class Attendance was taken; please see grading for your attendance (10: attend; 5: late; 0 absent)
• October 28, Student Teaming and Pre-Proposals (team proposal - one slide quad chart, deadline Oct 26 via email; Revised quad chart in pptx and a 2 to 5 page (12 pt fonts, single spaced) detailed description due Nov 2, 2015) 
• November 04, Zahn Center Resources and  Startup Experience (Vista Wearable) Experiences, by Edgardo Molina; Zahn Center Competitions Applications Deadline Nov 15, 2015.  We will also spend some times to discuss your team projects.
  
• November 11, Robotics:Sensor, Control and Locomotion - Introduction (Xiao) (Assignment 3 - due Nov 25)
  
• November 18, Robotics:Sensor, Control and Locomotion - Key techniques (Xiao)
  
• November 25, Class Discussions on  the Final Teams/ Proposals and Exam Coverage: Final proposal should have at least 5 pages. In addition to the four headings (background, statement of the problem, rationale and design), you should include another heading for information on cost of your system, a budget, a weekly or bi-weekly schedule for Spring 2016, and technical details in your design.
  
• December 2, Final Writing Exam
  
• December 9, Last Class: Student Team Proposal Final Presentations [Schedule and Grading Sheet] (Final Proposal Writing due Dec 14)
• December 24, 2015. Final grading will be posted in a few days - please come back to check. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
• Dec 30, 2015. Final Grading will be submitted on Jan 2, 2016. Happy New Year!
  

We have developed a cross-department joint senior design course for undergraduate seniors in CS, CpE and EE in developing automated and assistive technologies for smart living of all.  These include: multimodal, passive and unobtrusive techniques for helping visually impaired people to achieve independent travel in unfamiliar environments; smart house systems and mobile apps for improving the quality of life of elderly and people in need (such as with Autism Spectrum Disorders - ASDs); and sensing technologies for health monitoring and rehabilitation .We have obtained VentureWell funding support  and NSF funding support to carry out basic research and to run the cross-department joint senior design program for CS/CpE/EE seniors. The joint senior design program builds on our existing capstone design course structure in CS and EE departments, but with a new concentration on assistive technology for people in need. 

In each year, the joint senior design course is a mandated two semester sequence for senior students in both CS and EE departments. In the first semester we will offer lectures on basic technologies in sensors, actuators, robotic navigation, vision algorithms, and assistive technologies by the instructors. The general lectures will introduce important aspects of a business plan such as project management, intellectual property (IP), entrepreneurship. In addition, the lecture series on entrepreneurship at GSoE will be utilized where professionals are invited to share their real world experiences.

In the second semester, the student teams are expected to implement design ideas, prototype, test, and evaluate different designs. Students will also have the opportunities to perform usability study on vision impaired users in collaboration with NYSCB therefore better understanding their needs to improve the designs and to create more appropriate business plans.  The prominent teams with innovative ideas/technology and good business plans will be recommended to compete for (1)  Kaylie Prize for New Ventures - Hardware, (2) Zahn Prize for New Ventures - Software and Beyond, and (3) VentureWell E-TEAM Competition. The winning teams will be supported to continue the effort in summer and beyond.  

• Vision and Brain - How We Perceive the World, By James V. Stone, The MIT Press. Paperback | $30.00  | ISBN: 9780262517737 | 264 pp. | 6 x 9 in | 25 color illus., 132 b&w illus.| September 2012 (Recommended Textbook for students with little experience in vision and neuroscience to know human vision, brain and computational neuroscience - Each student could borrow a copy from the instructor for using during the class on a first-come, first served basis)
  

• IEEE Workshop on Multimodal and Alternative Perception for Visually Impaired People (MAP4VIP 2013) (Papers & Slides & Posters)

• Workshop on Environmental Sensing Technologies for Visual Impairment (ESTVI 13) (YouTube Video)

• Project Reports of Past Capstone Students if you cannot find them in the wiki pages (link to the list of 2011-12 and 2012-13 teams - internal use only) 

• NSF Senior Design Projects For Persons With Disabilities

• Additional Reading on Assistive Technologies for Visually Impaired (link to the list - internal use only)

• Google's Introduction to Web Accessibility, an online course