Want to Create a Traffic Light System for Your Next Capstone Project?

[Daugusta12]

Hey guys, just found this site and i am currently in need of help to find a good capstone project. I am currently a senior in high school and this capstone course is 12 weeks long. After high school i want to go to collage for electrical engineering so that is what i want to do with my capstone project. I am currently in my second trimester of a class called Digital Electronics which focuses on Electrical Engineering. The thing is, i cannot come up with a project that will both challenge my abilities, take 12 weeks to complete, or be plausible for me to complete with my limited knowledge in the field. So far the skills i have learned in my Digital Electronic class along with others would be, how to write a problem statement, how to take a problem and create a truth table from the said problem, create and simplify a boolean statement, with K-maping and the rules of boolean algebra, and how to create circuits using AOI and Nand/nor logic gates.

So i am looking for a project that could encompass these skills i have learned so far and i also want to start to learn how to code on the side, and if a project idea has a little bit of coding involved i would defiantly consider it.

Thank you very much, any help would be greatly appreciated.
Daugusta.

 

[berkeman]

Hopefully you were able to figure out a fun project. Now years later, we typically would use a microcontroller (uC) like an Arduino to do such a project. There are many threads in the EE forum and the DIY forum here at the PF discussing such projects.

Also, a fun project to do at that level is to build up a traffic light system for an intersection, using colored LEDs and a circuit to generate the signals and coordinate them. You can do a very simple 4-signal circuit with fixed timing, or you can get fancy and do a larger intersection with car sensors, pedestrian walk buttons and signs, turn arrow lanes, etc. Great practice!