Project Idea HELP

Thread Starter

mnhusker20

Joined Sep 30, 2010
5
Hey all, I'm new to this board. Some background information on myself. Im a junior EE at Iowa State University. I have some project experience, I built an ECG over summer with my dad who is also an EE. So I have good knowledge on amplifiers and filters and some A/D conversion.

My objective for a project is to learn more within the realm of electronics. I would like to learn more about using microcontrollers. I have a TI MSP-EXP430F5438 experimenter board, I used this for the ECG project. Any project ideas that could utilize that would be awesome. I've also looking into doing a project using networking, something like wireless sensor networking or something along those lines.

I know this is pretty vague, but Im open to any ideas that anyone has for an experiment that implements a bunch of skills that would expand a EE knowledge base.

Thanks,
Will
 

Thread Starter

mnhusker20

Joined Sep 30, 2010
5
Sorry for the vagueness, didn't expect much from that description

Here's a project idea I've been brainstorming for awhile now but just not sure how to go about it.

A dehydration device that could be used by soldiers, athletes, and firemen.

My idea was to build a sensor that could read sodium levels in sweat. Which is one of the ways to test for dehydration. Another is elasticity of the skin and skin temperature. I figure those would be easier to test, since there is no sensor for measuring sodium levels yet, as far as I know.

I would like to relay the data either wirelessly to a computer or just have the device beep or make some signal when the patient becomes symptomatic of dehydration.

Anyone that has any ideas on where to start or what the process to building something like this would be amazing.

Thanks again,
Will
 

wayneh

Joined Sep 9, 2010
17,496
My idea was to build a sensor that could read sodium levels in sweat. Which is one of the ways to test for dehydration. Another is elasticity of the skin and skin temperature. I figure those would be easier to test, since there is no sensor for measuring sodium levels yet, as far as I know.
There are sodium probes, just like pH probes, but perhaps not useful here. Skin temp would be a snap, but by itself not very useful. You might be able to measure skin conductivity fairly easily, which would tell you how much and how salty the sweat is. I think a polygraph measures galvanic response of the skin, among other things.
You can buy scales now for home use that measure weight and fat percentage - I think by impedance - and also correct that value for hydration level. It might be worth looking into how those work. I think they work pretty well - they give a notably different moisture level before and after a run.
 

Thread Starter

mnhusker20

Joined Sep 30, 2010
5
I've heard about the probes. I was looking to create a sensor that could continually read hydration levels but I believe that is way out of my knowledge basis.

I'll look into those scales maybe I can implement my idea using those scales or using the other measurement mentioned above and create an algorithm or something when each measurement reaches a certain level. Need todo more research.

Thanks for the input anymore ideas would be much appreciated.

Will
 
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