When the installation of Windows 8 was complete on Nick Danyluk鈥檚 laptop, he discovered with disappointment that the interface was geared toward monitors with touch screens, which was not something his computer featured. In this scenario, most people would seek out a way to make do or revert to the more familiar layout of Windows 7.
Nick Danyluk at his computer
Danyluk is not most people. Instead of taking the easy way out, he chose to employ a more challenging solution鈥攊nvent a device that converts his ordinary monitor into a touch screen.
After nearly a year and a half of designing, building and fine-tuning, BeamBreak was born. Small and light enough to be carried in a backpack, the device is little more than four long thin circuit boards connected to each other to form a rectangle that fits directly over a 15-inch monitor. These are wired to another small, square circuit board, the device鈥檚 鈥渂rain,鈥 situated behind the screen. To power it, a short USB cord plugs into the laptop鈥檚 port. The inside of the rectangle is lined with tiny clear LEDs that flash beams of infrared light across the screen to black phototransistors on the opposite side, generating an invisible grid.
When you touch the screen, your finger blocks two intersecting beams of infrared light. With this, Danyluk鈥檚 code is able to determine where you are touching and tells Windows. The operating system takes it from there and the effect is virtually indistinguishable from the touch screens of top manufacturers.
A senior in the 鈥檚 , Danyluk is eager to find innovative solutions using the knowledge he is gaining in the classroom. His work on BeamBreak is indicative of this. Inside and outside of his studies, he is engaged and passionate about technology, and he鈥檚 having fun doing it.
Q: It鈥檚 clear that electrical engineering is a good fit for you. Why did you choose to study this subject?
A. I鈥檝e always liked to tinker. 聽I took programming courses in high school and spent a lot of time learning about my family鈥檚 home computer. That carried over. At 12 or 13, I was replacing the memory and upgrading video cards. I considered pursuing computer science, but I can鈥檛 see myself programming every day. Although I鈥檝e seen the computer engineers build some amazing things, that鈥檚 not for me.
I feel that electrical engineering is much more hardware-centric. The real draw was that I could work on projects like this, and once I learned the fundamentals, I found that there is so much you can do with engineering. It鈥檚 a broad field and 黑料不打烊聽has a great program. I enjoy having full access to the labs and my professors really encouraged and helped me when I was just getting started.
Q. BeamBreak has taken up a substantial portion of your free time. Have you made time to participate in other things at SU?
A. I鈥檓 a part of the IEEE professional society. It鈥檚 a place where you have a bunch of passionate people in one spot and it鈥檚 amazing what you can come up with. For example, I鈥檝e joined the SU Micromouse team. Micromouse is a competition in which we design a robot mouse to make its way through a maze using the shortest path possible to the center. It has sensors on it that can detect if it has a wall next to it and uses an algorithm to dictate its strategy. I鈥檓 going to be involved with building the hardware. It鈥檚 a great example of the college鈥檚 majors overlapping鈥攅lectrical engineering students build the robot and the computer engineering students figure out the software and how to get through the maze. We provide the body, they provide its brain.
Q. BeamBreak is complete and you are in your final year of your undergraduate education. What鈥檚 next?
A. Just for fun, I鈥檝e started work on a robot that moves around the room and bumps into things like a Roomba vacuum cleaner does. It will also post to the internet to announce how its day is going.
As far as after college, I am looking for a full-time job. I鈥檝e always really liked consumer electronics and am gravitating toward a career in that. I would love to work on the latest laptops, phones, tablets, 3D printers or other cutting-edge gadgets. I want to build things and have tangible results.
Q. So much of what you are involved in is above and beyond your academic responsibilities. What do you get out of these experiences that make them worth your time and energy?
A. The easy answer? It鈥檚 fun. There are parts that are a struggle. I had a weird bug with BeamBreak where it was nearly short-circuiting the USB port because one line of my code was wrong. These kinds of roadblocks are frustrating and can leave you banging your head up against the wall, but the end result is worth every second.
As an engineering student, there have been nights when I鈥檝e had to pull an all-nighter, but also many nights when I am just able to hang out with friends. I have a group of friends that I met here that I wouldn鈥檛 change for anything else in the world. We鈥檙e very close-knit.
Through my academic work and related extracurricular activities, I can confidently say that if you gave me a box of circuit components, 24 hours and my computer, I can build something innovative with it. It鈥檚 a lot of work. It takes a lot of dedication and time management skills, but it鈥檚 been so positive. I鈥檝e learned so much.
