What You'll Need To Enter
To enter the 1997 TI DSP Solutions Challenge, you'll need to provide the following:
- A completed entry form - All students interested in participating in the TI Challenge must read and complete in full this entry form, agreeing to all contest conditions. All submissions must identify any person who contributes any efforts or ideas to the contest. Anyone who does contribute ideas, skills, knowledge or efforts must be advised of all contest rules and conditions and participate as an entrant. All entrants must read and adhere to contest rules.
- An original design based on a TI DSP solution- All competing teams or individuals must submit a hardware or software system that uses a TI TMS320 digital signal processor. A few examples include:
- Active noise cancellation: This technique samples the ambient noise generated in an enclosed environment (like a car), analyzes it, and emits a signal that is out of phase with the original. This can reduce, or eliminate, the noise level. A good processor choice would be a fixed-point DSP from the TMS320C2xx or TMS320C5x generations.
- A low cost automotive volume control responsive to background noise. Develop a system that will automatically adjust the car's audio system volume depending on the environment of the automobile. For example, the system knows the difference in background noise between no traffic and heavy traffic. When the automobile travels through heavier traffic, the volume should adjust, so the driver does not have to reach down to do it, thus distracting him/her from the job of driving.
- Portable voice organizer for recording quick memos in a car, for example. The speech would be compressed and stored in the "organizer". Later, it could be downloaded via an infrared connection to a PC. The compressed voice would then be stored in a s/w package on your PC. Develop a speech-to-text s/w package to convert the spoken voice to text (memo).
- Digital still camera using DSP. The critical code is the Huffman encoding and decoding portion of the JPEG algorithm. Hand-held camera pictures are digital and can be stored on the PC hard drive.
- A motor mounted on a platform. Add the necessary sensors, DSP board and actuators to effectively eliminate the vibration of the platform.
- Additional Application Examples
- An advising professor - All teams or individuals must have an advising professor who also must agree to the rules of the contest. An advising professor at any university may assist more than one design team; however, the efforts of that professor may not interfere with any ongoing commitments with the university or create a conflict of interests among teams. The advising professors and any students on contract with their university are responsible for obtaining any necessary clearance or approval from their academic institution for participation in the contest.
The advising professor for the worldwide grand prize winning team will receive a cash prize of US $15,000 and an offer to work at Texas Instruments for a six-month sabbatical program with the TI TMS320 DSP Product Group located in Houston, Texas, USA. The offer is subject to 1) negotiation of the terms and conditions of employment by TI and the advising professor, 2) all TI standard employment conditions, and 3) applicable immigration regulations.
Advising professors are not limited to, but can include university staff, such as lecturers, research engineers, post doctorates, etc. They must adhere to all rules and conditions like other applicants.
How Contest Designs Are Judged
Winners of the 1997 Texas Instruments DSP Solutions Challenge will be chosen with respect to two criteria 1) merit of the design and 2) education level of the team members. In addition to the use of a TI TMS320 DSP, all designs must meet these requirements.
Merit- Designs will receive a merit score from 1 to 10 (10 being highest) based on the following: inventiveness; practicality and repeatability; difficulty; completeness; professionalism; relevance to solution statement in abstract and functionality of hardware and/or software design (does it work?).
Education Level of Team - The contest is weighted to encourage participation of students of varying levels of education. Each team will be assigned an average education factor, and point assignments will be determined based upon the educational status of each team member as of May 31, 1997. Team members will be notified of the assigned Education Level factor within thirty (30) days of receipt of entry form. Points will be assigned as follows:
- 10 points per undergraduate team member
- 8 points per masters candidate team member
- 6 points per Ph.D. candidate team member
The winning team will be the one with the highest score after multiplying the value of the two criteria, merit and educational level.
Merit Score x Educational Level = Total Score
Deadlines - Completed entry form and abstract due no later than July 31, 1997. Final projects due no later than October 31, 1997.
For More Information
Territory I Semi-final Division (US/Canada/Latin America):
For more information on the contest, students in Territory I should contact:
Texas Instruments DSP Solutions Challenge
Texas Instruments Incorporated
AT: 12203 Southwest Freeway, MS 722
Stafford, Texas 77477
Tel: 281/274-2288
Fax: 281/274-2279
E-mail: univ@msg.ti.com
OR: PO Box 1443, MS 722
Houston, Texas 77251-1443
Territory II Semi-final Division (Europe):
For more information on the contest, students in Territory II should contact:
Texas Instruments Europe
University Programme
Avenue Jack Kilby
PO Box 5
06271 Villeneuve-Loubet Cedex
France
Tel: +33-93-22-2109
Fax: +33-93-22-2298
E-mail: 2dc@msg.ti.com
Territory III Semi-final Division (Asia/Japan):
For more information on the contest, students in Japan should contact:
Texas Instruments Japan Ltd.
University Program
MS-Shibaura Bldg.
13-23, 4-Chome Shibaura
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108 Japan
Tel: 813-3769-8743
Fax: 813-3457-7344
E-mail: kato@msg.ti.com
For more information on the contest, students in East Asia, Southeast Asia and other Asia/Pacific regions should contact:
Texas Instruments Asia Ltd
University Program
Taipei International Bldg, Bldg A
24F, 216, Sec. 2, Tun Hua S. Rd,
Taipei 106
Taiwan
Tel: 886-2-376-2576
Fax: 886-2-377-5624
E-mail: tres@msg.ti.com
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