After months of work – moving from concept through design to construction – a team of ECE undergraduate students will travel to Walt Disney World to show off their design project at the second annual Cornell Cup USA presented by Intel.

The four-person team of ECE seniors: Yi Zhou, Zuguang Xiao, Ross Ragsdale, and Aashish Raj Simha have earned a spot in the competition for their project, Table-It, a collaborative and portable conference workstation. With features such as shared wireless access to the projector, screen capture, integrated camera, and audio recording, Table-It will allow teams to work quickly and effectively together, while keeping a complete record of everything done and discussed. 

 “I'm eager to see what other groups have produced with their time and resources, as there have been plenty of challenges and hurdles along the road to competition.  I hope to learn from other teams, share what I have learned, and hopefully even do a little networking,” said Ross Ragsdale, project team member. 

The team from Purdue, accompanied by Dr. Mark Johnson, Director of Instructional Labs, will be one of 30 teams from 18 institutions throughout the country demonstrating their creations.  The goal of the Cornell Cup is to challenge student design teams to use the latest Intel Atom board to create embedded technology devices that address real-world needs and offer real-world ready solutions worthy of a tech investor’s eye. 

“I am excited to again be taking a Purdue team to the competition. Our students have explored a wide variety of design options to create a system to provide collaboration functions not previously available in a single integrated, self-contained, portable system.  It is a great experience for these students to work through the design process, present their work to a wide audience, and to interact both with industry people and design teams from many universities across the US, “ said Dr. Johnson. 

Each team will travel to Walt Disney World for a two-day, expo-style event May 3-4 to show off their creations and be measured by a panel of judges for a $10,000 grand prize.  Second place ($5,000) and third place ($2,500) prizes will also be awarded.