For their senior design capstone project, computer science majors Colin Campbell, Austin Jansky and Peyton Schultz partnered with Marvin, a leading manufacturer of premium windows and doors, to streamline part of the company's production process.
For many NDSU College of Engineering students, the senior design program is an opportunity to work on a project with real-world impact. For computer science majors Colin Campbell, Austin Jansky and Peyton Schultz, that meant partnering with Marvin, a leading manufacturer of premium windows and doors, to streamline part of their production process.
The challenge was to reconfigure a camera system used on Marvin’s assembly line to document products for insurance and quality control purposes. The system, previously powered by a Raspberry Pi, was slow and unreliable, taking up to 60 seconds to capture a single image.
“Our task was to improve the system that takes photos of Marvin’s products during production,” said Campbell. “The old system was slow and would often error out, which obviously isn’t ideal in a high-speed manufacturing environment.”
The team’s solution was both effective and elegant. They replaced the Raspberry Pi and integrated an IP camera directly into the system, dramatically improving speed and reliability.
“It streamlined the process,” Campbell said. “We removed the bottleneck, and now Marvin has a faster and more dependable system.”
For Schultz, the experience offered an inside look at how professional software solutions are deployed in the manufacturing world.
“It was really interesting to see how things are done at a professional level,” Schultz said. “Even though we hadn’t worked with this kind of system before, our coursework had given us the foundational knowledge we needed to hit the ground running.”
Jansky admitted the project was intimidating at first, especially since the team had no prior experience working with industrial camera systems or Marvin’s Ignition software.
“But seeing the whole thing come together and knowing that the company is actually going to use what we built is a great feeling,” Jansky said. “We’re really proud of it.”
The team will soon hand off their code, documentation and camera hardware to Marvin. The company plans to implement the system first at a new facility in Kansas, where it will be installed across three assembly lines.
“We built the scripts to be modular and easy to understand,” Jansky said. “That way, Marvin’s team can take it from here and adapt it to their environment.”
In reflecting on the senior design experience, the team agreed that their time at NDSU prepared them well. From early coursework in Python and comparative programming to faculty support throughout the project, they felt equipped to meet the challenge.
“At first, I was nervous about such a big project,” Jansky said. “But now that we’re wrapping up, I can honestly say I’ve loved every minute of it. It’s been one of the best experiences I’ve had in college, working on a real problem, for a real company, and seeing that our work will make a difference.”
Every major in the College of Engineering includes a capstone experience. The course immerses student teams in hands-on design projects, many for industry clients. Student teams then display their projects at the Winter or Spring Senior Design Expo.
Companies interested in partnering with the College of Engineering on a Senior Design project can learn more at its Industry Connections page.
