St. Norbert College CS 460 - Capstone Experience - Spring 2004
Presentation Pics The Projects More Pictures

William Dwyer Train Operating System 6:00pm, Wednesday, April 28
PAC Auditorium

The development of an operating system for the computer-controlled railroad is now complete, allowing a PC to control trains and switches on a model railroad layout. Within the operating system, trains act as processes while sections of track act as resources. This operating system monitors low-level activities that protect the trains, maintaining a safe environment for programmers to develop their own applications.


Christopher Haen Digital Compass Tachometer 6:45pm, Wednesday, April 28
Cofrin 11

The primary goal of this project was to develop an application programming interface (API) for applications to interface a PC with the Vector 2Xe digital compass. I used this API to develop an application designed to measure revolutions of a wheel with an attached magnet. Broader users will allow any user with a digital compass to write program able to access the full functionality of the compass without having to learn how to communicate with the it directly.


Drew Demerath Web Cam System Development Kit 7:15pm, Wednesday, April 28
Cofrin 11

Have you ever bought a new device for your computer and plugged it in and nothing happened? So, you get out the directions and after umpteen hours, you still can't get it to work! Well, I have eliminated this fuss for web cams by developing a packaged system that provides easy access to commands. With my system, you can simply tell the camera to turn on, and with no setup time, the camera "magically" turns on and begins to work. Other functions include changing the camera image to black and white, setting pixels, and yes, even turning off the camera. Now you can modify your web cam images in C++ or VB with simple function calls.


Christopher Ciske Graph Algorithm Animation 7:45pm, Wednesday, April 28
Cofrin 11
My project is a Windows program that allows users to create and edit their own graphs. In addition, the program also animates graph algorithms, such as Depth-First-Search and Breadth-First-Search, on user-created graphs.

Michael Niccolai Device Driver Development Kit 8:15pm, Wednesday, April 28
Cofrin 11
Drivers are pieces of software that are critical to our everyday use of computers, but we generally only notice them when they stop working. This project provides an introduction to the concept of a driver, what it is and what it does, and introduces the user to the black art of writing device drivers for modern Windows operating systems. Find out why drivers are so important and why they can cause so many problems if not created properly.