Virginia Tech electrical engineering team wins national TI competition

From left to right are: Prestson Taylor, John Caldwell, Thomas LaBella, Alex Kim, Rich Templeton, CEO of Texas Instruments

September 30, 2009, Blacksburg, VA

A team of Virginia Tech electrical and computer engineering students took first place in a nationwide Texas Instruments (TI) competition, winning the 2009 Engibous Prize for their senior design project — a 200 W Class D subwoofer amplifier. The prize is awarded to the student engineering team who demonstrates the highest level of engineering analysis, originality, quality, and creativity in designs featuring TI analog integrated circuits.

Thomas LaBella, John Caldwell, Alex Kim, and Preston Taylor were all students in ECE 4206, Electronic Circuit Design II, supervised by Jason Lai, ECE professor. They will split the first-place prize of $10,000 for the best senior design project among all the participating universities. A team from the University of Arizona took second place for a portable brain wave monitor and the University of Arkansas took third for a photovoltaic array.

This is the first year Virginia Tech participated in the competition, according to Lai. The subwoofer team placed first among the six Virginia Tech entries in the TI Analog Design Contest and received $1,500 plus eligibility to compete for the Engibous Prize. Two teams tied for second place among the Virginia Tech cohort were also from the ECE 4206 class.

The subwoofer team divided the project into two major parts: a 200 W power supply, and an energy-efficient Class D amplifier that would use an active feedback mechanism to reduce distortion by varying the sound based on the vibration of the speaker. The team successfully demonstrated the power supply, which featured a 200 W class D amplifier and an isolated, offline buck converter than achieved zero voltage switching. However, they found that the feedback mechanism suffered from electromagnetic interference from other components, and did not work as they hoped. TI integrated circuits were used in both the power supply and amplifier.

The Engibous Prize was established by TI in 2008 in honor of TI chairman emeritus Tom Engibous, in order to encourage students to experience and use analog semiconductors in their senior projects. The winners are selected from among the first-place winners in the TI Analog Design Contest at schools where at least three teams entered the contest. To be eligible, a team must use at least two TI analog integrated circuits and a TI digital integrated circuit, or three TI analog devices. $150,000 in prizes is distributed in several national competitions. TI also pays each university’s first place team and their supervising professor to travel to Dallas, Texas for the poster presentation and final award ceremony.

The subwoofer project is hosted on TI’s website and can be viewed at http://www.ti.com/corp/docs/landing/universityprogram/09_winners/Virginia_Tech_LaBella.pdf