Autonomous cars and gesture-controlled drones -Students innovate cutting-edge technology

Troubleshooting, hardware building and machine learning – Capstone projects challenge students to solve practical challenges and act like professionals. At Capstone, students develop their technical skills alongside teamwork, relentless problem-solving and self-confidence.

Autonomous racing car speeds around the track

An international team of third-year students developed a small autonomous racing car as part of their Capstone course, combining hardware upgrades with AI-based vision and control. For third-year students, this is a major achievement.

In the project, students updated and built new solutions on top of the basic platform. They replaced the camera and battery and solved compatibility problems between software versions and machine learning frameworks.

In a team of six, responsibilities were divided according to individual strengths. The team focused on embedded hardware. There was also plenty to do in terms of AI and software; coding the control stack, training models in the simulator, preparing training data and validating performance on the track.

“However, the most vital lesson was learning to solve problems as a team. When issues arose, we tackled them together until we found a way forward,” tells Antton Veijalainen from the project team.

Cherry became a masterpiece of human-robot interaction

Another team of students took up the challenge of developing interactive camera drones. In a project focusing on human-robot interaction, the students coded a drone – named Cherry – to follow a person and respond to hand gestures. The solution allows the drone to be controlled without traditional remote controls. The drone uses its own camera as a machine vision system, and a laptop takes care of the computing needs of the system.

The team includes students from fields such as mechanical engineering, business administration and software development. Programmers focused on integrating the drone’s vision and control code, while mechanical engineering students contributed a robotics perspective on how the system should behave in real-world use. Business students supported the project by thinking through product and marketing angles.

“We’ve had our ups and downs, as projects always do,” tells Lari Valta, a third-year mechanical engineering student and project leader.
“Now the code runs smoothly.”

There is no need to fear artificial intelligence

Students approaching their final year are not afraid of the rapid development of artificial intelligence. Students talk about the role of AI as a tool to facilitate coding and complex troubleshooting. While the job market is changing and some roles may disappear altogether, students are confident about their career prospects.

Students report that AI is seen as an enabler. So far, AI applications offer almost free resources to develop their skills. Learning up-to-date tools and a critical understanding of the reliability and use of AI will keep them at the forefront of developments, summarize these two student teams that have developed cutting-edge technology.