Spring 2009 Quarterly Report - IEEE UCSD - UC San Diego

IEEE UCSD 

Quarterly 

Report 

Serving the community through innovation 

Spring 09

IEEE UCSD Quarterly Report Spring 09 

Table of Contents 

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................................................ 3 

Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................................................. 4 

Permanent Contact Information ............................................................................................................................................. 4 

Officers .................................................................................................................................................................................... 4 

Membership ............................................................................................................................................................................ 5 

Events ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 5 

Summary and Statistics ....................................................................................................................................................... 5 

Number of Events by Business Area ............................................................................................................................... 6 

Events by Attendance ..................................................................................................................................................... 6 

Events by Cost per Capita ............................................................................................................................................... 7 

Events by Cost-Attendance Index ................................................................................................................................... 8 

Event Details and Analysis .................................................................................................................................................. 9 

IEEE Lasertag Challenge - IEEE 125 th Anniversary Event ................................................................................................. 9 

Sp09 Infosession ............................................................................................................................................................. 9 

Southwest Area Meeting ................................................................................................. Error! Bookmark not defined. 

Dragonboat Festival ...................................................................................................................................................... 10 

Junkyard Derby ............................................................................................................................................................. 11 

Micromouse Demo Day ................................................................................................................................................ 11 

HappEE Hour ................................................................................................................................................................. 12 

Projects ................................................................................................................................................................................. 12 

Micromouse ...................................................................................................................................................................... 12 

Team.............................................................................................................................................................................. 13 

Accomplishments .......................................................................................................................................................... 13 

Robomagellan ................................................................................................................................................................... 13 

Team.............................................................................................................................................................................. 14 


Natcar ................................................................................................................................................................................ 15 

Team.............................................................................................................................................................................. 15 


AUVSI................................................................................................................................................................................. 15 

Team.............................................................................................................................................................................. 16 


Outreach ............................................................................................................................................................................... 17 

San Diego Science Festival ................................................................................................................................................ 17 

ThinkGreen High School Outreach .................................................................................................................................... 17 

Website ................................................................................................................................................................................. 17 

Finance .................................................................................................................................................................................. 18 

Spending ........................................................................................................................................................................... 18 

Detailed Spending Breakdown ...................................................................................................................................... 18 

Spending by Project/Event ............................................................................................................................................ 20 

Spending by Business Area ........................................................................................................................................... 21 

Spending by Expense Category ..................................................................................................................................... 21 

Revenue ............................................................................................................................................................................ 22 

Detailed Revenue Breakdown ....................................................................................................................................... 22 

Revenue by Source ........................................................................................................................................................ 22 

2 http://ieee.ucsd.edu

Introduction 


It has been my distinct honor to serve as president of IEEE UCSD this year. We are a unique organization, straddling two 

of the most prestigious and influential institutions in the world. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers is the 

world’s largest organization for the advancement of technology, and UC San Diego is a world-class research university. 

We are constantly flip flopping between our two mottos, “Serving the community through innovation” and “Applying 

engineering outside the classroom.” Choosing between them has proven an impossible task, but I’ve finally realized we 

don’t have to settle on just one. We can, and should, embrace both. In fact, it is our activity in outreach and hands-on 

engineering education that I am most proud this year. I’d like to highlight some of our accomplishments in these areas. 

Jaclyn Rapadas led the creation of our outreach program from the ground up. She designed an educational booth that 

teaches kids about robotics and the positive impact of electronics on the world. For the first time ever, we participated 

in Enspire, an annual outreach event targeting middle school students held during National Engineers Week. We hosted 

a booth at the first annual San Diego Science Festival, where we faced a relentless mob of kids and parents wanting to 

participate in our hands-on activities. Finally, we hosted a booth at ThinkGreen, an outreach event aimed at high school 

students. I think outreach is both an area of great need and great reward, and I can’t wait to see what we do next year. 

Without question, Alex Forencich and Jeffrey Wurzbach took extracurricular engineering to an entirely new level of 

professionalism, sophistication, quality, and scope with Micromouse. Alex built a modular electronics platform from the 

ground up, designing three dual-layer printed circuit boards by hand. Jeff designed the body of the robot in SolidWorks 

and had it fabbed at a machine shop. He also designed and led construction of a full size, competition-spec maze at less 

than half the cost of purchasing a commercially available maze. We hosted the competition as part of the Southwest 

Area Conference and the team won 1 st place. Additionally, they presented a poster at Eureka 2009 (an undergraduate 

research conference), gave a technical talk on their design, and participated in iARoC, a robotics competition held at the 

Del Mar Fairgrounds. This year’s Micromouse is going to be a tough act to follow! 

This was a busy quarter for us. Between hosting the Southwest Area Conference, having all 3 of our projects compete, 

building our Junkyard Derby car, hosting five social events, and recruiting 9 new officers, everyone in IEEE UCSD lost 

more than a little sleep this quarter. It was worth it though, and I can’t wait to do it again next year! 

Jordan 


Acknowledgements 

We would like to thank the following people for supporting IEEE UCSD. 


� Susan Shepard and the S&E library for supplying nearly half our funding and putting our projects on display 

� Mark Frankfurth and IEEE SD Section for sponsoring Micromouse and the SWA 

� Dean Frieder Seible and the Jacobs School for matching funds 

� IEEE Region 6 for sponsoring our Micromouse maze 

� Lindsay Caldwell and Northrop Grumman Corporation for sponsoring RoboMagellan 

� Adolfo Juarez, Larry Larson, Terrance Mayes and the ECE department for helping us with publicity, granting 

access to lab space, providing a room for the Micromouse maze, and sponsoring our participation in iARoC 

� Sara Richardson and the Triton Engineering Student Council for letting us be a part of their awesome events and 

providing logistical support 

� Keith Marzullo, Bill Young, and CSE department for hosting our server in the CSE machine room 

� Kristen Fitzpatrick and IEEE for making this organization possible 

� Charles Tu for sponsoring Dragonboat, sponsoring the SWA, and his sound advice and tireless work on behalf of 

students 

Permanent Contact Information 

Officers 

ieee.ucsd@gmail.com 

http://ieee.ucsd.edu 

IEEE UCSD, MC 0078 

University of California, San Diego 

9500 Gilman Drive 

La Jolla, CA 92093-0078 

Position Name Email 

President Jordan Rhee jerhee@ucsd.edu 

VP Internal Jennifer Williamson j5willia@ucsd.edu 

VP External Minji Kim mik011@ucsd.edu 

Projects Manager Mrinal Agarwal mragarwa@ucsd.edu 

Outreach Chair Kenny Brooks kennybrooks@gmail.com 

Social Chair Kevin Choi kevinxchoi@gmail.com 

Technical Chair Shauna Thomas shn.thms@gmail.com 

Professional Chair Douglas Burnette dburnett@ucsd.edu 

Treasurer Vikram Bhasker vbhasker@ucsd.edu 

Secretary Minji Kim(temporary) 

Webmaster Dallas Dutcher dallasdutcher@gmail.com 

Publicty Alvin Jianto mr.jianto@gmail.com 

Historian Tri Quach NothinRandom@gmail.com 

TESC Rep Henry Yip masters614@gmail.com 



Project Leads 

Micromouse Lead Alex Forencich alex.forencich@gmail.com 

Micromouse Co-lead Jeffrey Wurzbach apache405@gmail.com 

Robomagellan Lead Omeed Mirbod omirbod@gmail.com 

Natcar Lead Justin Li jldragon@gmail.com 

AUVSI Lead Daniel Bedenko d.bedenko@gmail.com 

Membership 

Branch Members Total ECE students % Members 

University of California, San Diego 213 916 23.25% 

San Diego State University 110 585 18.80% 

University of San Diego 17 

N/A 

Events 

Summary and Statistics 

Date Event Business Area Cost Attendance 

4/4/2009 Admit Day Tabling Membership Dev. $ - NA 

4/4/2009 SD Science Festival Outreach $ - NA 

4/15/2009 Lasertag Challenge Social $ 695.70 76 

4/16/2009 Sp09 Infosession Membership Dev. $ 54.10 20 

4/25/2009 Southwest Area Meeting Administrative $ 479.16 40 

5/2/2009 Dragonboat Festival Social $ 39.56 16 

5/8/2009 Junkyard Derby Social $ 50.00 NA 

5/20/2009 ThinkGreen outreach Outreach $ - NA 

5/28/2009 Micromouse Demo Day Projects $ 50.00 1 1 

5/29/2009 HappEE Hour Social $ 89.34 30 

5/30/2009 Eng. transfer student open house Projects $ - NA 

6/4/2009 Movie Night Social $ 66.86 10 

1 Estimate based on unreported cost of food donated by Wurzbach family. Reported cost was $0. 


Number of Events by Business Area 

Events by Attendance 

80 

70 

60 

50 

40 

30 

20 

10 

0 

Lasertag 

Challenge 

Number of Events by Business Area. Total = 12 

Southwest 

Area Meeting 

Projects, 2 

Social, 5 

Outreach, 2 

Events by Attendance 

HappEE Hour Sp09 

Infosession 

Administrative, 1 

Membership Dev, 2 

Dragonboat 

Festival 


Movie Night Micromouse 

Demo Day 


Events by Cost per Capita 

$60.00 

$50.00 

$40.00 

$30.00 

$20.00 

$10.00 

$0.00 

Dragonboat 

Festival 

Sp09 

Infosession 

Events by Cost per Capita 

HappEE Hour Movie Night Lasertag 

Challenge 


Southwest 

Area Meeting 

Micromouse 

Demo Day 


Event Details and Analysis 

IEEE Lasertag Challenge - IEEE 125 th Anniversary Event 


When Where Attendance Cost Business Area 

4/15/2009 Ultrazone 76 $ 695.70 Social 

Online: http://ieee.ucsd.edu/events/item.php?id=105 

Photos: http://ieee.ucsd.edu/photos/view.php?album_id=63 

Ad Line. Do you have what it takes to smell the sweet smell of laser victory? 

Description. The IEEE Lasertag Challenge is an event where the engineering orgs face 

off in a laser tag tournament. The winner gets their name on the Laser trophy, which 

is displayed in the S&E Library. Since this is our most popular event, we decided to use 

it for our 125 th Anniversary Event. This time, there were 9 teams with a total of 76 

people. As a special treat, we got four cakes that spelled out “Happy 125 th 

Anniversary IEEE.” 

Analysis. As usual, this event had good attendance and everyone had a great time. 

For the first time, we reserved the entire zone so we got to play a lot. TESC won a 

decisive victory, but team IEEE will be back next time! 

Sp09 Infosession 


Thurs 4/16/09 CSE 1202 35 $54.10 Membership Dev 


Ad Line. Come learn about our Spring Quarter events, awesome 

technical projects, and outreach opportunities. We will also be 

advertising our open officer positions. And of course, there will be 

free pizza! 

Description. Info-session is a quarterly event occurring at the 

beginning of each quarter. Most, if not all, of the officers present a 

few slides to inform the audiences. We usually introduce what IEEE 

is, what we do, and how to get involved. One of the main purposes 

of the spring quarter info-session is to recruit new officers for the 

upcoming school year. 

Analysis. The attendance was not as great as we've expected, perhaps because we didn't have enough in-class 

announcements. We had enough flyers all over Warren and had a facebook event, but in-class announcements are 

much more effective both to inform and to remind the ECE students. We ran out of food quickly, so maybe we should 

prepare better next time. Next time, especially fall quarter, a runthrough of the slideshow the day before might be 

necessary. Otherwise, the content of the presentation itself was short and condensed. 


IEEE Region 6 Southwest Area Spring Meeting 



4/25/2009 Henry Booker 40 $479.16 Administrative 


Description. The IEEE Region 6 Southwest Area Spring Meeting is an annual meeting where sections and student 

branches in the Region 6 Southwest Area get together to share updates. The focus of the meeting is the Micromouse 

competition and the student paper contest. The meeting rotates among universities in the southwest area. Jen 

Williamson coordinated all the logistics including hotels, travel, room reservations, catering, and registration. Since the 

Micromouse competition is held during the meeting, we had to construct a maze. Jeff Wurzbach led construction of the 

maze, which they started building in October, 2008. Over six months and 200 man-hours later, they completed the maze 

in time for the competition. The quality of construction 

is excellent and the tolerances are tighter than required 

by the spec. Amazingly, Jeff managed to get it done 

for20% less than it would have cost to buy a maze from 

someone else. We have the only student-built maze in 

the region, and possibly the country. Our Micromouse 

team, led by Alex Forencich, won the Micromouse 

competition and the prize of $500. There were six 

entries in the Student Paper contest this year, 

representing almost all universities in the southwest 

area. Jordan Rhee won the contest with his paper “Hot 

spot mitigation in the StarCave.” 

Analysis. This meeting was a lot of work, especially for Jen and Jeff who’s dedication and hard work deserve special 

recognition. We were disappointed that no other Micromouse teams showed up, but we hope other schools will start or 

revive their Micromouse projects. The papers in this year’s paper contest were the best in recent memory, and we hope 

to attract even higher quality technical papers next year. We are happy the SWA was so successful, but we’re glad we 

won’t have to host another one for at least a few years! 

Dragonboat Festival 


5/2/2009 Mission Bay 16 $39.56 Social 


Pictures: http://ieee.ucsd.edu/photos/view.php?album_id=62 

Ad Line. Experience teamwork firsthand with our annual Dragonboat 

rowing competition! 

Description. Each year, IEEE UCSD assembles a team of 16 members to 

compete in the annual Dragonboat Festival. The festival is attended by 

other engineering companies and organizations in San Diego, including 

Hewlett-Packard, LG, Qualcomm, and the Scripps research institute. In 

this event, we not only have a great time in the competition, but also 



learn about teamwork and focus. Professor Charles Tu supports our participation in this event with a generous personal 

donation. 

Analysis. This event is an extremely popular event among our officer team and members. In the last 3 years, we have 

had a full team of members to compete, named the Quantum Tunnelers, and have gone on to achieve high ranks. In 

2007, we received 3rd place in the competition, and in 2006 and 2008, we received 2nd place. In order to better prepare 

our new members, we will spend more time in preparing them for the races and helping them to realize the importance 

of synchronization, or teamwork. We look forward to reaching our goal of 1st place in the coming years! 

Junkyard Derby 


5/8/2009 UCSD NA $50 Social 


Ad Line. Come out and help build our junkyard derby car! This 

year our theme is Wall-IEEE. 

Description. Junkyard Derby is an annual event hosted by TESC 

(Triton Engineering Student Council). About fifty teams have two 

days to build cars out of old bicycles and other junk. The event 

culminates in a tournament-style race down Peterson Hill. This 

year, our theme was "Wall-ieee". 

Analysis. On Wednesday night, we discussed the mechanical 

design of the car. We started building Thursday afternoon, and 

completed the car around 11 p.m. A lot of the mechanical design 

was done by Jeff, Paul, and Jordan. On the day of the 

competition, we made it to the quarter finals before being eliminated. Next year, we could do more advertising to get 

more members involved in this fun project! 

Micromouse Demo Day 


5/28/2009 EBU1 4710 1 $50 Projects 


Description. With the recent success of the UC San Diego Micromouse Team's robot in the Region 6 SWA competition, 

the team leads, Alex Forencich and Jeff Wurzbach discussed the design process that led to the creation of their robot. 

Analysis. The Demo Day was a valuable experiment. One person attended. The Wurzbach family donated the food and 

Jeff Wurzbach printed everything with his printing account, thus the cost to IEEE is $0.00. 

We believe the attendance was too low due to several factors, some within our control and some outside our control. 

The marketing campaign for the event was rapidly put together, following normal practices of flyering and emailing the 

ECE list. Many of our flyers were removed by an unknown party. Additionally, it appears as though many people on the 

email list did not receive the day after the event. Another factor in the low attendance is the timing of the event. Doing 



the event so close to the end of spring quarter was a mistake on our part. It probably would receive much higher 

attendance during Welcome week or first week of fall quarter. The primary reason is that too many students were 

focused on finals and summer plans. We should definitely do the Demo day again, but time it more effectively. The talk 

itself was very thorough and well constructed. 

HappEE Hour 


5/29/2009 Bear Courtyard 35 $89.34 Social 


Ad Line. Come get some free food and chill with your fellow Double E's. 

Description. HappEE Hour is an event based on Worchester Polytechnic 

Institute’s event of the same name. We wanted to have a "chill day" for 

Electrical Engineers. Because the target was Electrical Engineers, we asked 

HKN to join us in planning and execution. The main idea was to just to 

provide food and leave the "socializing" to the EE's. 

Analysis. The attendance of this event was great! Because it was a joint 

event with HKN, their officers and our officers collaborated in advertising 

to fellow EE's. We had some sandwiches, cookies, and sodas and drinks. 

HKN officers' suggestion of sandwich was great, since it's not just an ordinary pizza provided at most "free food places". 

The only problem with the food this year was that it was quite costly, but next year we can reduce the cost by getting 

more people involved in preparation, and making our own sandwich or other simple, affordable food. Another idea is to 

invite the grad students and professors, and the ECE faculty to come join us and provide a good networking place for 

EE's. Advertising was great, except that a lot of the flyers posted in EBU 2 were taken down by unknown persons. 

We've requested a secure place to post flyers in EBU 2, so we shouldn't have the same problem in the future. 

Projects 

You may notice a new entry in our projects list this quarter. We partnered with AUVSI (Association for Unmanned 

Vehicle Systems International) to help with publicity and recruiting. We are excited to make this sophisticated 

engineering project known to our members. 

Micromouse 

The Micromouse Competition was held on April 25 th , 2009 at UCSD as part of the spring IEEE Southwestern Area 

Meeting. This was the third consecutive year the UCSD team has fielded a robot for the competition. This year’s mouse 

performed significantly better than previous years’ designs. The team built a maze that complied with all IEEE 

specifications and was deemed acceptable for the competition. The maze is currently housed in EBU1-4710, which is on 

semi-permanent loan from the ECE department. The team competed with one robot and won the SWA Micromouse 

Competition. This year’s team was the focus of a video and a press release created by Daniel Kane in the Dean’s office. 

The ACM TechNews featured our press release and video in one of their recent email newsletters. In June, Alex and Jeff 

modified the robot and competed in iARoC, a robotics competition held during the Del Mar Fair focusing on middle and 

high school students. The project generated significant media attention for the Jacobs School, the ECE department, and 

IEEE UCSD. 


Team 

Name Title/Role Email 

Alex Forencich Project Lead alex.forencich@gmail.com 

Jeffery Wurzbach Project Co-lead/Maze Lead apache405@gmail.com 

Luan Pham Software otp1028@gmail.com 

Shauna Thomas Software, maze shn.thms@gmail.com 

Vu Nguyen Software redVIII@gmail.com 

Accomplishments 

� Completed Maze 

� Finished building and programming robot 

� Hosted competition, competed in competition, won 1 st place 

� Put together detailed technical presentation, hosted “Micromouse Demo Day” 

� Applied for, awarded $650 from ECE dept to participate in iARoC 

� Outfitted robot with IR sensors for iARoC competition, competed in iARoC 

� Awarded $1000 from IEEE Region 6 to help fund maze 

� Obtained permanent room from ECE department (EBU1 4710) 

� News article written by JSOE communications office, posted on JSOE homepage 

� Presented robot at IEEE SD Section meeting 

� Completed matching funds final report 

Robomagellan 


Left: The team and some officers pose by the maze. Right: Alex describes the electronics and software. 

This year, the team designed and built a robot from the ground up. The RoboMagellan competition was held on June 14 

in San Francisco as part of the international RoboGames contest (http://robogames.net ). By the time of the 

competition, however, the robot was plagued with electrical problems and was not able to compete. On the mechanical 

side, the biggest successes were a faraday cage around the motors to shield the electronics from EM noise and a custom 

plastic shell to protect the electronics. The biggest problem was that the suspension was unable to support the weight of 

the car as more and more electronics were piled on. On the electronics side, the biggest accomplishment was successful 



integration of the various hardware - Via C7 mini computer, GPS, compass, camera, microcontroller for PWM motor 

control, sonar sensors, and wireless interface. The Achilles heel was the power supply, which was unable to supply 

enough current to power the system. It was based on linear regulators, so was inefficient and got very hot. On the 

software side, the biggest success was writing custom Linux drivers for the GPS module and being able to communicate 

with all the peripherals. The biggest challenges were dealing with concurrency and asynchronous hardware events, 

making the code run efficiently on the embedded CPU, and having multiple developers working on the same piece of 

software. 

Mrinal helped keep travel costs down by letting the team stay at his bay area home for the competition. They pulled off 

a 6 person, 2 day trip to San Francisco for only $241.48! 

Team 

Left: The robot complete with custom plastic shell. Right: The team debugs the robot before the competition. 


Omeed Mirbod Project Lead omirbod@ucsd.edu 

Brian Jones Electrical bwjones@ucsd.edu 

Kevin Nagata Electrical ktnagata@ucsd.edu 

Shahrooz Shelechi Electrical sshelech@ucsd.edu 

Garrett Williams Electrical gjwillia@ucsd.edu 

Zhe Wen Mechanical zwen@ucsd.edu 

Justin Huang Sensors jyh004@ucsd.edu 

Mike Ortiz Sensors mtortiz@ucsd.edu 

Matt Rasmussen Electrical mrasmus@gmail.com 


� Designed and fabbed plastic shell for body of robot 

� Successfully integrated electronics - Via C7 mini computer, GPS, compass, camera, motor controllers, sonar 

sensors, wireless interface 

� Wrote drivers to communicate with peripherals 


� Built interdisciplinary team from variety of engineering majors, continuous into next year 

� Completed Matching Funds final report 

� Completed AS Travel Grants proposal (funding denied) 

Natcar 


The Natcar competition was held this year on May 22nd at UC Davis. The team withdrew from competition as the 

individual modules failed to work collectively. This quarter the major accomplishments were implementing the modules 

and programming the microcontroller. One major success was that the magnetic sensors were able to pick up the 

magnetic field around the wire. One of the major challenges lay in the motor controller design. The MOSFET in the 

motorcontroller module would overheat and the motor would stop responding. This was the primary obstacle to getting 

the car to run. In addition, the voltage inverter failed to output -5 Volts with the motor controller attached. In regards to 

the software, the program successfully controlled the servo with inputs from the sensors. It also successfully took user 

inputs from the buttons and relayed the status of the car via the 8-bit LED display. 

Team 


Justin Li Project Lead JLDragon@gmail.com 

Minji Kim Electrical mik011@ucsd.edu 

Justin Nguyen Electrical jan009@ucsd.edu 

Jonathan Chao Electrical Chaoism@gmail.com 

Diana Chang Electrical d7chang@ucsd.edu 

Justin Huang Electrical jjhuang@ucsd.edu 

Andrew Yang Electrical chy009@ucsd.edu 

Jun Suk Choi Electrical jsc009@ucsd.edu 

Minho Han Electrical k983317@gmail.com 

Lawrence Lee Software DoubleL930@gmail.com 

Jeff Su Software jlsu.management@gmail.com 


� Investigated and solved the overheating problem for the motor controller module. 

� Formulated a solution to the problem of drawing sufficient current for all of the modules on the car. 

� Developed a solid team that will continue to compete the following years. 

� Gained hands-on experience in researching and building a design. 

� Completed AS Travel Grants Proposal (funding denied) 

AUVSI 

The Association for Unmanned Vehicle Systems International (AUVSI) competition challenges students to design, build, 

and operate an autonomous unmanned aerial system. The complete mission objectives are for an unmanned, radio 

controllable aircraft to be launched and transition or continue to autonomous flight, navigate a specified course, and use 

onboard payload sensors to locate and assess a series of manmade objects in a search area prior to returning to the 

launch point for landing. In the simulated environment, the UAV must autonomously navigate through a set of 



waypoints, staying close to the pre-determined path to avoid detection by a simulated enemy. There are two targets 

along the path, one located directly under and a second located to the side of the flight path. After proceeding through 

the set of waypoints, the UAV enters a search area at which point it must navigate and explore the area to identify and 

locate all the targets. Finally, to simulate real world retasking, the search area will change during the mission and an 

additional target that is not pre-defined in shape must be located. 

Team 


Karthik Balakrishnan Project Manager karthik@ucsd.edu 

Thomas Hong Airframe Lead tshong@ucsd.edu 

Josh Egbert Airframe jegbert@ucsd.edu 

Daniel Bedenko Electrical/Software d.bedenko@gmail.com 

Shane Grant Electrical/Software wgrant@ucsd.edu 

Dr. John Kosmatka Faculty Advisor jkosmatka@ucsd.edu 

Chad Foerster Grad Advisor chad.foerster@gmail.com 


� Built new vehicle from ground up 

� Won 2 nd place in national competition 


Outreach 

San Diego Science Festival 

The first annual, month-long San Diego Science Festival 

(http://sdsciencefestival.com) ended with Expo Day on Saturday, 

April 4th. IEEE UCSD and 200 other organizations hosted over 300 

different hands-on activities. Our exhibit, entitled "Danger, Will 

Robinson!" taught people of all ages about robots - how they work, 

what they are used for, and how they affect our lives. At our 

booth, kids built boxing robots and solar-powered race cars, and 

were able to play with them throughout the day. We also had a 

circuit building activity where kids could build basic circuits on 

breadboards to light up LEDs, play music, and witness electricity 

flowing through their own bodies! 

ThinkGreen High School Outreach 

ThinkGreen, hosted by Tau Beta Pi on May 20 2009, brought high school 

students to UCSD to participate in design competitions and learn about 

sustainability and renewable energy. We hosted an exhibit where students 

built circuits and robots. We also demoed the Micromouse robot, and talked 

to students about pursuing a degree in Electrical Engineering. 

Website 

� Designed and deployed new homepage layout 

� Entered IEEE Student Branch Website Contest 



Finance 


This quarter our spending was much less than projected. At the end of winter quarter, Jeff ran into some construction 

problems with the maze. We were projecting about $1600 to get the maze to spec before the competition, but Jeff put a 

layer of MDF over the base, bringing the maze into the spec without any extra spending. The only drawback of this fix is 

that the maze cannot be disassembled for storage or transport as in the original design. RoboMagellan travel came in at 

$240 compared to the $1000 budgeted. Natcar materials came in at $76 compared to the $400 budgeted. The result of 

these and other less-than-expected costs is that we have a healthy carryover into next year. 

Our end-of-year financial report is published in a separate document, “IEEE UCSD Financial Report 08/09” which can be 

found on our website. 

Spending 

Detailed Spending Breakdown 

Project/Event Description Business Area 

Expense 

Category Amount 

Dragonboat Muffins, Granola Bars, Croissants, Danish, water Social food $ 39.56 

HappEE Hour Food Social 

Membership 

food $ 89.34 

Infosession 

Junkyard 

Pizza 

Dev. food $ 54.10 

Derby Junkyard Derby Registration Fee Social other $ 50.00 

Lasertag Ultrazone, 2 hours Social entertainment $ 1,100.00 

Lasertag AIAA payment (8 people) Social entertainment $ (64.00) 

Lasertag TESC payment (12 people) Social entertainment $ (96.00) 

Lasertag HKN payment (12 people) Social entertainment $ (96.00) 

Lasertag CSES payment (6 people) Social entertainment $ (48.00) 

Lasertag BMES payment (5 people) Social entertainment $ (40.00) 

Lasertag TBP payment (18 people) Social entertainment $ (144.00) 

Lasertag ISPE (5 people) - outstanding as of 6/17/09 Social entertainment $ (40.00) 

Lasertag Cake @ 16.99 ea, qt 4 Social food $ 67.96 

Lasertag Water @ 4.39 ea, qt 4 Social food $ 24.56 

Lasertag Napkins, plates, forks Social food $ 31.18 

MM Maze Steel angle iron for maze layout Projects parts $ 18.71 

MM Maze Truck Rental Projects transportation $ 65.38 

Movie Night Pizza Social 

Membership 

food $ 66.86 

NA Graphic design for projects brochure 

Officer awards - gift certificates to Gspoon & 

Dev. design $ 50.00 

NA 

Chipotle Administrative 

Membership 

food $ 40.00 

NA Pizza for natcar meeting 

Dev. food $ 21.64 

NA 18 Gal Tote bins - qt 3 Administrative 

Membership 

office supplies $ 13.05 

NA Ad in CSI "get involved" 2009 mailer (3.5"x2") Dev. advertising $ 42.00 



Natcar 8 pin socket (2) Projects parts $ 0.60 

Natcar 14 pin socket (4) Projects parts $ 1.60 

Natcar Tax Projects parts $ 0.19 

Natcar WSD 2 PIN ULTRA-PLUG; M/F; Projects parts $ 8.68 

Natcar Chips, MOSFETs Projects parts $ 3.26 

Natcar Kill Switch Parts Projects parts $ 7.59 

Natcar Chips, Current Regulator, and Heatsink Projects parts $ 18.38 

Natcar Car Battery Projects parts $ 27.18 

Natcar Chips, MOSFETs Projects parts $ 8.70 

Natcar Plane Tickets to UC Davis - qt 2 Projects transportation $ 323.20 

Natcar Car Rental, gas, toll, parking Projects transportation $ 370.22 

Officers 

Dinner Dinner at BJs for officers and project leads Administrative food $ 304.48 

RoboMagellan NIMH Batteries for Motor Projects parts $ 70.30 

RoboMagellan Robot Compass Projects parts $ 63.95 

RoboMagellan NIMH Batteries for mainboard and peripherals Projects parts $ 133.38 

RoboMagellan Regulators, fuses, fan Projects parts $ 23.03 

RoboMagellan SRF08 Sonar Sensor Projects parts $ 70.95 

RoboMagellan Trinity Motors Projects parts $ 48.88 

RoboMagellan I2C to USB interface (x2) Projects parts $ 84.95 

RoboMagellan Shock Springs for E-MAXX car Projects parts $ 8.66 

RoboMagellan SRF08 Sonar Sensor Projects parts $ 70.95 

RoboMagellan Travel to competition - car rental and gas Projects transportation $ 241.48 

SWA Coffee for SWA Administrative food $ 48.00 

SWA Lunch Catering for 30 Administrative food $ 324.62 

SWA breakfast snacks, orange juice, water Administrative food $ 63.88 

SWA on-campus parking Administrative transportation $ 3.00 

SWA airport parking Administrative transportation $ 2.00 

SWA Gas for transportation Administrative transportation $ 37.66 

Total $ 3,616.11 


Spending by Project/Event 

Dragonboat, $39.56 

, 1% 

RoboMagellan, 

$816.53 , 23% 

Spending By Project/Event. Total = $3,616.11 

SWA, $479.16 , 13% 

Officers Dinner, 

$304.48 , 8% 

HappEE Hour, 

$89.34 , 3% 

Infosession, 

$54.10 , 2% 

Natcar, $769.60 , 

21% 


Lasertag, $695.70 , 

19% 

Junkyard 

Derby, $50.00 

, 1% 

MM Maze, 

$84.09 , 2% 

Movie Night, 

$66.86 , 2% 

NA, $166.69 , 5% 


Spending by Business Area 

Spending by Expense Category 

Spending by Business Area. Total = $3,616.11 

Social, $941.46 , 

26% 

Projects, $1,670.22 , 

46% 

Administrative, 

$836.69 , 23% 

Spending by Expense Category. Total = $3,616.11 

advertising, $42.00 , 

1% 

transportation, 

$1,042.94 , 29% 

parts, $669.94 , 19% 

other, $50.00 , 1% 

design, $50.00 , 1% 

entertainment, 

$572.00 , 16% 

food, $1,176.18 , 

33% 

office supplies, 

$13.05 , 0% 


Membership Dev., 

$167.74 , 5% 


Revenue 


Not shown in the following chart is a $650 grant from the ECE Department for Micromouse to participate in iARoC. Since 

the finances for this event were handled directly between the Micromouse team and the ECE department, this amount 

is not included on our books. Also not shown is a generous personal donation by Charles Tu to support our continued 

participation in the Dragonboat Festival. 

Detailed Revenue Breakdown 

Source Description Amount 

IEEE Region 6 Maze funding $ 1,000.00 

ECE Dept. SWA funding $ 250.00 

IEEE SD Section SWA funding $ 100.00 

Charles Tu SWA funding $ 100.00 

Revenue by Source 

Total $ 1,450.00 

IEEE SD Section, 

$100.00 , 7% 

Revenue by Source. Total = $1,450.00 

Charles Tu, $100.00 

, 7% 

ECE Dept., $250.00 , 

17% 

IEEE Region 6, 

$1,000.00 , 69%

Spring 2009 Quarterly Report - IEEE UCSD - UC San Diego

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