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SHAASTRA CIRCUIT DESIGN CHALLENGE – SCDC 2010
FIRE ALARM
Statement: Design and build a fire alarm that notifies only when there is a
fire.
Brief abstract: Quite often, the fire alarms go up on sensing a deceiving
stimulus. The aim is to minimize the rate of occurrences of such false alarms
without compromising on the credibility of the device. The participants are
expected to build an intact circuit ( preferably on a PCB ) which can be used as a
prototype for commercial manufacturing.
Every participating team must mail a report to scdc@shaastra.org latest by
23:59 hrs on August 25, 2010 with “SCDC report” as the subject. The report
must include how you plan to design, build and demonstrate the Fire Alarm
circuit. Eight best teams, evaluated based on their reports, shall be shortlisted
for the second round of SCDC and invited to demonstrate their designs at
Shaastra 2010. Please keep in mind that it is not sufficient to state your ideas in
words; you need to give the circuit implementations (schematics / self‐
explanatory block diagrams ) of all the ideas in your report.
All participants taking part in SCDC are requested to stay in touch with the event
coordinators and ask any related queries to scdc@shaastra.org
Details
Frequently, a false alarm arises erroneously, causing unwanted
panic and tension. In the long run, people start ignoring fire
alarms as fake and may fail to act in the case of fire.
Annoyingly, sometimes fire alarms are installed in the roofs
that are close to kitchen, which often mistakes smoke arising
from cooking for fire smoke. Can you build a new, better alarm
that is not extremely over‐cautious ?
Compulsory module : As a compulsory module, the alarm must sense and
display the room temperature ( from a range of 10oC to 50oC ) in Degree
Celsius, with a precision of 1oC . (One of the ways of sensing fire would be
to have a record of rate of rise in temperature). The display should be an
electronic – 7 segment display.
Just like in all available fire alarms, we expect you to have a smoke
detector. It is sensible to have the sensitivity to steam much less that that
of smoke. This can avoid alarms while making food at home. But since
smokes are common even during cooking, smoke is not the only criterion to
detect fire.
Important Note: The circuits must be built from basic electrical / electronic
components like Resistors, Capacitors, Diodes, Transistors, OpAmp, Digital
Logic circuits ( AND,OR,NOT,NAND,NOR,XOR etc ) , flip‐flops, counters,
other necessary ICs, 7‐segment display driver etc. Microcontrollers,
Microprocessors, SoCs, FPGAs or any other programmable device cannot be
used in the circuit. Signal Processing or Image processing cannot be done
under any circumstances. This is a circuit design contest and not a software
developing challenge.
Outputs :
Note : An alarm in this context is used to mean an audio output accompanied
with a blinking light.
1. The temperature should be displayed in digital format only – i.e. The
temperature should be displayed numerically.
2. A mild alarm ( sound + light ) in the case of excess smoke ( but no fire ).
3. A prolonged loud alarm ( sound + light ) in the case of fire.
Event format: All interested contestants must send in a report before
11.59pm on August 25, 2010 to scdc@shaastra.org .Eight best teams will be
selected solely on the basis of the report. The finalists will have to demonstrate a
working circuit at the specified time during Shaastra 2010. The details of the final
round will be explained to the finalists once the short‐listing is done. The selected
teams shall then start building the circuit. A fully‐working circuit must be
demonstrated at the specified time during Shaastra 2010.
Contents in the report:
Subject of the mail : SCDC Report
File name: SCDC_Report_< a fancy name you would like to give for your team>
File type: .pdf or .doc ( No .docx please )
1. The first page of the report must contain only the following details :
a. Names of all the team members and the name of your team.
b. Institute roll numbers , departments/branches and institute names of
each team member.
c. Contact details ( email ID and/or phone number ) of each team
member.
2. A detailed explanation of the design and implementation of the circuit with
appropriate circuit schematics and block diagrams.
3. Any reasonable assumption made and justification for the same.
Once again please note that the selection to the final round is purely based on
this report. Hence make sure you project your team’s idea well in it.
Reports must be sent to scdc@shaastra.org on or before 11.59pm on
August 25, 2010 . A team can send multiple reports but the one received last
before the deadline shall be taken as the final report.
Criteria we are looking for: Ideally, we want a circuit that does not ring
for fire‐like situations but alarms in the incident of a fire as soon as it occurs. The
circuit should be as less deceivable as possible. The circuit will be tested by
sending in just smoke, steam, bright light, a small spark of fire etc.
Suggestive Ideas: The following ideas are just suggestions, to help you in
proceeding further. You may choose to implement the following ideas, or modify
them or use your own new brilliant ideas and then implement them.
You can use the rate of rise in temperature as an indication of fire. High
but constant temperatures could mean that the weather is warm but a sudden
rise could possibly mean fire ! The rate of increase of temperature along with the
temperature at the current instant can be used to take a decision as to whether there
is a fire or not.
Caution: The owner of the house might have switched on his/her room heater…
Preparing a feast on a hot summer day could mean both high temperature and smoke.
Turning on a stove can cause a sudden rise in the temperature of the ambient air
(remember, hot air goes up ). A sensible way of detecting fire is to actually watch if
there is a fire. A photo diode ( can be positioned elsewhere) can sense the flame and
send a signal to the system (wired or wireless) and let on the alarm.
Caution+Hint: Windows kept open on a sunny day will cause a large current in
the photodiode. But sunlight clearly differs from a candle light.
Extra credits:
Extra points shall be awarded based on the following
1. designing and implementing novel, unique methods of determining
fire accidents.
2. designing and building a circuit that is capable of differentiating steam
from smoke.
3. using PCBs instead of Breadboards for building the circuit
Rules and regulations :
o A team can have a maximum of 4 members. A team can be composed of
students from different branches / institutions too. But only college students
with a valid ID are allowed to participate.
o The design and implementation should not involve Microcontrollers,
Microprocessors, SoCs, FGPAs or any other programmable devices.
o The design must satisfy the compulsory requirement specified.
o The selection process to the final round is done solely based on the report,
submitted before the deadline.
o The final design must not significantly differ from the design in the report,
in which case the team shall be disqualified.
o Only one report shall be accepted from each team. A team can re‐send its
report as many times as it wishes. However, the last report received before
the deadline shall be deemed as the final report.
o In case of any discrepancy, the decision of the event coordinators shall be
final and binding in all respects.
References:
This is by far the best place for all your queries. This one might help you for
specific issues. Given below are some other references that we found useful:
• How do Fire Alarms work
• Temperature measurement using thermistors
• How to prepare PCB ?
Tips:
1. Attempt to build your circuit as neatly as possible. Arranging
components perpendicular to one another on breadboard/PCB
and using similarly‐colored wires for similar purposes is advised
2. If you choose to build your circuit on breadboard, do some
floor‐planning of the breadboard before you start wiring up
components. If you need to use multiple breadboards (which
you'll need to do, most likely), divide the different modules of
the circuit logically so that you don’t have too many
connections between the breadboards.
3. Do not assemble the entire circuit and try to test it. Build and
test each module, then connect them together one by one and
verify that it works after each step.
Contact:
Feel free to write to us at scdc@shaastra.org for queries, clarifications etc.
All the best !
See you at SHAASTRA 2010 !