Need help with signals project

[sirpetis]

Hey guys,

I need some help choosing a project for my undergraduate signals and systems class; especially one that's not utterly time consuming. My professor said we can implement a program that allows us to take the convolution of signals in either discrete or continuous time, a digital to analog converter, or a program that takes the Fourier of a function. I literally have no idea where or what to start on. I've done some research but haven't found many sources that have helped get me on the right track. I'm a beginning/intermediate programmer who has worked with C, C++, Matlab, and Ruby. If you could help me out, I would greatly appreciate any help that gets me headed in the right direction.

Thanks!

[SakurasouBusters]

Is it related to chips, IC programming?
Are you talking about Arduino programming?

[mbozzi]

I wrote a frequency and amplitude-based music visualizer a few months ago -- I used a small Atmel ATmega-series MCU, designed and got a custom PCB etched, and packed it up nicely into a fancy pedal for use while performing. The entire project cost around $30 for components, $40 for copies of the the PCB, not counting the lighting hooked up to it, PSUs, etc. that I required, which was significantly more expensive.

I would not recommend doing this if you don't have access to the right tools. I wasn't at my school while I was working on it (meaning no easy access to labs), and it got to the point where I had to wire up an ad-hoc oscilloscope. Probably this won't be a problem for you, if this is a class project.

My code was written in assembler and C; it took me several weeks.

Maybe you don't have to do the hardware bit (nor write your program in assembler ;D ). That would speed things up a lot.

[sirpetis]

Thanks for the replies. It's not necessarily related to chips or Arduino programming. The only thing we've done in class is graph discrete/continuous signals, take the convolution of two discrete or continuous time signals, and we're working on FT DTFT FS and DTFS now. Basically he just told us to find a project that relates to signals and systems. He told us it can be a software program like convolution without using a convn function or we could implement a circuit like an antenna or something. Either way, I feel like I haven't been properly prepared for this sort of thing nor do I have good help/instruction. I'm fairly good at learning but I'm going into this one sort of blind. I'm also taking 16 hours of 300+ level ECE courses so ideally I'd like to have time to be able to keep up in the rest of my classes.

[mbozzi]

Do you prefer to do something with circuitry or something with software? (Or both?)
Ignoring time constraints, can you think of any acceptable project you are interested in, or do you just want something quick to implement?

P.S.: Maybe this topic should be moved to the lounge, since it doesn't have much to do with C++ at the moment.