Students from the Department of Electrical Engineering continue to make waves at the annual IEEE Metrocon conference – this time taking third place in the undergraduate student poster competition.

Joshua Ayala, Ernesto Aguillon, Heriberto Alcantar and Benjamin Johnson used Weaver-radio architecture to create a modular, portable and multi-weather radio. The team used low-voltage circuit architecture to power the radio with a small battery pack.

"A ham radio is actually pretty big, expensive, and uses a lot of power,” said Ayala. "Ours is smaller and cheaper. We also wanted it to be easy for users to work with and customize."

This year’s conference was virtual, but that didn’t hold Ayala and Aguillon back from competing.

"We really wanted to do something we could put our hands on as well as present at the conference,” said Ayala. "I also thought presenting at the conference would look good on my resume."

Aguillon agreed.

"It's good practice; having to go through the project again for the presentation makes you understand your project even more," said Aguillon. "You also get to listen in on other people's presentations and see what it is they're doing."

Electrical Engineering Assistant Professor Ifana Mahbub advised the team.