An Alfred University student who earlier this year completed a project to improve the scoring/timing systems in the McLane Center swimming pool has repurposed part of an old scoreboard, converting it into a clock that is counting down the days, hours, minutes and seconds until 2026 Commencement ceremonies on Saturday, May 16.
Sean Killian, a sophomore electrical engineering/mathematics double major from Kenmore, NY, completed the recent project as part of the Microprocessor System and Applications class taught by Xingwu Wang, professor of electrical engineering. Wang said the class encourages student to find ways to effectively recycle and reuse components of electronic devices.
“In Europe, for example, noting is tossed out; everything is reused,” Wang said, noting effort to recycle computer hardware systems and components containing rare earth materials like computers and batteries. “This project demonstrates that.”
In the fall, Killian undertook the project at the swimming pool, using old basketball shot clocks he found in the McLane Center basement, which he converted for use as “pace clocks” that keep time for swimmers. He interfaced the pace clocks with a used scoreboard the university acquired from Buffalo State University, producing a scoring/timing system that allows running times from each of the pool’s six lanes to be displayed on the scoreboard during swim meets.
For the project in Wang’s class, Killian reused part of the old scoreboard. He developed a system in which he uses a microcontroller to send data to the old scoreboard component so that it would display the countdown time to Commencement.
Killian, a member of the Saxons’ men’s swimming and diving team, said he worked on the project for three or four weeks during the current spring semester. The clock is displayed in a room in McMahon Engineering Building. Wang said he hopes after Commencement it can be displayed at the Student Engineering Projects (STEP) Lab.
