Project Roulette / Projects

Mobile and Embedded & IoT projects

5 of 30 projects. Each has a stack, five features to ship, a difficulty, a time estimate, and a bonus challenge.

Mobile · Intermediate · 2–3 weeks

Offline-first Field Inspection App

A mobile app for technicians who inspect equipment on site: checklists, photos, and signatures that work with no signal and sync later.

  • React Native (Expo)
  • TypeScript
  • SQLite
  • Supabase

Features

  1. Dynamic checklist templates loaded from the server
  2. Photo capture with on-image annotation
  3. Local-first storage with background sync and conflict handling
  4. Signature capture and PDF report export
  5. GPS-tagged inspections

Bonus: A small web admin dashboard where managers create templates and review submitted inspections.

Mobile · Intermediate · 2 weeks

Bluetooth LE Sensor Companion App

A phone app that discovers a Bluetooth Low Energy sensor, streams live readings, keeps a history, and sends settings back to the device.

  • Flutter (Dart)
  • flutter_blue_plus
  • SQLite
  • ESP32 or nRF52 as the peripheral

Features

  1. Scan, connect, and auto-reconnect to the device
  2. A custom GATT service and characteristics that you define
  3. Live charts of incoming readings
  4. Local history with CSV export
  5. Write settings like sample rate and thresholds back to the device

Bonus: Firmware updates delivered over Bluetooth straight from the app.

Embedded & IoT · Intermediate · 1–2 weeks

ESP32 Air Quality Station

A connected sensor node that measures CO₂, PM2.5, temperature, and humidity, and streams readings over MQTT to a live dashboard.

  • ESP32
  • C++ (ESP-IDF or PlatformIO)
  • MQTT
  • InfluxDB
  • Grafana

Features

  1. Sensor drivers over I²C and UART with calibration
  2. Deep-sleep power management for battery use
  3. MQTT with reconnect and local buffering during outages
  4. Over-the-air firmware updates
  5. Dashboard with thresholds and alerts

Bonus: A custom PCB designed in KiCad and a 3D-printed enclosure, shown in photos in the README.

Embedded & IoT · Advanced · 2–3 weeks

PID Motor Controller on FreeRTOS

A closed-loop DC motor speed and position controller on an STM32, with a desktop app for live plotting and tuning.

  • STM32
  • C
  • FreeRTOS
  • Quadrature encoder
  • Python (PyQt, pyqtgraph)

Features

  1. Encoder reading using hardware timer peripherals
  2. PID loop running at a fixed rate in its own RTOS task
  3. Serial protocol with framing and checksums
  4. Desktop GUI with live plots and gain sliders
  5. Host-side unit tests for the control logic

Bonus: An auto-tuning routine (relay or Ziegler–Nichols) with a before/after step-response plot.

Embedded & IoT · Advanced · 2–3 weeks

FPGA Game Console with VGA Output

Pong or Breakout built entirely in hardware with Verilog, driving a VGA monitor straight from an FPGA board with no CPU at all.

  • Verilog or SystemVerilog
  • Vivado or Quartus
  • Basys 3 or DE10-Lite board
  • Verilator

Features

  1. VGA timing generator for 640×480 at 60 Hz
  2. Sprite drawing and collision logic in hardware
  3. Debounced button input and a score on the seven-segment display
  4. Testbenches with automated waveform checks
  5. Clean module hierarchy with resource and timing reports

Bonus: Sound effects generated in hardware through PWM audio output.