Signal Processing - September 2016 - 155

Team Hammer Down
Team Hammer Down from Purdue University, United States (see Figure 8), was
composed of student members who were
junior students (in the third year of their
college career). They noted that their
team was likely one of the most diversified teams in the competition, as they
have students from different ethnic and
cultural backgrounds with different areas
of interest.
■ "As a team with all members being
junior students,...everyone has gained
knowledge or skills in different
aspects. Some of us have never done
serious research....Some of us are
interested in signal processing but lack
a strong motivation to go deeper...
The SP Cup is a catalyst"-Team
Hammer Down
■ "The competition itself provided a
new and challenging way to apply
what I had learned in my classes. In
addition to challenging myself I also
learned a lot while at ICASSP. Talking
to professionals in my field helped to
broaden my view of electrical engineering as a whole. All in all, the SP
Cup was a great experience and I recommend it to any undergraduates
interested in signal processing"-Sam
C. Sowell
■ "I have learned a lot during the SP Cup
as a junior student. It was a great
chance for me to apply and practice
what I have learned in the classes in a
different way; instead of practicing
on idealized problem sets that serve
to help students understand the concepts, I was able to face some realistic signal processing problems and
challenges"-Xiangyu Qu
■ "Mentoring undergraduate students
for the SP Cup is a challenging but
rewarding experience. The difficult
part is how to plan and divide the
tasks, for most of the undergraduates
do not have adequate background and
experience. However, I am impressed
by their creativity and the effort they
spent on the project. They are a wonderful team. The competition provides a good opportunity for students
to explore different aspects of signal
processing. I personally most appreciate the integration of signal pro-

FigurE 9. Team Vidyut from India won third prize.

cessing and circuit, for it bridges the
gap between the two seemingly less
correlated ends of our curriculum
nowadays."-Prof. Stanley Chan,
faculty mentor.

Team Vidyut
Team Vidyut (Figure 9) was formed by
the collaborated efforts of undergraduate students from the National Institute
of Technology-Karnatak, Surathkal
(NIT-K) and Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M), along with graduate and faculty mentors from the
Indian Institute of Science-Bangalore
(IISc) where the undergraduate students
first met and interned. Returning to their
universities in the last month of the
competition did not hamper the undergraduate students' teamwork, as they
continued to make progress by frequent
e-mails and regular phone calls. The
team has a perfect gender balance with
two female and two male undergraduate
students and leveraged the complementary strengths of the members.
■ "'Vidyut' means electricity in many
Indian languages ...Although coordinating amongst ourselves had become
a challenge by itself, the sense of team
spirit grew in us, as we worked for the
competition."-Team Vidyut
■ "As an undergraduate, it was very
exciting to work on a real-world problem. ... Coding was made easier,
thanks to MATLAB"-Priyadarshini
Savan Roshan, NIT-K
■ "In addition to the technical skills
gained, this challenge helped me coorIEEE Signal Processing Magazine

September 2016

dinate and communicate better among
a team"-Supriya Nagesh, NIT-K
■ "Attending the finals in Shanghai was
an amazing experience where we had
a chance to observe the different views
taken by the other teams to approach
the same problem. On the whole, participating in the SP Cup proved to be a
great learning experience with memorable moments to cherish"-G. Nisha
Meenakshi, IISc, graduate mentor.
More reflections from SP Cup finalists and participants along with project
reports of selected teams can be found on
the IEEE SigPort repository at http://
www.sigport.org/events/sp-cup-projectreports. Figure 10 shows a few selected
photos provided by the participating
teams that showcased their teamwork
during the competition.
In closing, we would like to convey our
heartfelt congratulations to the winners and
teams that received honorable mentions on
their excellent performances! Thanks all
participants for making IEEE SP Cup
2016 successful! As you read through this
issue of IEEE Signal Processing Magazine, you will see that the 2017 IEEE SP
Cup competition has been announced (see
page 5). Please encourage students you
know to take part in the competition, mentor a student team if you can, come to support in ways feasible, and stay tuned for
another edition of the IEEE SP Cup Global
Student Competition!

Acknowledgments
As the SP Cup 2016 organizing committee, we would like to express our
155

http://http:// http://www.sigport.org/events/sp-cup-project

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Signal Processing - September 2016