Opportunities with the Integrated Design Services

The primary educational mission of Integrated Design Services (IDS) is to provide students in the College of Engineering experiential opportunities that complement their academic education.  Our objective is to mentor engineering students into World-Class Engineers.

Who Is Involved and How?

IDS offers students different methods of involvement.  We employ undergraduate and graduate students full-time, 20 hours a week during the academic calendar and 40 hours a week over the summer.  We also offer a limited number of graduate assistantships to well qualified candidates.  Our student employees come mainly from EE and CSE but students from ME, AeroE and ChemE have also worked for us.  Most of our undergraduates choose to continue to work for IDS until graduation.  Since 2006, we have had four graduate students finish their master degrees.

We also have provided students in the Schreyer’s Honor College with thesis projects and acted as their thesis advisors.  Our most recent Schreyer’s student completed his honors thesis in December 2008 and his master degree in May 2009 as part of the Integrated Undergraduate-Graduate degree program.

We have a number of students active on a voluntary basis, working on various social entrepreneurship projects with students from across the University.  Projects are currently targeting several central African countries.

What Will I Do? Deliver!

At IDS, you will have the opportunity to work on projects that provide tangible deliverables to our clients.  We have a well-equipped laboratory and work areas utilizing state of the art electronics test equipment, surface mount soldering rework station, and computer workstations.  In recent projects students have:

  • Used MATLAB to test and evaluate image processing algorithms for use in a multispectral night vision goggle being developed for the US Army.
  • Converted MATLAB versions of image processing algorithms into HDL code, verified their operation by simulation, and tested the algorithm using an FPGA based algorithm demonstrator system.
  • Proposed Mashavu, an innovative health monitoring system, to IdeaBlob and was awarded support. The first phase of testing for Mashavu was completed in Tanzania during the summer of 2008.
  • Developed the system integration, telemetry calculation, and user interface software for a telemetry system used by Naval Research Lab to test an anti-ship missile defense system.
  • Developed the system integration and user interface software for a precision resistance standard.
  • Developed and implemented the control system to inertially stabilize and sweep a gimbal platform equipped with a line array camera. The control system provided stable image acquisition while the gimbal was flown on the wing pod of an aircraft.
  • Programmed an oscilloscope to properly measure electron velocities by mitigating the background noise signals from sample signals in real-time.
  • How does ECS improve my education and employment opportunities? Students that have worked for IDS have gone on to work for companies such as:

  • Boeing
  • Naval Research Laboratory
  • Eagle Systems Inc.
  • Harsh Environment Applied Technologies Inc.
  • The experience gained as a student employee of IDS provides invaluable skills and knowledge to give you an advantage over other graduates with prospective employers. The hands on, real world projects are just like the situations you will encounter as a practicing engineer. IDS wants to provide you with learning experiences to compliment your classroom and laboratory studies.

    How Do I Become Involved?

    IDS is always looking for engineering students interested in the practical application of their education.   If you are interested in discussing how Integrated Design Services can supplement your studies here at Penn State with real-world experiences, please contact us by email; include your current resume and an advising copy of your transcript.

    Students breadboarding a circuit

    Student Design Engineers at Work

    Students seen here breadboarding a simple circuit before committing components to final circuit design.

    Students at TechDay

    Students at TechDay

    Students Will Ferry and Jeff DiTeodoro attend Texas Instruments TechDay in New Jersey, helping IDS evaluate new technology.

    Electronic & Computer Services (ECS)

    ECS is designing for the future.