The BROADSIDE Center is a way for us to partner with local industry to build hardware and software for them.  Each project forms a team of faculty and students who work to address the needs of the industrial partner.  We build software tools, new products, and infrastructure for them.  Recent partners have included:

• Z-Band – We helped them add a Lantronix processor to their system so that each device could talk to the web, wrote the control software for that processor and built a website that lets them remotely manage devices all around the world.
• Hishmann/Belden – We built android and iPhone apps that help the technicians manage their equipment in the field.
• Keystate Publishers – We build an online, searchable index of PA building codes for them
• State Farm Insurance – We built a prototype of a system that was designed to help agents improve the efficiency and service level of their business
• Four Seasons Crop Care – We built an interface between their order database and their fertilizer mixing equipment that automated the mixing of each order.

For faculty, this gives us a way to keep up with state of the industry business and development practices.  Those experiences feed the discussions that go on in our classes.  For students, these are like internships because they are paid and have a real client, but are on campus with the support of a faculty member.