Engineering Commons^™

Transdisciplinarity In Experience Design: A Global Survey Of Higher Ed Programs In Exd/Xd, Yvonne Houy

Creative Collaborations

In our age of ubiquitous devices and digital media it is the perceived value of the end-to-end experience that brings people to a place. Designing inspiring and emotionally engaging end-to-end experiences requires experts in a wide range of disciplines committed to an interdisciplinary collaboration that can arrive at transdisciplinary design - the sum becomes greater than its parts.

Civil engineering, hospitality, business, psychology, digital User Experience (UX) design, and experience data analysis need to be seamless integrated with the fine and performing arts and design fields:

• Architecture, interior, landscape and sound design actively engage the senses.

• Graphic and fine arts …

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Interdisciplinary Education Outreach With Traffic Sensor Build Kits, Sarah V. Hernandez, Mariah B. Crews

Civil Engineering Teaching and Learning

The goal of this project was to attract K-12 students to transportation engineering careers through STEM outreach programs. To accomplish this goal, the object of the project was to design and implement maritime freight oriented educational outreach activities centered on traffic sensing technologies for middle, high school, and first-year college students. In MarTREC Project 5011 (Evaluating the Performance of Intermodal Connectors), the research team designed a low-cost, easily implementable LiDAR and Bluetooth sensor bundle that was capable of detecting, characterizing, and tracking freight trucks as they traveled to and from inland waterway port areas. The sensor provided data necessary to …

Mechanized Percussion Well Drilling, Nathan A. Henry, Nate Harnish, Nathan D. King, Chris Martin, Tommy Denlinger, Darren J. Heisey, Griffin M. Means

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Mechanized Percussion Well Drilling Project seeks to design a simple mechanized well drilling system to be used for drilling shallow water wells in Burkina Faso, Africa. These systems will be operated by local drilling teams, allowing them to earn an income for themselves and their families. Currently our end users, the Burkinabe Well Drilling Team, have trouble drilling through hard rock layers, and often must abandon holes due to inadequate equipment. The goal of this project is to enable the drillers to efficiently drill through these rock layers with a mechanized percussion rig and supporting drilling equipment.

One of …

Landmine Neutralization: Air Excavator, Nuttapat Kueakomoldej, Hunter D. Casey, Andrew F. Kurian, Evan Poust

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Landmine Neutralization team’s goal is to help neutralize dangerous ordnance in wartorn areas around the world. To accomplish this, the project team is working with our client, the HALO Trust. They are the world’s largest demining non-governmental organization. The HALO Trust works in many countries to remove the debris of war, including improvised explosive devices, landmines, and unexploded ordnance. We are helping our client achieve their goals through designing, prototyping, and testing of an earth and debris excavator that uses air to excavate areas. This project will help HALO’s deminers clear debris and dust from war-torn areas to help …

Fluency Assistance Device, Michael D. Jenkins, Larry A. Vega, Corey Bean, Jacob R. Cornwell, Lydia Reber, Arrington Register

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Currently about 1% of the world population (~70 million people) have a stutter considered a fluency disorder. Some fluency assistance devices are available for this population, but most are highly expensive or unreliable. Fluency Assistance Device (FAD) seeks to assist a niche community of these individuals for whom therapy has been unsuccessful but are currently depending on a device originally known as the Edinburgh Masker. FAD aims to redesign the masker to be more comfortable for the end user. FAD is developing versions 1.1 and 2.0 of the improved masker. Version 1.1 will update the original masker circuitry with surface …

Solar Pv - Equipping The Future, Christopher E. Benner, Collin T. Binford, Joshua J. Kripas, Trey B. Witmer, Jonas E. Kolb, Noah A. Rood

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Solar PV team has installed several solar power systems for various partners in the developing world. Most recently, the team installed a solar-powered well pump at the Living Love Ministries Children’s Home in Ol Kalou, Kenya. As is true for all the previous installations, the team gained a wealth of valuable knowledge and experience on the trip to Kenya. A problem the team faces is that a lot of that experience gained leaves when seniors graduate. With the goal of passing on our knowledge and experience to future generations of the Solar PV team, we have been constructing a …

Gravity Fed Water System, Ella Sobek, Sarah A. Aldrich, Jordan E. Higley, Joseph Grant

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Gravity Fed Water Project aims to provide direct access to safe and clean water to about 150 people in Sipacapa, Guatemala by using gravity to transport water from groundwater seeps down a mountain to the community. The project partners with the Mennonite Central Committee. Concrete intake structures will be built for various groundwater seeps, then water from those will be combined into one large concrete intake structure. The water will then be piped down to a concrete water tank which will help to store enough water for a day's use for the village. There will then be piping going …

Small-Scale Hydroelectric Power For Remote Communities, Robert Kameron Dickey, Edward J. Yesilonis, Cameron K. Kanter, Andrew S. Reedy, Caleb P. Southwick

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Pico-Hydro Energy Project (PHEP) focuses on providing affordable electric power for off-grid communities in developing countries. The work that PHEP is doing involves the design, optimization, and experimental testing of small hydroelectric generators provided by our project partner Engineering Ministries International.

Nicaragua Block Press, John P. Mcgarry, Kathryn J. Rose, Derek A. Thrush, Jordan P. Criddle, Samuel Rivera, Robert Donley, Claudia Tolley

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Friends In Action International (FIA), our project partner, is assisting the Rama people of Nicaragua in relocating from an overpopulated island to the mainland. Our team has developed a manual press for the Rama people to produce compressed earth blocks from local materials for construction of their homes. After testing an initial prototype of the press in Nicaragua it was determined that the press needed more durability. After testing two presses with welded chambers manufactured by E&E Metal Fab Inc., further modifications were required such as welding chamber skirts, adding a lid handle, and applying rust prevention coating. Once both …

Energy Monitoring And Management System, Nathan C. Feldgus, Zachary D. Schmidt, Bennett A. Andrews, Zach L. Gillen, Zachery D. Holsinger, Benjamin Weaver, David Williams

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Energy Monitoring and Management System facilitates access to electric power in regions with limited energy by increasing energy conservation and education. The solution consists of a meter which allocates a configurable daily energy limit per facility, and a display that provides practical information to the user including reporting how much energy they have used and how much they have left before their power is automatically cut off until the next day.

The current version of the system has successfully been installed in multiple facilities in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe, however software errors are preventing the system from meeting client …

Village Water Ozonation System, John M. Khamis, Benjamin K. Burlew, Timothy J. Malanga

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Safe drinking water is something that all humans need. People around the globe face issues like limited access to water, water scarcity, and contamination of their water supply. Alleviating global water-related illnesses and deaths remains a prevailing challenge to overcome. With this in mind, the Village Water Ozonation System (VWOS) team works with communities to increase their access to safe drinking water. In the past few years, VWOS has had the privilege of walking alongside our partner communities in Mexico, Pakistan, and Nicaragua to develop sustainable drinking water solutions. Through collaborations with several Christian organizations such as Forward Edge International …

Remote Hand Pump Monitoring In Africa, Cory D. Brubaker, Amada H. Issis, Evan Freed, Daniel J. Labrie, Josiah J. Mccarthy

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Millions of communities in developing countries rely on hand pumps installed by various non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Studies have shown that these pumps are often broken with significant delays before maintenance people arrive. During the last few years, the Intelligent Water Project (IWP), in cooperation with World Vision and AlignedWorks has successfully produced sensor units, installed on each water pump to provide state of operation information, which proves the feasibility of remote monitoring through a real-time web-based database. Currently, we are working to demonstrate reliability, improve accuracy, and prepare for production on a larger scale to expand the impact to more …

A Sustainable Mobility Solution For Persons Living With Disability In Burkina Faso, Helen R. Wiley, Brit Haseltine, Cory Hurst, Alexander D. Mantsevich, Katie Bunch, Faith N. Kerlen, Joey Sinsel, Matt Higgs, Rachel Delate

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Sustainable Mobility project of the Collaboratory empowers people living with a disability in rural West Africa to more fully participate in family and community life and makes possible the pursuit of educational and work opportunities. Our 3-wheeled off-road wheelchair has transformed the lives of dozens of clients through partnerships with the Center for the Advancement of the Handicapped in Mahadaga, Burkina Faso and the Center of Hope in Fada, Burkina Faso.

Now, to reach more people in new locations and with more partners, Sustainable Mobility is working to reduce manufacturing time and cost, author image-driven fabrication guides to enable …

3d Mapping With An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle, Johnny Greaser, Micah D. Lehman, Geoffrey D. Mcclary, Kyle E. Miller

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Missionary aviation pilots often have to land their planes on remote airstrips that might be unsafe due to runway obstructions such as encroaching vegetation or large objects that were unknowingly placed on the runway. The Falcon Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) team is partnering with ITEC to develop an imaging system using a UAV to scan these airstrips to detect these obstructions. ITEC was founded by Steve Saint, the son of martyred missionary Nate Saint, to develop technologies to aid missionaries in their work. This video highlights the work of the Falcon UAV team and the basic terms and definitions for …

Sustainable Agriculture: Aquaponic Solutions, Landon R. Hacker, Jared Fonda, Noah T. Shreiner, Brandon M. Bickom, Micah Hess

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Sustainable Agriculture team is using a soil-free, closed-loop, agricultural technique called aquaponics to help lift communities out of malnutrition and poverty. Aquaponics techniques decrease the use of natural resources associated with growing crops. The Sustainable Agriculture team is partnering with Sheltering Wings, a non-profit based in Missouri who ministers with an orphanage and women's shelter in Yako, Burkina Faso and Transworld Radio, a Christian radio broadcasting station located in Benin. The team currently has a best practice prototype in operation. The system will be optimized to fit client needs. In order to meet those needs, the team has been …

Force Characterization And Manufacturing Of A Dynamic Unilateral Clubfoot Brace, Rebekah L. Forshey, William L. Feczko, Liam P. Lilienthal, Aaron Bashore, Brittney D. Fouse, Michelle Lo, Benjamin J. Mellott, Sam J. Rasinske, Leigha R. Southall, Jordan M. Witt

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Clubfoot is a musculoskeletal birth defect that is characterized by an inward twisting of an infant’s feet. The current method for correction involves several casts and a bilateral boots-and-bar maintenance brace. This method of maintenance requires 5 years of bracing and has issues with compliance, comfort, and social stigma. CURE International in Kijabe, Kenya is currently using the boots-and-bar brace but is interested in implementing a design that reduces these concerns. Mr. Jerald Cunningham, CPO, designed and is utilizing a unilateral clubfoot maintenance brace, the Cunningham Brace, which he expects will reduce treatment time to 2-3 years, lessen the social …

Designing A Locally Manufacturable Wheelchair For Nepal, Harrison J. Crosley, Alexander M. Vollert, Cade K. Bender, Dylan J. Derstine, Peter C. Hopkins

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Persons with disabilities in developing countries often lack the basic equipment needed to assist them in their daily lives. International Nepal Fellowship (INF) is a Christian medical organization located in Nepal that provides medical care and assistance to people with disabilities and other conditions. Currently, INF imports expensive wheelchairs that undergo a prolonged border process before being received by INF. INF has reached out to the Collaboratory to design a wheelchair that can withstand the challenges of Nepal’s terrain and can be manufactured from local materials. The Nepal Wheelchair team accepted this challenge and set out to design a wheelchair …

Quantifying Hiv-1 Viral Load With Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy, Nathan Z. Chan, Alicia A. Decker, Brant L. Meier, Morris K. Taylor, Nathan E. Cordell, Benjarong T. Curtz, Jeffrey Gao, Joshua Keong, Al W. Mokris, Jessica E. Paulus, Castine L. Donoff

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The DVD team is working to develop a cost-effective technique for measuring HIV load in resource-restricted regions. Our client is Dr Phil Thuma and the Macha Research Centre in Zambia. Our design utilizes a fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) approach, including a protein-engineered probe, custom optics, a field programmable gate array (FPGA), and a graphical display to assess viral load in a patient blood sample. In this talk we will present on the design and testing of our optical FCS system, the method of processing and analyzing the signal, and creation of the user interface display. Our team is currently finalizing …

Covenant Christian Academy - Civil Design, Justin M. Blest, Christian A. Cornelius, Corey B. Englehart

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Covenant Christian Academy Civil Design team has partnered with Covenant Christian Academy (CCA) in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania to improve the utilization and safety of the facilities at the rear of the main building. The team worked with David Sonju, Headmaster at CCA and client representative for the school, to achieve two major goals for this project. The first goal was to redesign the rear parking lot to create a grass recreation area while integrating the remaining paved area into an improved student drop-off/turn-around. The design considered stormwater run-off and drainage, including conversion of impervious area to pervious area. The second …

Hybrid Thermal Lance, Josiah Stitt, Lucas Honebrink, Frank G. Honey, Emily L. Keane, Josh Card

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Hybrid Thermal Lance (HTL) is a device used to burn through landmines to destroy them safely. Designed for the team’s client, The HALO Trust, the HTL has proven to work well in destroying explosives, which has been demonstrated by field trials conducted in a number of countries including but not limited to Afghanistan and the Republic of Georgia. The HTL works by igniting acrylic burn tubes, which act as a fuel source and also focus the flame on a specific location on an explosive device. The system is controlled via a user-friendly, rugged control box that can run the …

Prosthetic Knee, Bryson L. Boettger, Matthew J. Tavani, Isaiah D. Bryner, Samuel R. Burgess, Sarah N. Kelchner, Clint M. Meekins, Josiah D. Moyer, Kay Laura Sindabizera

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Amputations, specifically lower limb amputations, are common in Sub Saharan Africa and across the broader global community largely due to infection and disease. Our project, The Prosthetic Knee Team, partners with the orthopedic workshop at the CURE International Hospital in Kijabe, Kenya to create a prosthetic knee design for a specific type of amputation known as a Knee Disarticulation (also called through-knee). Currently, the orthopedic workshop is only able to provide one very expensive prosthetic knee option for these patients, and they often elect to undergo a second surgery, a trans-femoral amputation, because the cost of the second surgery and …

Mechanical Testing Of 3d Printed Prosthetics, Shane D. Curry, Thomas C. Pond, Emma K. Vogan, Gabrielle E. Griffith, Jared R. Rider, Samuel Sparks, Brandon J. Weindorf

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Rapid Orthotics for CURE Kenya team as a whole aims to empower the orthopedic technicians in the CURE Kenya hospital by creating, optimizing, and testing 3D printed prosthetics and orthotics. Our team started in 2016 by creating a 3D printing process for below the knee prosthetic sockets. Since then, we had adapted to the hospital's needs over the years, expanding the capabilities of the system itself. Presently, a section of our team has worked specifically with these leg sockets to ensure the safety and functionality for patients. They have done testing to make sure the sockets are strong enough …

Panama Bridge Project, Nathan A. Myers, Erin M. Brenneman, Samuel T. Gobeille, Jordan Barner, Mikayla R. Eyster, Crosby Harro, Zachary C. Hartman, Drew Moyer, Daniel Thomas

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

The Panama Bridge project has partnered with Rio Missions Panama to design a bridge for the village of La Gigi, Panama. The mountain community of La Gigi experiences heavy rainfall during the rainy seasons. A stream runs along the community, separating locals from their fields and other communities further up the mountain. While passable during dry seasons, the stream floods and becomes impassable after heavy rains. The residents are effectively cut off from their livelihoods, church, health services, and other communities during this time.

To accommodate this need, the Panama Bridge Team has spent the 2019-2020 school year designing an …

Forearm Design For A Myoelectric Prosthetic Hand, Ryan C. Yoder, Nicholas F. Ports, Tj Quintillian, Brittney D. Fouse, Keller Martin, Jaymie R. Monday, Meghan L. Sampson, Samuel F. Whittle

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Due to the rapid growth of children and the complexity of myoelectric technology, children are often not given the same opportunities to use myoelectric prosthetics as adults. The Muscle Activated Prosthesis (MAP) team is working to create an affordable, transradial myoelectric prosthesis for a twelve-year-old girl. The basic mechanism by which this device operates is as follows: a muscle contraction emits an electrical signal that will be detected and processed through a microcontroller. Then the onboard software determines whether the hand opens or closes based on the level of muscle intensity. If the software determines to close or open the …

Better Pumps: Promoting Reliable Water Infrastructure For Everyone, Emma L. Workman, Caleb E. Danehower, Darren Kulp, Jacob Valentine, Joshua L. Maxson

2020 Collaboratory/Engineering Symposium

Approximately 90 million people in Africa lack access to safe drinking water, despite having water infrastructure installed in their community. The Better Pumps team of the Collaboratory provides engineering support for partners working to sustain reliable water infrastructure for everyone. We have partnered with AlignedWorks to test an improved bearing design for the India MK II handpump. We have also partnered with Matt Schweibert and the Rural Water Supply Network to test improved seal designs for the India MK II and the Afridev handpumps. Test designs and preliminary results are reported.

That Bike Is Too Heavy: Merging Bicycling Physics, Human Physiology And Travel Behavior, Alexander Y. Bigazzi

PSU Transportation Seminars

Are the Biketown bikes too heavy? Does better gear motivate people to cycle more? How much faster will someone go on an e-bike?

Although urban cycling is widely known as physically active transportation, the actual physics of cycling have been given little attention in transportation engineering and planning. In contrast, the field of sports science has developed detailed data and models of road bicycle performance, but only for sport and racing cyclists.

What can we learn about utilitarian cycling by integrating knowledge of the physical attributes of bicycles and cyclists?

This seminar examines the ways in which bicycle physics, and …

An Agent-Based Evacuation Model To Improve Safety In The Cascadia Subduction Zone, Haizhong Wang

PSU Transportation Seminars

This seminar will present ongoing research into how integrated social, natural, and engineered systems can improve life safety under threat of multi-hazards. The targeted scenario is a magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami from the Cascadia Subduction Zone, threatening communities along 1,000 miles of the US Pacific Northwest coastline.

Since the mid-1980’s scientific evidence has underscored the possibility of such an extreme event, and it has taken at least another decade or more before public attitudes and policy have begun to adapt to this new hazard. Life safety is a pressing issue for the near-field CSZ tsunami hazard for several reasons. …

Webinar: Rethinking Streets For Bikes: An Evidence Based Guide Of Bike-Friendly Street Retrofits, Marc Schlossberg, Roger Lindgren

TREC Webinar Series

There is a growing demand for better infrastructure and fewer barriers to biking and other forms of space-efficient micromobility. Tackling daily trips by bike is easier on the environment, healthier for users and non-users alike, uses precious urbanized public and private land more efficiently, costs taxpayers less to build and maintain infrastructure, and when routes are safe and comfortable, moving by bike is also fun! Complete Streets policies are being adopted across the country, and there is an active conversation around the safety imperative of a Complete Streets approach. Yet, local officials often need both design guidance and the …

Webinar: Modeling Freeway Traffic In A Mixed Environment: Connected And Human-Driven Vehicles, Xianfeng Terry Yang

TREC Webinar Series

Although connected vehicles (CVs) will soon go beyond testbeds, CVs and human-driven vehicles (HVs) will co-exist over a long period. Hence, it is critical to consider the interactions between these two types of vehicles in traffic flow modeling. In this study, we aim to develop a macroscopic model to understand how CVs would impact HVs in the traffic stream. Grounded on the second-order traffic flow model, we study the relationships among flow, density, and speed by two sets of formulations for the groups of CVs and HVs, respectively. A set of friction factors, which indicate CVs' impact to HVs, are …

Webinar: Addressing Bicycle-Vehicle Conflicts With Alternate Signal Control Strategies, Sirisha Kothuri

TREC Webinar Series

There is nationwide interest in supporting sustainable and active transportation modes such as bicycling and walking due to the many benefits associated with them, including reduced congestion, lower emissions and improved health. Although the number of bicyclists is increasing, safety remains a top concern. In urban areas, a common crash type involving bicycles at intersections is the “right hook” where a right-turning vehicle collides with a through bicyclist. While geometric treatments and pavement markings have been studied, there is a lack of research on signal timing treatments to address right-hook bicycle-vehicle conflicts.

Addressing Bicycle-Vehicle Conflicts with Alternate Signal Control Strategies …