Engineering Commons^™

You Kind Of Have To Prove It: Gender Microaggressions Within The Lived Experiences Of Women In Engineering, Crystal Rose Diaz-Espinoza

Doctoral Dissertations

This intrinsic case study explored the lived experiences of women within three engineering majors at a mid-sized institution in the Mid-Atlantic using gender microaggressions (Nadal, 2010; Sue, 2007) as a theoretical lens. Data included individual interviews with 28 participants as well as document review from Web pages and observations from physical spaces within the campus engineering building. Data analysis resulted in seven themes in congruence with Sue’s (2007) taxonomy of gender microaggressions and further established the three levels of gender microaggressions distinguished by Nadal (2010). Findings also revealed that barriers within engineering were less visible or outwardly sexist, and that …

The Economic Implications Of Evolving Aviation Funding Policy In Tennessee, Hunter Pressley Mccracken

Masters Theses

The majority of state funding for capital improvements at Tennessee’s general aviation and commercial airports comes through grants awarded from the Tennessee Transportation Equity Trust Fund (TETF). Through a 4.5 percent sales and use tax on the consumption of aviation fuel, users help to fund the continued improvement and maintenance of aviation facilities around the state. Aircraft refueling operations associated with the FedEx “SuperHub” in Memphis were responsible for two-thirds of the TETF’s revenue for Fiscal Year 2014. In response to speculation that FedEx would relocate its refueling operations to reduce its fuel tax liability, the Tennessee General Assembly passed …

Assessment Of Management And Documentation Systems For The Bowling Green State University American Society For Quality Student Branch, Sara Murphy

Master of Education in Instructional Design and Technology Plan II Graduate Projects

The Bowling Green State University (BGSU) American Society for Quality (ASQ) student branch seeks to provide current and prospective students the opportunity to expand or build upon current and evolving quality principles. This project seeks to provide the ASQ student branch the opportunity to develop documented systems of daily operations and other activities in relation to the defined BGSU ASQ student branch organizational objectives. The research associated with this project will provide detailed information related to the organizational requirements to aid in the development of documented systemic procedures. The information also indicates what practices should be in place to ensure …

Industrial Engineering Consulting, Blake J. Ahrold, Torrey M. Plana

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

This paper documents the senior project of Blake Ahrold and Torrey Plana. This project was created to provide a solution to the problem of small to medium Sized enterprises (SMEs) being under represented by lean consulting companies. The project was at first intended to be a lean consulting startup and then pivoted to The Systems Optimization Club. A project charter, Gantt chart, and business model canvas were created for the startup and used as guidelines in the creation of the Systems Optimization club. The club is to be run like a lean consulting company. The club will provide teams of …

Hand Operated Tabletop Letterpress Assembly Instructions 1.0, George Chiu, Brendan Domos, Spencer Herzog, Nathan Sandidge, Kevin Weinstein

Theses

A group of RIT Mechanical Engineering students spent the 2014-2015 academic year in their senior design class collaborating with the RIT Cary Graphic Arts Collection to design and fabricate a 21st century hand-operated platen press.

The press that was designed during this engineering exercise met several requirements:

• be under 30 lbs
• fit in a 24 inch square table top space
• be manufactured with a majority of components which could be purchased from a standard parts supplier
• be able to print with commonly manufactured ink rollers, ink, letterpress chases, spacing and furniture
• the platen and packing had to be adjustable to …

New Design Of Nasogastric Decompression Tube That Incorporates A Self-Cleaning Brushing Mechanism, Nichole Abla, Lindsay Rucker, Paige Schroder

Senior Theses

Many hospitalized patients require the removal of secretions that accumulate in the stomach and must be removed by a nasogastric tube, which unfortunately clogs often. This project outlines the redesign of the nasogastric tube that will ideally prevent nasogastric tube clogging by incorporating a brush mechanism and a contracting tip mechanism, to act as preventative measures against clogging.

Persistence Of Engineering Undergraduates At A Public Research University, Matthew Meyer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This mixed-methodological study determined which factors contributed to undergraduate student attrition, and evaluated reasons ten undergraduate engineering students failed to complete their engineering degree at a major western research university. Institutional data were collected on engineering students over a multi-year period. These data were separated into groups of engineering students who persisted to the Junior year of their undergraduate engineering program (persisters), and those students who left their engineering program before their Junior year (nonpersisters). A quantitative analysis comparing these two groups of students uncovered significant predictors of persistence/nonpersistence in the engineering program. Qualitative inquiry was used to identify factors …

African American Female Engineering Students' Persistence In Stereotype-Threatening Environments: A Critical Race Theory Perspective, Stacie Lesure Gregory

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

African American women are grossly underrepresented in engineering. Despite their low representation in engineering colleges, some are able to persist and earn their degrees. This qualitative study sought to better understand the strategies 10 African American women employed to help them remain resilient in engineering degree programs. For this investigation, there was an underlying assumption that African American women who persist in engineering must contend with stereotype threat. Stereotype threat is a psychosocial phenomenon in which people in stigmatized social categories fear confirming negative stereotypes about their group.

Ten African American female women who have persisted in engineering degree programs …

Learning From Cinara: Exploring The Depths Of Participatory Water Engagement In Cali, Colombia, Zachary T. Strickland

Honors College Theses

Located within the Universidad del Valle in Cali, Colombia, CINARA is an academic institution, comprised of both engineers and social scientists, that has almost three decades of experience regarding participatory approaches to water supply and environmental sanitation. In this paper, I argue that CINARA’s work is important due to its emphasis on meaningful community participation that significantly involves communities in decisions on technical matters that are usually allocated exclusively to “experts.” Furthermore, the valuation of social considerations and non-technical knowledge found amongst CINARA’s engineers stands in distinct contrast to traditional development practices and engineering mindsets. This paper will go on …

Fluids Dynamics & Heat Transfer Lab Design, Bruce Gerry

Thinking Matters Symposium Archive

This project consists of the designing, building, and creation of instruction manuals for several labs in fluids and heat transfer fields. Labs for these fields tend to be large and hard to simulate as physical models. This project will solve that problem by creating simulations: in solidworks. Not only will simulations in solidworks make some concepts possible to demonstrate but, it will also expose students to useful software that will be used in the workforce.

Nanoarchitectured Energy Storage Devices, Zenan Yu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Supercapacitors, the devices that connect the gap between batteries and conventional capacitors, have recently attracted significant attention due to their high specific capacitance, substantially enhanced power and energy densities, and extraordinary cycle life. In order to realize even better performance with supercapacitors, rejuvenated effort towards developing nanostructured electrodes is necessary. In this dissertation, several strategic directions of nanoarchitecturing the electrodes to enhance the performance of supercapacitors are investigated. An introduction and background of supercapacitors, which includes motivation, classification and working principles, recent nanostructured electrode materials studies, and devices fabrication, are initially presented. A facile method, called Spin-on Nanoprinting (SNAP), to …

Solute Partitioning In Elastin-Like Polypeptides: A Foundation For Drug Delivery Applications, Eric Helm

ETD Archive

No abstract provided.

High Speed Clock Glitching, Santosh Desiraju

ETD Archive

In recent times, hardware security has drawn a lot of interest in the research community. With physical proximity to the target devices, various fault injection hardware attack methods have been proposed and tested to alter their functionality and trigger behavior not intended by the design. There are various types of faults that can be injected depending on the parameters being used and the level at which the device is tampered with. The literature describes various fault models to inject faults in clock of the target but there are no publications on overclocking circuits for fault injection. The proposed method bridges …

Modification And Evaluation Of A Brain Computer Interface System To Detect Motor Intention, Christopher V. Hagerty-Hoff

Theses and Dissertations

It is widely understood that neurons within the brain produce electrical activity, and electroencephalography—a technique used to measure biopotentials with electrodes placed upon the scalp—has been used to observe it. Today, scientists and engineers work to interface these electrical neural signals with computers and machines through the field of Brain-Computer Interfacing (BCI). BCI systems have the potential to greatly improve the quality of life of physically handicapped individuals by replacing or assisting missing or debilitated motor functions. This research thus aims to further improve the efficacy of the BCI based assistive technologies used to aid physically disabled individuals. This study …

Binder Jet Additive Manufacturing Of Stainless Steel-Hydroxyapatite Bio-Composite, Don Suranga Dhanushka Uduwage

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

This study was conducted to create a bio-composite with a porous structure using the binder-jet printing additive manufacturing process. The samples were printed by changing the parameters such as layer thickness, roller speed, sintering time and sintering temperature of the X1-Lab binder jet additive manufacturing printer. The samples were printed 80% stainless steel 316 mixed with 20% Calcium Phosphate Tribasic by volume. Eight experiments were attempted to print according to the fractional factorial design of experiment. The effects of changing parameters on the mechanical properties of the new bio-composite was tested using ASTM E-09 compressive strength standards. The compression testing …

Foley Catheter Priming Device, Melissa A. Boswell, Landon Davis, Renee Horn, Tyler Grubb, Jason Green

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

A lack of a pressure gradient throughout the catheter prevents urine flow from the bladder and through catheter system in a condition referred to as “air-lock.” The purpose of this project was to design a device that could be utilized by person with a catheter faced with the problem of air-lock to restore urine flow and normal functioning of the catheter system. After a prototype was created, the device was put through a series of tests to insure proper functioning, absence of leakage, and durability. The device created can be added in-line with the catheter system, inconspicuously under the user’s …

Power Soccer Footguard Attachment System, Allison Hubbell, Vivian Kontoveros, Andrew Mcclain, Lauren Monsanty

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this research project was to develop a new method of attaching a footguard to the front of a power wheelchair to be used in the adaptive sport, power soccer. Completion of this project was requested by Adaptive Sports Program of Ohio (A.S.P.O.). It was requested that Limitless Sports Solutions, a team of Biomedical Engineering students, create a new design which would be more efficient, have less moving parts, and be easier to attach overall than the system currently being used by A.S.P.O. During the scope of this project, research was conducted on other existing systems and several …

Teacher Influence On Elementary School Students’ Participation In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics, Courtney Hartman

Honors College Theses

The purpose of this study is to explore the influence of elementary school teachers on encouraging students’ interest and participation in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The researcher sought to understand what methods teachers use in their classrooms to encourage students to participate in STEM subjects and programs. This mixed methods study consisted of a questionnaire to collect quantitative data, as well as an interview of selected teachers who participated in the questionnaire to collect qualitative data. The data was analyzed to determine the overall perceptions of teachers regarding the importance of encouraging students to participate in STEM. The qualitative …