Digital Commons Network^™

Tholos - Eva Sample Location Calibration Device, James Verheyden, Kat Gipson, Julia Rios, Ben Trust

Mechanical Engineering

To support NASA’s upcoming Artemis missions, an extravehicular activity (EVA) photometric calibration scale was developed to replace the Apollo-era Gnomon device. The Gnomon was a gimbaled stadia rod mounted on a tripod which provided color and reflectivity photo calibration, vertical orientation, and solar shadow direction, to include in photos of lunar geologic samples and features. With over 50 years of innovation since the first Gnomon deployment on Apollo 11, this redesign of the photometric calibration scale will support NASA’s missions in the modern day. The Tholos™, named after the ancient Greek repository of standardized measures, consists of a quadrupedal design …

Mechanized Theatre Turntable, Chloe Huiyi Chou, Ethan Lee Stroh, Ruodolf Reller Quelnat Rumbaoa, Davide Lanfranconi

Mechanical Engineering

This project aimed to create a remote-control and drive system for a theatrical turntable that was constructed by the Theatre and Dance Department of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Over the course of three quarters, the team successfully designed and manufactured a working verification prototype. This verification prototype was then tested, and the project sponsor verified that it met all specifications. The current iteration of the verification prototype can support up to a load of 1400 lbf, rotate a 12 ft diameter turntable clockwise and counterclockwise with a speed range of 1 to 4 rpm, and is able …

Multifamily Complex Smart Locks For Property Management And Tenant Security, April Mills, Allen Chen, Dana Kumamoto, Michael Cook

Mechanical Engineering

Maintaining and managing hundreds of locks and physical keys for an apartment complex can be time consuming and costly, especially when the apartments turn over to new tenants. Our goal was to develop a smart door lock that is compatible with Obodo’s management app for apartment complexes to make accessing apartments secure and simpler for tenants and easier to manage for owners.

We designed and manufactured one smart door lock that is powered with four AA batteries and utilizes a dynamic NFC device and Bluetooth technology. The board can enter a sleep mode which reduces power consumption. The dynamic NFC …

Polygait Conveyor Upgrade, William J. Schafer, Carolyn E. Palmer, Carly A. Tudor, Bryan C. Cordutsky

Mechanical Engineering

The PolyGAIT Conveyor Upgrade Mechanical Engineering Senior Project consisted of the complete design process to construct an operational “smart” control system for the conveyor belt loop on Cal Poly’s campus. As requested by project sponsor Dr. Tali Freed, an Industrial & Manufacturing Engineering professor at Cal Poly, the control system requirements included connecting existing conveyor components together, such as Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) reader tunnels, photo eye motion sensors, motor powered rollers, and diverting elastic bands. The main design problem is when packages with RFID tags are moving at industry high speed (10 ft/s) they are occasionally not scanned by …

Neural Network Based Diagnosis Of Breast Cancer Using The Breakhis Dataset, Ross E. Dalke

Master's Theses

Breast cancer is the most common type of cancer in the world, and it is the second deadliest cancer for females. In the fight against breast cancer, early detection plays a large role in saving people’s lives. In this work, an image classifier is designed to diagnose breast tumors as benign or malignant. The classifier is designed with a neural network and trained on the BreakHis dataset. After creating the initial design, a variety of methods are used to try to improve the performance of the classifier. These methods include preprocessing, increasing the number of training epochs, changing network architecture, …

Converting Horizontal Media For Vertical Platforms, Eric A. Hernandez

Graphic Communication

Today, most media is viewed on mobile phones and seen on a vertical screen. There are very few methods for converting horizontal media into vertical media for vertical platforms. This manual shows new ways to redesign horizontal content so that it looks better on vertical displays; I imagine watching things like the Super Bowl or the The Grammys on TikTok or Instagram with a new broadcast design that is more attractive.

Aged 539 Graduate Internship Report-Golden Valley High School, Madison R. Zittel

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This internship and project report includes documentation required in meeting the quality criteria for secondary-level programs of instruction in agriculture. The documents are concurrently used for the Agriculture Incentive Grant review process at Golden Valley High School conducted by representatives of the California Department of Education. The supporting material includes information to receive state and local funding, outline the goals and objectives of the program, along with an overview of Golden Valley High School, the agriculture program and the community.

Aged 539 Graduate Internship Report: Cal Poly Rodeo, Hannah Steagall

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This report details the role of an assistant coach with the responsibility of overseeing practices and supporting advancement.

Aged 539 Binder, Sierra Spratt

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This report details the role of an assistant coach with the responsibilities of managing coaching support and events.

Aged 539 Graduate Internship Report - Cal Poly Rodeo, Delisa C. Fracchia

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This report details the role of an assistant coach with the responsibility of managing social media.

Same Polytechnic College Tanzania Build 2022, Paulina Robles, Anna Yamauchi, Surina Marwaha, Tia Kelly, Dillon Schneider, Audrey Hoang, Connor Gilligan, Jennifer Viveros, Jenna Beutelschies, Robert Hardwick

Architectural Engineering

In collaboration with The Mbesese Initiative for Sustainable Design, the Cal Poly senior project team has designed, engineered, and prepared construction documents for a new vocational training college in Same, Tanzania, a rural area in the Mt. Kilimanjaro region. Upon its completion, the college will offer quality and practical educational opportunities for up to 1,200 students; in the interim, individual structures will be occupied immediately, adding value to the community throughout the construction process. The campus will house continuing educational programs, sports and agriculture fields, as well as hotels and other community-facing structures.

Guidelines For The Eeri Seismic Design Competition, Kate Robinson

Architectural Engineering

The Earthquake Engineering Research Institute (EERI) has been dedicated to exposing undergraduate students to the wide range of interdisciplinary subjects related to earthquake engineering through the Seismic Design Competition. In 2022, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) sent 14 students to Salt Lake City, Utah for the competition – to compete with 31 other teams who all tackled the competition problem statement uniquely. The 2022 team was tasked with the research, design, analysis, and construction of a new structure to be built in downtown Salt Lake City, with the goal of replicating the design sequence of real-world …

Increasing Strength Of Plywood Shear Walls, Elizabeth Claypool, Michelle Dennin

Architectural Engineering

In a recent iteration of an upper-division engineering design lab course at Cal Poly SLO, students were challenged to identify and understand the probable failure mechanism of conventionally built plywood shear walls and hypothesize how they could delay or prevent common failure mechanisms to increase the overall lateral load capacity. After observing the results of a test on a conventional, code specified wall, a solution to integrate metal gauge strapping into edge nailing was developed to address the common failure mechanisms of nail head pull through and panel edge tear out. A shear wall with metal strapping installed between the …

Paso Robles Residence, Kaylie Dipaola

Architectural Engineering

The Paso Robles Residence is a light framed single family residence. Architectural plans were designed by Nina Nazarov Hambly at Catch Architecture, formerly Hambly Homes. Conclusions made in the soils report by Beacon Geotechnical Inc were used to design the foundation. Structural plans and calculations were made by Kaylie Di Paola and reviewed by licensed engineer Nick McClure. Structural plans include the complete framing and foundation plans and construction details. Calculations were made in accordance with the 2019 CBC, ASCE 7 and NDS. This report with cover the architectural design, structural analysis, and all of the building systems that function …

Cal Poly Campus Safety: Policy Proposal, Alan Cazares, Phung (Karen) Bich La, Junhyun Kim

City and Regional Planning

As described in this project, the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo is in need of improving the campus’s sense of safety and safety features. With an increasing student population and increasing dangers, the importance of safety for all is becoming evident. The COVID-19 pandemic has taught us that it is essential to have proper safety features and preventative measures in place to keep the student and faculty population safe. The project’s goal is to produce safety recommendations that could be used to amend the existing 2035 Campus Master Plan. Currently, safety is not a topic extensively covered in …

Wire Cutting Saw For Spinal Fusion Surgery, Connor Kilzer Kilzer, Kayla Hong, Kyle Himmelein

Biomedical Engineering

The purpose of this project was to design and prototype a spinal facetectomy tool which will minimize the risk of spinal nerve damage and standardize this procedure for all surgeons. This Final Report for Alphatec describes the scope of the project, the process to get to the final prototype of the device, along with a project timeline for the team. A background of current devices and their issues is included to illustrate the need for a new spinal facetectomy device. Within the scope of the project includes a list of customer requirements for the device and the process of translating …

The Role Of Native Hawaiian Spiritual Practices In Social Systems And Environmental Stewardship, Christina A. Hornbaker

Social Sciences

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Native Hawaiian spiritual practices played a role in social systems and stewardship practices. Lightfoot and colleagues (2013) suggest that more archaeological research is needed on traditional resources and environmental management practices. The authors point out that “landscape management practices… are subtle and not prone to leaving smoking guns in the archaeological record” (Lightfoot et al. 2013), which makes such sites difficult to document without ethnographic accounts. Due to this subtlety, I will mainly be pulling information from interviews or oral histories from Hawaiian descendants, early explorers and missionary accounts, ethnographers, and …

Cable Transit De-Icing Project, Brooke Marvin, Christian Degrood, James Lavelle, Shanna Plouff

General Engineering

Holmes Solutions has presented two projects that require similar solutions - ice removal from the Switchback and the Whoosh, with the Switchback’s cables currently being the primary focus. The Frost Fighters have been tasked to find a way to stop ice formation on the Switchback’s cables so that the ride can operate safely in cold climates and during the colder months of the year. To be an adequate solution, the chosen de-icing method must operate in temperatures from -10°C to 40°C and be on standby in temperatures from -40°C to 60°C. In addition, it must prevent any falling debris that …

Gender, Sex, & Emerging Adulthood, Katarina Andrea Reyes

Psychology and Child Development

Emerging adulthood is a key developmental period when individuals explore and make meaning of their intimate relationships. National trends suggest that experimentation with non-committed relationships has increased (Olmstead, 2020), particularly for females (Netting & Reynolds, 2018). Young women utilize casual sex to explore sex, while men use sex for pleasure (Sizemore & Olmstead, 2017). Moreover, the double sexual standard impacts women’s sexual satisfaction and self-esteem (Williams & Jovanovic, 2018). Little research has examined how sex influences emerging adult’s self-esteem. Previous research has primarily relied on survey data to understand women’s and men’s experiences. Narrative identity scholars posit that individuals can …

The White House: No Drugs Allowed, Olivia A. Jones

Communication Studies

The War on Drugs is a long-term metaphorical war designed to reduce illegal drug distribution, trade, and use by maintaining significant punishment for drug dealers and users. This paper serves to examine how U.S. presidents throughout history have impacted this drug war through their targeted rhetoric and ensuing policies. I examine the research question, “How have presidents used their rhetorical power to perpetuate the War on Drugs while pushing a tough-on-crime narrative that portrays certain drug users and minorities as deviants responsible for crime?” Historical contexts, primary sources, and existing research are used to examine the issue. Using Ideographic Criticism, …

An Analysis And Application Of Pedestrian Streets, Ellie Krantz, Austin Lucero

City and Regional Planning

The goal of this project is to closely examine the conversion of traditional roads into pedestrian streets. By studying two examples, we will create an understanding of why cities do this, how they implement pedestrian streets, what results pedestrian streets bring, and what makes a successful conversion project.

The second part of this project is to implement the key takeaways of the research phase into a conceptual design of a similar project for San Luis Obispo. This design based phase will consider the entire scope of the project, detailing project location selection, implementation, and recommendations.

Increasing Legends Salon Revenue Per Square Foot, Jacob William Andreatta, Margaret Faison Gustafson, Julia Galina Odisho, Joshua Spry Morrison

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Katie MacNamara acquired Legends Hair Salon in Atascadero, California in January of 2021. After a few months of learning to run her own business she discovered that her retail revenue per square foot was not high enough. Her goal, and the project objective, was to raise her revenue while also increasing space for her stylists. The metrics used for these objectives were revenue per square foot and the square footage of the retail areas. The beginning state metrics were 48.75 square feet of retail and a retail revenue per square foot of $2.15 with a total of six stylist stations. …

Determining The Efficacy Of A Silica And Bacterial Cellulose Composite Model System, Hannah Martin, Daisy Kamp

Materials Engineering

Bacterial cellulose (BC) is a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based polymer films for synthetic leather applications. Synthesized by a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, BC is a three-dimensional structure composed of cellulose microfibrils. However, pure BC lacks certain desirable properties such as high tensile strength. Previous studies have shown that loading BC with nanoparticles to form nanocomposites has improved BC’s mechanical properties. However, this was not studied as a function of particle size. This study focuses on using silica/BC nanocomposites to model the impact that particle size and silica soaking concentrations have on the uptake efficiency of these particles into …

Eagle Medical Tray Denesting & Debris Removal Process, Nicholas Allen Ungefug, Noah Chavez, Susana Shu-Lin Okhuysen, Michael Augustine Pennington

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

Eagle Medical Incorporated is a contract medical device packaging and sterilization company. The company purchases thermoformed medical packaging trays, which maintain the sterility of medical devices, from various manufacturers. To ensure packaging quality and to prevent cleanroom contamination, Eagle Medical inspects and sterilizes each blister tray that they order. This process is an essential non-value-added activity that creates a bottleneck. Cleanroom employees must stop packaging medical devices and attend to the processing of blister trays and packaging solutions. The blister trays arrive at Eagle’s facility in nested stacks. Vibration and movement during shipping further compresses the stacks, which makes separation …

Effect Of Oxygen Equivalence On The Strength And Toughness Of Ti-6al-4v Forgings, Kira Baylor, Clarissa Drouillard

Materials Engineering

Tensile testing and fracture toughness testing were conducted to establish a numerical relationship between interstitial content and performance in forged Ti-6Al-4V. The value of oxygen equivalence was used to represent the interstitial content by combining the weight percent of oxygen, carbon, and nitrogen. The correlation between oxygen equivalence and mechanical properties can be used to accurately predict the performance of forged parts. Samples of forged parts with varying levels of interstitial content were subjected to a recrystallization anneal at 75 F below the beta transus temperature to decrease microstructure variability across parts with a second anneal at 1300 F to …

Investigation Of The Effects Of Cladding Layers On Longitudinal And Transverse Mechanical Properties In Composite Laminates, Rachel Potratz, Tiffany Foo, Joseph Kamlet

Materials Engineering

The addition of cladding layers to composite laminates is used in industry to improve bond adhesion and the ease of manufacturing. However, there is no public data on the effects of cladding layers on the mechanical properties of composite components. To directly observe how cladding layers affect mechanical properties, four laminates with zero, one, two, and three cladding layers of twill fabric were added symmetrically to a biased core. The mechanical testing performed was tensile, short beam strength, and compression testing in the longitudinal and transverse directions. The measured strengths were related to the longitudinal properties of the core, and …

Evaluating And Improving Domain-Specific Programming Education: A Case Study With Cal Poly Chemistry Courses, Will Fuchs

Master's Theses

Programming is a key skill in many domains outside computer science. When used judiciously, programming can empower people to accomplish what might be impossible or difficult with traditional methods. Unfortunately, students, especially non-CS majors, frequently have trouble while learning to program. This work reports on the challenges and opportunities faced by Physical Chemistry (PChem) students at Cal Poly, SLO as they learn to program in MATLAB. We assessed the PChem students through a multiple-choice concept inventory, as well as through “think-aloud” interviews. Additionally, we examined the students’ perceptions of and attitudes towards programming. We found that PChem students are adept …

Reliability Study Of Electrical Distribution System With Local And Interregional Bidirectional Centralized Electric Vehicle Charging Stations, Janine Gian Christii C. Darato

Master's Theses

In this thesis, a method was developed to evaluate the impact of bidirectional electric vehicle (EV) charging on power system reliability using Synergi Electric software. Load profiles, EV availability, EV state-of-charge (SOC) were important factors considered in this study. The analysis in this study is based on local and interregional vehicle-to-grid (V2G) implementation at different load points in the system. In general, local V2G implementation is observed to be more effective in improving system reliability over interregional V2G power flow. System Average Interruption Duration Index (SAIDI) and System Average Interruption Frequency Index (SAIFI) improvements were observed to increase with increasing …

Method And Simulation Of On-Orbit Sub-Microthrust Evaluation, Jonathan Hood

Master's Theses

With the advent of smaller satellites, along with the need for less than 0.1 μN precision attitude control for interferometry and imaging missions, finer micro- to sub-micro- thrusters have become an area of high interest. As thrusters are developed and ground-tested, it is necessary to evaluate their thrust performance on-orbit. On-orbit measurements offer actual thrust performance in mission conditions, free from ground facility vibrations and miniaturization restraints, and allow a thruster system to achieve a NASA Technology Readiness Level (TRL) of 7-8. A review is conducted of existing and proposed ground and on-orbit thrust measurement techniques. Experimental gaps and complementary …

Distribution And Ecological Function Of Pacific Lamprey In The San Luis Obispo Creek Watershed, Parker Kalan

Master's Theses

Pacific lamprey (Entosphenus tridentatus) is an endemic species to coastal watersheds along the Pacific Rim in North America and Asia. The species' geographic distribution is retracting and has not been mapped precisely, and the ability for the species to provide ecosystem services, such as water filtration, for supporting watershed management has not been tested. The San Luis Obispo Creek watershed, California, USA is at the southern end of Pacific lamprey’s retracting distribution, and the San Luis Obispo watershed is impacted by degraded water quality, making investigation of Pacific lamprey in the San Luis Obispo Creek watershed of direct …