Digital Commons Network^™

Solar Pv Emulator, Tristan Studer, Cody Kremer

Electrical Engineering

The implementation of a solar PV emulator. Creating a controllable testing environment which sufficiently recreates realistic conditions a photovoltaic cell would experience in real world use. The project aims to accurately show the efficiency and reliability of a solar PV cell, opposed to an ideal model which creates unrealistic expectations. The PV emulator implements conditions such as: irradiance, soiling and temperate changes. It gives feedback on a displayed IV curve and/or PV curve so the user may graphically analyze the output their PV cell produces given various conditions. It allows the user selectable conditions the solar cell may experience this …

Restorative Justice: Introducing Juvenile Hall Students To Computer Science, Erik K. Mork

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Computer Science is an increasingly important field in regards to (in)equity in the United States and our world. Equal access to adequate Computer Science education is an issue in schools. Incarcerated youth in Juvenile Halls are often unable to obtain classes / resources that would foster interest in the field of engineering. This paper presents findings from a revitalized and revamped computer science course that was originally taught in San Luis Obispo’s Juvenile Hall in 2019 [7]. This iteration of the project introduces modified curriculum and different tools for learning the art of programming that was not included in the …

A Survey Of Computer Graphics Facial Animation Methods: Comparing Traditional Approaches To Machine Learning Methods, Joseph A. Johnson

Master's Theses

Human communications rely on facial expression to denote mood, sentiment, and intent. Realistic facial animation of computer graphic models of human faces can be difficult to achieve as a result of the many details that must be approximated in generating believable facial expressions. Many theoretical approaches have been researched and implemented to create more and more accurate animations that can effectively portray human emotions. Even though many of these approaches are able to generate realistic looking expressions, they typically require a lot of artistic intervention to achieve a believable result. To reduce the intervention needed to create realistic facial animation, …

Flywheel Fanny Pack Balance Assist, Ella Joy Mahood, Jason Scott Provol, Raymond Ming Tseng

Biomedical Engineering

The aim of this project is to develop a wearable device that will provide support to a balance impaired individual. The device will be predicated on the principle of gyroscopes. It will include a rapidly spinning flywheel, which will resist any changes to spatial orientation.

Standardizing 1ru Chassis To Pcba Interfaces, Bryce J. Mcneil, Leia K. Tashiro, John H. Liu, Sarika L. Singhal

Mechanical Engineering

Cisco currently designs a variety of custom chassis for different types of servers, routers, and switches. Our senior design project aims to reduce the number of custom chassis Cisco develops by standardizing the perimeter mounting locations for the printed circuit board assembly on the chassis. The purpose of this report is to document our selected project direction and support the decisions with appropriate evidence. In addition to research on the customer’s needs, the product, and the technical background used to understand the project scope, our group has come up with a way to analyze and compare mounting locations for various …

Bicycle Headset With Adjustable Spring Rate, Andrew W. Drees, Jonah Masumoto, Camden R.S. Boshart, Matthew B. Mounteer

Mechanical Engineering

Fork flop can play an important role in the performance of a mountain bike. This phenomenon of fork flop is known as the tendency that the front wheel of a bike wants to flop over to one side when moving slowly. The fork flop experienced on a bicycle changes with the geometry of the bike, but our team sought to change the fork flop experienced through an adjustable internal spring design that attaches to the bicycle instead. From our research, we decided to utilize torsion springs as the method for mitigating fork flop. We also decided to use load cells …

3-Axis Reaction Wheel System For Cubesats, Alexandra Mae Lee, Daniel Leon, Christopher Pablo Casillas, Rose Mccarver

Mechanical Engineering

Reaction wheels are a common, but expensive, component used in CubeSats, that can accurately position a satellite using an imparted momentum (or impulse) from a rotating flywheel to adjust a satellite’s attitude. This document serves as the final design review and report for the 3-Axis Reaction Wheel Senior Design Project in the Mechanical Engineering Department of California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The goal of this project is to produce a functional, low-cost 3-axis reaction wheel system based on previous research done by a master’s student at Cal Poly to be implemented in future CubeSats in the Cal Poly …

Controlling Locomotion Of A Robotic Leg, Tai K. Mitchell, Connor Bush, Patrick Ward, Ben Spin

Mechanical Engineering

Dr. Xing and Professor Refvem are working to research and develop a quadruped robot that is capable of basic movements including walking, running, and jumping. As senior project group F-11, we are joining a team of engineers to assist in the development of the quadruped. Our team was tasked with creating a mathematical model, designing a control method, and implementing that control method for the quadruped's legs in Simulink. This will allow both current and future students to understand the response of the system and provide a building point for future researchers to create working quadrupedal robots. This report documents …

Vibration Isolation For Scanning Tunneling Microscope, Seth Ewing, Ryan Mcmullen, Jason Behrens, Stephen Deherrera

Mechanical Engineering

Scanning Tunneling Microscopy (STM) works by scanning a fine metal wire over a conductive sample in order to image samples on the atomic level. The microscope uses a feedback loop with a PID controller to maintain a constant tunneling current between the sample and the tip. In order to obtain clear imaging at the atomic level, the microscope and the sample need to be isolated from external vibrations in a vacuum chamber. The scope for this project is to build and test a single-stage vibration isolation system that effectively attenuates the amplitude of external vibrations acting on the microscope. This …

Scitechatorium, Esther Hurst, Emma Salam, Nejad Harara, Felipe Dejesus

Mechanical Engineering

The Bellevue-Santa Fe Charter School SciTechatorium needs a new educational exhibit for its K-6th grade students. The exhibit must be safe, engaging, and exciting for the students to use, and will ideally introduce students to the topics of Science, Mathematics, Engineering, Art, and Technology (STEAM) concepts. The team has investigated some of the most popular science museums from around the nation, as well as several popular children’s educational toys. This research revealed a need for hands on, focused exhibits to provide an effective educational experience. Many of our favorite existing exhibits give students an opportunity to fail in a safe …

Investigating Daily Fantasy Baseball: An Approach To Automated Lineup Generation, Ryan Smith

Master's Theses

A recent trend among sports fans along both sides of the letterman jacket is that of Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS). The DFS industry has been under legal scrutiny recently, due to the view that daily sports data is too random to make its prediction skillful. Therefore, a common view is that it constitutes online gambling. This thesis proves that DFS, as it pertains to Baseball, is significantly more predictable than random chance, and thus does not constitute gambling.

We propose a system which generates daily lists of lineups for Fanduel Daily Fantasy Baseball contests. The system consists of two components: …

A Study Of Implementation Methodologies For Distributed Real Time Collaboration, Lauren A. Craft

Master's Theses

Collaboration drives our world and is almost unavoidable in the programming industry. From higher education to the top technological companies, people are working together to drive discovery and innovation. Software engineers must work with their peers to accomplish goals daily in their workplace. When working with others there are a variety of tools to choose from such as Google Docs, Google Colab and Overleaf. Each of the aforementioned collaborative tools utilizes the Operational Transform (OT) technique in order to implement their real time collaboration functionality. Operational transform is the technique seen amongst most if not all major collaborative tools in …

Proving Correctness Of A Chez Scheme Compiler Pass, Ian R. Atol

Master's Theses

We present a proof of correctness for a pass of the Chez Scheme compiler over a subset of the Scheme programming language. To improve trust in our proof approach, we provide two different validation frameworks. The first, created with the Coq proof assistant, is a partial mechanization of the proof, notably implementing a formal semantics for our subset of Scheme. This framework was designed to serve as a basis for the future work of a complete mechanization of our proof. The second framework uses an existing implementation of the Scheme semantics to demonstrate correctness of the pass on a variety …

Aged 539 Graduate Internship Report - Delano High School, Ernesto H. Marcial

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This internship and project report includes validation documents required in meeting the quality criteria for secondary-level programs of instruction in agriculture. The supporting material includes information to receive state and local funding, outline the goals and objectives of the program, along with an overview of Delano High School, the agriculture program, and the community.

Selection Of Overwintering Microclimate By Migratory Western Monarch Butterflies, Kiana Saniee

Master's Theses

Migratory species are expected to demonstrate habitat selection that occurs at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Western monarch butterflies migrate seasonally to overwinter in groves at geographically predictable locations along the California coast. To date, overwintering habitat selection by western monarch butterflies has been studied assuming that habitat selection occurs where overwintering aggregations form, meaning at the spatial scale where monarchs form dense overwintering aggregations within overwintering groves. We argue that since western monarch butterflies are migratory, studies of habitat selection could have commingled selection at different scales into a single spatial scale. This likely leads to ignoring some levels …

Phytoplankton Community Response To Changing Environmental Conditions Across Two Central California Sites, Nicholas Soares

Biological Sciences

Understanding the role that changing environmental conditions play in altering phytoplankton abundance and community composition, and in turn ecosystem structure and function, will be increasingly important for the sustainable use and management of ocean resources in a changing climate. Characterizing change in nearshore ecosystems requires long-term studies with a broad spatial extent, with most studies sacrificing spatial extent for temporal duration. However, phytoplankton and ecosystem response can vary substantially over small spatial scales due to local oceanographic forcing and anthropogenic influence, making the application of long-term data from one site to another in the same geographic vicinity potentially challenging. In …

Reducing The Fouling Of Microfiltration Membranes Through Uv-Initiated Surface Modifications Using Poly (Ethylene Glycol) Based Monomers, Christopher Lo, Matthew Truong

Materials Engineering

Meissner Filtration Product Inc. designs and manufactures membranes for food and beverage, microelectronics, ultrapure chemicals, and pharmaceutical industries. Membrane filters utilized in these industries have lifetimes greatly limited due to membrane fouling. Increasing membrane lifetime will reduce downtime, waste, and cost of operation. The proposed project is aimed to develop a methodology for synthesizing a fouling-resistant polymer coating layer on hydrophobic membrane surfaces for reducing membrane fouling and increasing membrane filterability (membrane lifetime) that are critical for effective membrane operations in the pharmaceutical industry. In this study, commercial membranes were coated with a solution containing a monomer, crosslinker, and photoinitiator …

Designing A Replication Study In Kinesiology: Lessons From The Field, Ruben A. Montoya Vega, Regina F. Hockert, Emma L. Cutner, Jafra D. Thomas

Kinesiology and Public Health

The submitted presentation material summarizes a project presented at the 2021 Cal Poly Virtual BEACoN Symposium. The title of the project which the presentation is based is, “Towards Equitable Communication: Explorations to Guide Knowledge Translation in Kinesiology.” The uploaded file document presents the presentation abstract, student testimony, as well as suggested citations for individual aspects of the presentation material. Please follow the social media profiles of the faculty mentor to the project, Dr. Thomas, for timely project updates. You may find related work from this lab group published to Cal Poly Digital Commons under the Kinesiology and Public Health section …

Training Novices To Evaluate The Quality Of Physical Activity Promotion Material: Results Of A Pilot Study, Ethan N. Tse, Savannah A. Longoria, Cameron N. Christopher, Jafra D. Thomas

Kinesiology and Public Health

The credibility and usability of lay physical activity promotion material are a persistent problem (Thomas & Cardinal, 2020, TJACM). These quality issues deter the material in promoting health literacy, a major predictor of prevention-oriented health behaviors (e.g., regular exercise, U.S. National Action Plan to Improve Health Literacy). Few studies, however, have evaluated the quality of lay material over time (Thomas et al., 2018, Quest). PURPOSE: In order to conduct a repeated-measures study of the quality of physical activity promotion web articles for lay adults, one experienced researcher (JDT) trained undergraduates on how to use the Suitability …

Pressure Driven Desalination Membranes: Lyotropic Liquid Crystals Containing Single Walled Carbon, Matteo A. Del Giudice, Samantha Castillo Merigold

Materials Engineering

This project presents a potential alternative desalination technique that utilizes the ion rejection properties of single walled carbon nanotubes dispersed in a lyotropic liquid crystal (LLC) matrix. Previous research has pointed to the polymerizable surfactant methacryloxy ethyl hexadecyl dimethyl ammonium bromide (C16MA) having capabilities of filtering molecular components smaller than a nanometer, when oriented in cylindrical micelles. SWCNTs were dispersed in deionized water by probe sonication and addition of surfactant cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) due to SWCNTs’ hydrophobic properties. Membranes were produced containing 55wt% C16MA, 37wt% DI water, 0.1wt% with respect to the monomer (WRM) SWCNTs, 1.9 wt% WRM 2,2-dimethoxy-2-phenylacetophenone (photointiator), …

Design Of A Three-Phase Brushless Dc Motor Control System, Peyton Ulrich

Master's Theses

In the past several decades, the Brushless DC (BLDC) motor has seen increased usage due to several distinct advantages over its brushed counterpart, including higher performance, increased reliability, and minimal maintenance requirements. However, the electronic commutation system of the BLDC motor creates the need for an accompanying electronic motor control system of increased complexity, adding to the overall cost of the BLDC motor and motor control system. As such, continued research and exploration in the area of BLDC motor control is necessary to continue to reduce the cost of BLDC motors and their corresponding motor control systems. This project focuses …

Simulation Of A Configurable Hybrid Aircraft, Brandon Bartlett

Master's Theses

As the demand for air transportation is projected to increase, the environmental impacts produced by air travel will also increase. In order to counter the environmental impacts while also meeting the demand for air travel, there are goals and research initiatives that aim to develop more efficient aircraft. An emerging technology that supports these goals is the application of hybrid propulsion to aircraft, but there is a challenge in effectively exploring the performance of hybrid aircraft due to the time and money required for safe flight testing and due to the diverse design space of hybrid architectures and components. Therefore, …

Solving Chromatic Number With Quantum Search And Quantum Counting, David Lutze

Master's Theses

This thesis presents a novel quantum algorithm that solves the Chromatic Number problem. Complexity analysis of this algorithm revealed a run time of O(2^n/2n²(log2n)²). This is an improvement over the best known algorithm, with a run time of 2ⁿn^O(1) [1]. This algorithm uses the Quantum Search algorithm (often called Grover's Algorithm), and the Quantum Counting algorithm. Chromatic Number is an example of an NP-Hard problem, which suggests that other NP-Hard problems can also benefit from a speed-up provided by quantum technology. This has wide implications as many real world problems can …

Groundwater Model Studying Effects Of Existing Recharge Basin And Proposed Subsurface Barrier For A Ranch In Santa Rosa Creek Watershed, Stefan J. Young

Master's Theses

A groundwater model of a 126.2-acre ranch in Cambria, California was expanded upon to analyze the effects of artificial recharge and a subsurface barrier. The ranch lies within the 48mi² Santa Rosa Creek Watershed along the Central Coast of California. The mainly agricultural watershed outfalls to the Pacific Ocean to its west. Creek Lands Conservation, a non-profit that aims to conserve and restore habitat along the Central Coast, plans to identify projects to restore stream flow during dry seasons in the creek that runs through the Santa Rosa Creek Watershed and to increase artificial groundwater recharge. This study focuses …

Energy Efficient Computing Using Scalable General Purpose Analog Processors, Ethan Paul Palisoc De Guzman

Master's Theses

Due to fundamental physical limitations, conventional digital circuits have not been able to scale at the pace expected from Moore’s law. In addition, computationally intensive applications such as neural networks and computer vision demand large amounts of energy from digital circuits. As a result, energy efficient alternatives are needed in order to provide continued performance scaling. Analog circuits have many well known benefits: the ability to store more information onto a single wire and efficiently perform mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, and differential equation solving. However, analog computing also comes with drawbacks such as its sensitivity to process variation …

Applying Facial Emotion Recognition To Usability Evaluations To Reduce Analysis Time, Gavin Kam Chao

Master's Theses

Usability testing is an important part of product design that offers developers insight into a product’s ability to help users achieve their goals. Despite the usefulness of usability testing, human usability evaluations are costly and time-intensive processes. Developing methods to reduce the time and costs of usability evaluations is important for organizations to improve the usability of their products without expensive investments. One prospective solution to this is the application of facial emotion recognition to automate the collection of qualitative metrics normally identified by human usability evaluators.

In this paper, facial emotion recognition (FER) was applied to mock usability recordings …

An Analysis Of Real-Time Ray Tracing Techniques Using The Vulkan® Explicit Api, Elleis C. Souza

Master's Theses

In computer graphics applications, the choice and implementation of a rendering technique is crucial when targeting real-time performance. Traditionally, rasterization-based approaches have dominated the real-time sector. Other algorithms were simply too slow to compete on consumer graphics hardware. With the addition of hardware support for ray-intersection calculations on modern GPUs, hybrid ray tracing/rasterization and purely ray tracing approaches have become possible in real-time as well. Industry real-time graphics applications, namely games, have been exploring these different rendering techniques with great levels of success. The addition of ray tracing into the graphics developer’s toolkit has without a doubt increased what level …

Modeling And Solving The Outsourcing Risk Management Problem In Multi-Echelon Supply Chains, Arian A. Nahangi

Master's Theses

Worldwide globalization has made supply chains more vulnerable to risk factors, increasing the associated costs of outsourcing goods. Outsourcing is highly beneficial for any company that values building upon its core competencies, but the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and other crises have exposed significant vulnerabilities within supply chains. These disruptions forced a shift in the production of goods from outsourcing to domestic methods.

This paper considers a multi-echelon supply chain model with global and domestic raw material suppliers, manufacturing plants, warehouses, and markets. All levels within the supply chain network are evaluated from a holistic perspective, calculating a total …

Modeling The Groundwater Basin In The Northern Cities Management Area, Allyson Swain

Master's Theses

A model was developed to simulate the groundwater of 8,300 acres of the Northern Cities Management Area (NCMA), which encompasses the northern portion of the Arroyo Grande Watershed and a small subset of the Santa Maria Valley Groundwater Basin. This watershed and groundwater basin is located on the coast and contains Oceano and the Cities of Arroyo Grande, Grover Beach, Pismo Beach. Groundwater in the NCMA is used heavily for agricultural irrigation in the southern portion and municipal applications in the northern portion. Up to 18 of these municipal wells and over 50 irrigation wells are drawing groundwater at any …

Soarnet, Deep Learning Thermal Detection For Free Flight, Jake T. Tallman

Master's Theses

Thermals are regions of rising hot air formed on the ground through the warming of the surface by the sun. Thermals are commonly used by birds and glider pilots to extend flight duration, increase cross-country distance, and conserve energy. This kind of powerless flight using natural sources of lift is called soaring. Once a thermal is encountered, the pilot flies in circles to keep within the thermal, so gaining altitude before flying off to the next thermal and towards the destination. A single thermal can net a pilot thousands of feet of elevation gain, however estimating thermal locations is not …