Digital Commons Network^™

Sublime Absence: An Analysis Of The California Drought Discourse, Mitchell Cooledge

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

The Economics Of Successful Billboard Advertising, Alexa Thomas

Graphic Communication

This study explains the economics of billboard advertising, specifically pertaining to the internal and external elements that make them effective for both consumers and the brand. Billboards have been used as an advertising medium for more than a century, and are still used today. The question is, “What about billboards make them so effective?” Secondary research was examined to better understand the history of billboards, how they compare to other mediums, and the elements experts consider throughout the campaign process. After analyzing secondary articles and studies, primary research was conducted by interviewing a sample of consumers and experts to determine …

Clothing Company Differentiation Through Social Media, Joshua Birnbaum

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to analyze social media techniques utilized by some of the dominant clothing companies in the industry. This will provide a base of information to strategize a social media approach to increase followers for the Birds Apparel clothing company across multiple social media platforms.

This study investigated the impact social media marketing techniques had on consumer response, and their effectiveness in translating this into a paying customer. Collaborations with photographers, a revamped website, and giveaways were all used as methods to draw new followers. Results from data collected from surveys and on the Birds Apparel …

Practices In Designing A Scholarly Journal And Its Style Guide, Monique Martinez

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this project was to create a method for designing a scholarly journal by managing all design and print aspects of a Volume II, student produced, journal. The journal, Paideia, included student research papers and alumni successes in the workplace from California Polytechnic State University’s Political Science Department. Responsibilities included inserting text and photos from the Political Science committee, and making a cohesive layout and design with all elements given. Since a new volume of the journal will be assembled each year, a style guide was also produced alongside the journal, for future students to refer to when …

Integrating Ability-Based Design In Printed Electronics, Kimberly Eder

Graphic Communication

The purpose of the study is to determine if a printed electronic device can be adaptable to the visually impaired, the role that accessible design has in the development of printed electronics, and to determine if integrating accessible design prohibits usability and performance.The findings will provide better understanding of how to modify a printed electronic paper device to suit a wider range of end users and the relationship of usability and accessibility in printed electronics.

Experts in the field were interviewed to get information and feedback about the project.Also, a human research experiment was conducted.Cal Poly students, from different areas …

Visualizing Population Density Based On Wifi Router Location And Network Usage, Tyler Deitz

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

This research paper introduces a prototype of a feature for Robert E. Kennedy’s maps web application. The feature visualizes population density based off wifi router location and network usage within the building. The significance of the feature is noted by documenting the library’s transition into a hub for student life and campus culture, which increases the space’s occupancy and visitor retention for a longer time. The feature is based off a Voronoi diagram map distribution which strongly affects its technical and visual implementation. The end product is user tested by Cal Poly students and received a 93.5% satisfaction rate.

Discovering Factors Affecting Student Retention In Computer Science At Cal Poly, Diane Eykholt

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

No abstract provided.

Project Llama: Making A Cappella Arranging Easier, Jason Lu

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

This project was intended to improve the current state of a cappella arranging. It explains the problems with current tools and explores other options.

Voltage Protection System For Ehfem Project, Calvin Abshier, Calvin Xu

Electrical Engineering

The EHFEM project aims to convert the energy generated by exercise in a gym to electrical power and transport said energy to the grid. At the top level, this project includes several components including: a voltage and current protection system, a DC-DC converter, and an inverter. This project improves upon past voltage protection systems [1] [2]. The DC-DC converter takes the user-generated energy from the elliptical trainer and passes it to the grid. The user can generate voltage spikes upwards of 100V, far above the current DC-DC converter’s maximum limit. The voltage protection circuit sits between the energy harvesting machine …

The Electric Reel For Soccer Fields, Stephen Taylor

Electrical Engineering

Painting a soccer field consumes too much time. The process of reeling the string after laying out string along the field needs to improve. As a result, my project addresses improvements in how the workers retrieve the string through the production of an electric reel. This electric reel allows the worker to have control of the speed, direction, and on/off state of the device. Direction control allows the user ability to reel and unwind the string. Variable speed allows the user to control how fast the reel unwinds and reels the string. The device gathers string in an orderly manner …

El Camino Hacia El Extranjero, Lupita M. Murillo

World Languages and Cultures

This project focuses on capturing the life of two Mexican individuals who later encountered in the United States. The intent of this senior project is to interview my mother and father to see through their eyes the life they had in Mexico, their motivation to cross the border, the difficulties of crossing the border and assimilating to the new culture. These interviews will be a basis for this novel so that the reader can see how the American Dream came with struggle and pain. Each chapter will close at a common point in both character’s life so that the reader …

M-1: The Mealy Open Source Custom Midi Controller, Garrett Leung, Darren O. Mistica

Electrical Engineering

With the high price of large mixing consoles, aspiring artists are restricted to using a mouse to control digital facsimiles of knobs, faders, switches, and buttons. Though using the software controls is considered a simple task, dedicated hardware allows for tactile, visual, and utility. At a low cost, the heart of the MTech M-1 can be customized and placed into any shell with any combination of controls as possible with the underlying platform.

Modern MIDI controllers require significant physical space due to their preset button layout and space consuming setups. Despite their high price, modern MIDI controllers have only one …

Permanent Magnet Display System, Xenia Leon Rodriguez

Electrical Engineering

Pacemakers can malfunction when exposed to high magnetic fields. This becomes especially problematic for patients with pacemakers who need MRI scans as MRI machines can subject the pacemaker to damaging magnetic fields. St.Jude Medical, one of the leading biotech companies, is working to make their pacemakers MRI-safe. In order to test their MRI-safe pacemaker designs, they need an automated test apparatus that will collect and report the magnetic field the pacemaker is being exposed to. This report describes the design of such a test system that reads the Tesla intensity the pacemaker is exposed to and wirelessly transmits the data …

Innovative Connectivity Ensuring Education (I.-C.E.E.), Luke Cole, Andrew Ma, Nicholas Ross, Daniel Williams

Electrical Engineering

This is the critical design review for the Telepresence/Telerobotic Technology for Children with Disabilities Project by team I.- C.E.E. (Innovative Connectivity Ensuring Education). This report details our telepresence system design for our client (Nathan Stilts) including design choices/justification, testing verification and procedures, and chosen components for implementation. There are seven chapters in total starting with introductory/background information followed by hardware and software design, verification, and testing and concludes with the current status of the project and what future work may need to be included.

Wireless Sensor Mesh Network For Irrigation Systems, Rosana Cheruvelil, Oswaldo Garcia, Nabil Haque, Justin Ignacio, Stanley Thomas

Electrical Engineering

Pepper Oak Farms, a company that grows their own olives for olive oil and has approximately 40,000 olive trees, is in need of an efficient way to monitor the soil and atmospheric conditions that are critical to the cultivation of their trees. The company at the moment only has two sensors and has to manually place the sensors at different locations to collect data on soil moisture and temperature. This is expensive, time consuming, and a lot of effort on the owner’s part to go out on the fields to collect this data. As a solution, the company would like …

Drum Sense: Smart Drum Set, Azra Skeljo

Electrical Engineering

I would like to propose a SMART drum set: a 5-piece acrylic LED drum set with 2 strips of adhesive RGB LEDs under each rim of every drum. Current SMART drum sets are very expensive and come as installable light rings that are attached on the outside of the drum instead of the inside. I have successfully prototyped 1 Floor Tom of the complete set. The LEDs are connected an AC to DC power converter via a six pin MIDI connector and Arduino. The drum set is characterized with a single RGB microcontroller, 5 sets of 150 LEDs, a piezoelectric …

Ciceroni Ios App, Forrest D. Hansen

Computer Science and Software Engineering

The Ciceroni app for iOS is a crowdsourcing tour app that allows users to create and share tours consisting of a collection of locations. Although it can be used for various purposes, it was designed to facilitate the transfer of knowledge from locals to tourists and to provide a free alternative to traditional tours. The app enables Facebook users to create and share lists of locations which other users can then view and get directions to on a map. This project was developed in HTML 5 and JavaScript and demonstrates the use of the Google Maps JavaScript API, Parse Core …

Carbon Fiber Monocoque Development For A Formula Sae Racecar, Andrew Cunningham, Andrew Ferrell, Matthew Lee, Tony Loogman

Mechanical Engineering

Monocoque development of the 2015 Cal Poly Formula SAE racecar from design to competition.

Pier2pier: Final Report, Kevin Nelson, Anthony Miller, Paul Maalouf, Chahan Shah

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

Psychosocial Motivators For Obstacle Course Racing: A Qualitative Case Study, Aracely Rodriguez

Master's Theses

This study explored the psychological and sociological motivations of adult female and male obstacle course racers. A qualitative case study approach was used to explore the views, experiences, and motivations of obstacle course racing (OCR) participants. Descriptive statistics and cross tabulation was used to interpret responses to the 297 online questionnaires. A content analysis approach was used to analyze the qualitative data gathered from three focus groups with a total of 20 obstacle course racers. Three theories formed the basis of the study: Self-Determination Theory (SDT), Achievement Goal Theory (AGT), and Social Leaning Theory (SLT). Overall, findings supported previous research …

Designing An Effective User Interface For A Mobile Application, Cynthia N. Kim

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to determine the best user interface design practices for an iOS mobile application created for Pre-R, a local start-up company that offers physician house calls and telemedicine services throughout San Luis Obispo. The study included initial background research on best user interface design practices, mapping out and implementing the entire process of designing for mobile applications, conducting usability tests on potential users, and making changes according to the test results. Usability tests allowed for a greater understanding of the effectiveness of Pre-R’s mobile interface design prototype. Results from the usability tests have indicated a …

Graduation Announcements & Save The Date Cards For Asia Croson Photography, Olivia Goree

Graphic Communication

The purpose of this study was to create graduation announcements cards to serve as a value added service for Asia Croson Photography. Research was conducted on the recent growth of photography, the difficulty of starting a photography business, and Asia’s competitors in the area. The current trends in graduation announcements among college females was also researched before designs were made. Once designs were brainstormed and executed, approval was received from Asia Croson and files were sent to her to personalize for her clients. Clients were also sent surveys asking them what card designs they were interested in purchasing and why …

A Close Reading Analysis Of Bud Light's Pacman Super Bowl Commercial, Sally Hurst

Communication Studies

This paper offers a close reading analysis of Bud Light's PacMan Super Bowl commercial to uncover what rhetorical strategies are employed to appeal to the millennial generation. It discusses three main strategies: creating a "real" experience, nostalgia marketing, and emphasis on the "experience."

The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy: A Metaphorical Look At Life, The Universe, And Everything, Thomas David Thompson

Communication Studies

A look at the integral use of metaphor as a heuristic in the process of human learning.

A Proposal For The Program “Information Communication Technology For Development” (Ict4d) To The Cal Poly Campus, Mika Jennifer Raz

Communication Studies

California Polytechnic State University is a university that prides itself on the “Learn by Doing” motto. A qualitative study was completed to analyze students and faculty views on the amount of “Learn by Doing” and interdisciplinary work that is currently done within specific colleges and courses. By proposing an implementation of the Information Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) program to the Cal Pol campus, students will have the opportunity to en- gage in more “Learn by Doing” and interdisciplinary work. Positive feedback was retrieved, however several organizational barriers arose.

Nutrient Transformations In Algae Raceway Ponds Fed Municipal Wastewater, Carter Michael Reiff

Master's Theses

While treating domestic wastewater, algae can be grown and harvested for biofuel production. Water is a vital resource and it is imperative to conserve and reuse as much as possible. Several pilot and lab scale experiments were conducted to further research into a full scale wastewater treatment and biofuel production facility. This thesis will include these topics: nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations of clarified wastewater pond feed, nitrogen and phosphorus transformations by algae, and the potential of algae cell disruption technologies to increase nutrient solubilization.

The pilot scale experiments were conducted using nine 33 m², 0.3 m deep multi-culture …

A Comprehensive Review Of The Food And Drug Administration, The 510(K) Application Process, And Fda Certification For A Diagnostic Device, Taylor Davis

Biomedical Engineering

The company G-Force CRC LLC is currently experiencing the dichotomy of the FDA's conflicting role right now as they begin to approach FDA approval. G-Force CRC LLC is a small medical device company headquartered in San Diego, CA. The owner of the company, Dr. Ian Purcell, is an Otoneurologist apart of Alvarado Hospital. His medical practice mainly deals with patients who have balance disorders and therefore the devices that he has developed over the last 6+ years are primarily used to assist in the diagnosis of those balance disorders. G-Force CRC LLC was officially created in the summer of 2013 …

Search Engine Optimization: Starter Guide To Improve Website Visibility, Carley Ann Applegate

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Diario De Perla Jimenez, Brenda Dorantes

World Languages and Cultures

The aim of this project is to present the effect of the immigration issue in the United States, with a direct focus in San Luis Obispo, and including a spread of intercultural knowledge between the Hispanic and the Caucasian community. Through a fictional short story, the manifestation of these ideas will relate to current events occurring in our society today. These events focus primarily on immigration in California, deportation issues, socioeconomic issues in Mexico, and the cultural barrier seen in Mexican and American cultures; expressed through the main character: a young college student named Perla.

My primary goal in completing …

Utility Scale Solar Projects In California: An Initial Survey, Meaghan Mroz-Barrett

Master's Theses

The lack of a comprehensive database for both concentrating and photovoltaic utility-scale solar power projects, those with a generation capacity of greater than 50 MW, hinders the ability of researchers and policy makers to examine the state of solar development in the state of California. This research project seeks to fill this gap in understanding by creating a database of proposed and developed projects in order to examine trends in proposals, process time, approvals, and construction starts. Existing literature was evaluated to determine potential factors for project success in approval and construction. Upon determination of these factors, the project database …