Digital Commons Network^™

Community Multipurpose Center, Cristian Cohen

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

This report is an analysis of fire protection and life safety features required for a Community Multipurpose Center (CMC).

Governing the construction of the building was the International Building Code (IBC). Throughout this report there are justifications for a call to redesign the CMC conceptual drawing.

The fire and life safety features were organized into five areas, otherwise known as the FPE core areas.

The first four core areas consist of (1) Structural Fire Protection, (2) Water-Based Fire Control and Suppression Systems, (3) Detection, Alarm and Notification Systems, and (4) Means of Egress System. These come straight out of codes …

Training Facility, Andrew Kuharski

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

The Training Facility is a two-story, 142,500 sq. ft. building constructed in 1994 at the Savannah River Site DOE complex. The facility primarily contains training rooms, office space, and a cafeteria. Fire protection features of the Training Facility are detailed in this report, including key life safety, suppression, alarm, and structural features. The building has several deficiencies; the second floor has an occupant load of 911 occupants but is only provided with an exit capacity of 800, and occupancy size per floor exceeds what is allowed for assembly occupancies on the first floor. The travel distance from the records storage …

Cal Poly Masters Program Projects, Caslyn M. Weidenbener

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

Through participating in an agricultural education master's program and competing on the university rodeo team, I gained valuable leadership experience that will benefit me in my future career. I learned how to motivate and engage students of diverse backgrounds and learning styles in the classroom setting. I was also responsible for producing projects that required facilitating, researching, and reaching out to different groups from Cal Poly.

The agricultural education master's program and rodeo team provided a fertile training ground for leadership growth. The skills I cultivated in communication, organization, emotional intelligence, and responsibility to self and others will allow me …

Ag Ed 539 Graduate Internship Report - Tulare High School Farm, Samantha Day

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 Tulare High School Farm 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 Tulare High School Farm, the agriculture program and the community.

Light Based Wireless Communication, Nick Ghaffarian, Gibson Puckett

Electrical Engineering

The demand for high-speed, secure wireless communication is escalating, particularly in high-density environments like urban areas, and critical sectors such as healthcare and defense. Traditional Wi-Fi struggles with issues like signal congestion, electromagnetic interference, and security vulnerabilities, compromising connectivity quality. LiFi is much more suitable for areas like hospitals which contain equipment highly sensitive to electromagnetic interference, has a high bandwidth far away from standard radio waves which enables strong communication in highly congested areas.

We developed a small scale, low-cost LiFi system to demonstrate a proof of concept of LiFi that grants the user full access to the internet. …

Modeling A Hydropower Plant Powerhouse Based On Hebgen Dam, James Savella, Paul De La Cruz

Electrical Engineering

The United States Department of Energy (DOE) Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO) invited California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly) to participate in the 2024 Hydropower Collegiate Competition (HCC) to research and design ways to convert non-powered dams (NPDs) to hydropower plants to contribute to a clean energy future. The Cal Poly HCC Electrical Engineering team used information gathered for the competition to create a simulated hydropower plant model of Hebgen Dam, in Montana, using a salient pole synchronous generator and a PID governor for an Electrical Engineering Senior Project. The simulated hydropower plant model allows a user to control the …

Connected Palo Alto: Proposed Cycle Track For Enhanced Connectivity Between The San Antonio Corridor And Greater Palo Alto, Ca, Scott C. Richards

City and Regional Planning

The City of Palo Alto is located within Santa Clara County, in the heart of Silicon Valley. Palo Alto borders the city of Mountain View, the city of Los Altos, and the campus of Stanford University. Palo Alto is considered to be one of the most bike-able cities in California and is a Gold-Level Bicycle Friendly City which was designated by the League of American Bicyclists (https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/Departments/Transportation/Bicycling-Walking#:~:text=The%20City%20of%20Palo%20Alto,the%20League%20of%20American%20Bicyclists.). One program that Palo Alto is leading the charge on is theSafe Routes to School program, a local community partnership between the City of Palo Alto, Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD), and …

Innovative Housing Solutions: A Toolkit To Utilizing Recycled Spaces As Transition Shelters For The Unhoused, Kristel Jened Alianza Mallari

City and Regional Planning

Increasingly, the challenges of homelessness in urban areas have necessitated innovative solutions that leverage existing infrastructure. This project explores how repurposing underutilized spaces, such as vacant offices and hotels, into transitional shelters can provide immediate relief and long-term support for unhoused individuals. By focusing on inclusive design and strategic planning, this toolkit offers a comprehensive approach to addressing homelessness through adaptive reuse of existing buildings.

Urban areas in the United States face a persistent homelessness crisis exacerbated by economic instability, lack of affordable housing, and systemic barriers. Traditional shelters often fail to provide the necessary support for long-term stability, highlighting …

Coastal Collective: A Cannery Row Concept Plan, Margo Ezcurra

City and Regional Planning

This concept plan proposes preliminary design and implementation measures to redevelop an area which holds potential to serve as an activated southern entrance to Cannery Row. This project provides an analysis of the existing conditions and subsequently offers a strategy to transform this site into the Coastal Collective, a community-oriented mixed-use development that showcases the area’s history, natural environment, and local residents and businesses. This strategy consists of preliminary design ideas supported by implementation goals, policies, and programs that establish a framework for future redevelopment of this significant, historic waterfront area.

Exploring The Effect Of Interactivity On Zoom Fatigue And Student Learning, Kendall N. Baebler

Communication Studies

The present study aims to address the immensely popular alternative to face-to-face classrooms in higher education that has emerged in videoconferencing, and the various challenges that it creates for students in comfort, enjoyment, and learning. While many cross-sectional studies have explored the evidence of and causes for this so-called “Zoom fatigue” (e.g., Aroaz et al., 2023; Castro & Tumibay, 2021; Fauville et al., 2021a; 2021b; Reidl, 2022), experiments testing potential alleviating factors to this fatigue are limited. The study used experimental design to evaluate the effect of interactivity in Zoom class sessions on the students’ perceived learning, Zoom fatigue, and …

Cheap Clothes And Costly Consequences: A Study On College Students’ Shopping Habits Surrounding Fast Fashion And The Theory Of Reasoned Action And Planned Behavior, Stella Rose Chamness

Communication Studies

This study investigates the impact of perceived attitudes and behaviors with regards to fast fashion and consumerism amongst Cal Poly students. Drawing on the Theory of Reasoned Action and Planned Behavior, the research measures student’s perceived facilitation, beliefs, and the influence of subjective norms towards consumption of fast fashion. The literature review establishes the theoretical framework, highlighting the importance of the Theory of Reasoned Action and Planned Behaviors. The study’s method involves a 17 item questionnaire administered to 108 participants. Half of the participants, 53, were randomly assigned to either a persuasive message or no message at all. The group …

How Political Parties Can Appeal To Voters, Brenden David Jacoby

Communication Studies

Young voters are not voting. According to the United States Census Bureau, young voters, aged 18-29, have not turned out to vote in Presidential Elections at a rate higher than 50% since 1968. Millions of ballots – with the potential to swing elections, policies, and political momentum – are left blank. It is in the interest of both parties to identify why young voters are not going to the polls. In order to understand what makes political messaging persuasive to younger voters, this study presented participants with actual campaign speeches made by Democrats and Republican candidates for office. The author …

Shadows Of Virtue: ‘The Abolition Of Man’ In Modern Context, Luke Thomas Soule

Communication Studies

C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man stands as a remarkable examination of the mid-19th century shift towards moral subjectivism. With a detailed study of this text, this essay will utilize ideological and Postmodern criticism to reveal how Lewis builds his defense of objective morality, or what he calls the "Tao," against the educational spread of relativism. The heart of the analysis is the examination of Lewis's use of ideographs. Terms such as "the Tao," "Men without Chests," and "the Abolition of Man'' not only criticize the philosophical trends of the time but also tap into a deep cultural current of …

Rapid Composter, Cate Seay, Clarisbet De Jesus, Lesley Milena Estrada, Reese Dennett

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Review documents the efforts of a team of mechanical engineering students from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo as they work towards completing their assigned senior design project. This team was tasked with designing and developing an onsite rapid composter for the Girl Scouts of California’s Central Coast. The selected design concept that will be explained focuses on creating a composter that is child-safe, portable, weatherproof, solar-powered, and requires minimal manual user input. This report will not only provide a detailed description of the chosen design but will also supply an extensive design justification. This mainly …

Powder Removal System For Additive Manufacturing, Kellan Spellman, Johan Barstad, Mari Natsuhara, David Smoots

Mechanical Engineering

Metal additive manufacturing, utilized by Parker Aerospace’s Exotic Metals Forming Division, enables the fabrication of intricately designed metal parts that pose significant machining challenges. This technology uses metal powder melted by a laser or electron beam to produce parts, but excess powder often becomes trapped within internal passageways due to complex geometries. Traditional methods like compressed air, vacuum processes, and manual banging are inadequate for effective powder removal. Consequently, an innovative solution is necessary. The designed solution utilizes a pneumatic motor to vibrate the printed part to break up or remove excess powder and was tested both quantitatively and qualitatively, …

Controls And Autonomy Research Testbed (C.A.R.T.), Sydney S. Ulvick, Joseph Micheal Sleeman, Mason Snyder, Lucas Grizzle, Aidan Schwing

Mechanical Engineering

Our team, Controls and Autonomy Research Testbed (CART) team modified and built upon the work of the Battery-Powered Autonomous Cart conversiON (BACON) senior project. BACON was the project before ours, with the goal of developing an autonomous vehicle platform for use as a test platform by the Mechanical Engineering department at California Polytechnic State University (Cal Poly). The project's scope included a redesign of the braking and steering systems, a ground-up design of the e-stop and acceleration systems, and integration with an embedded controller. This project was proposed by Professor Birdsong, who desires a platform for autonomous vehicle control system …

F56: Rocket Thrust Vector Control, Ethan Douglas Anderson, Yiming Trent Jia, Sahil Sampat

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Review (FDR) report compiles relevant information regarding the Rocket Thrust Vector Control senior project as sponsored by Ethan Anderson from Cal Poly Space Systems (CPSS). Documented in this report is our progress from the months following our Critical Design Review (CDR) completion. This consists of a brief overview of the design our thrust vector control (TVC) system and its subassemblies with design changes noted, a thorough walkthrough of our procurement, manufacturing, and assembly process for creating our verification prototype (including software), a breakdown of how we verified each of our specifications through inspection and testing and the …

Cal Poly Battle Bot (F41), Jyotaaver S. Nirula, Andrew D. Peterson, Johnathan W. Waldmire, Nathaniel Ab Davis

Mechanical Engineering

This senior project endeavored to design, construct, and optimize a 120lb robot combatant tailored for the competitive arena of combat robotics. The project is a collaborative effort between mechanical, computer, and electrical engineering students at Cal Poly, combining diverse expertise to achieve a unified goal. Our competition, RoboGames, was in April of this year in Northern California.

The mechanical engineering team assumed primary responsibility for the physical components of the battle bot, focusing on three pivotal components: a robust drivetrain, armor, and a highperformance vertical spinner. These elements constitute the foundation of the battle bot's offensive and defensive capabilities, crucial …

Pismo Beach Public Market Development Proposal, William Graham Wallace

City and Regional Planning

This proposal presents a comprehensive analysis of a conceptual development project located in Pismo Beach, CA. The project aims to prepare a professional-grade document to simulate real-world development processes, enhancing knowledge and experience. The proposed mixed-use development includes retail, restaurant, residential, parking, and open seating spaces. From my knowledge I've gained from my education within the City and Regional Planning department, mixed-use is the future of development so I chose to do this to further my understanding of mixed-use development.

Sustaining Sustainable Farming: An Evaluation Of The Reasoned Action And Comprehensive Action Determination Frameworks For Persistence, Jet J. Tan

Master's Theses

This paper investigates the persistence of agricultural practices funded by the California Department of Food and Agriculture's Office of Environmental Farming and Innovation (CDFA OEFI). The central inquiry revolves around determining the most effective behavior model for analyzing persistence, comparing the Reasoned Action Approach (RAA), Comprehensive Action Determination Model (CADM), and CADM augmented with structural variables. The study's methodology integrates literature review, analysis of OEFI-funded practices, and statistical modeling to assess persistence levels. Contrary to existing literature, our findings reveal significantly higher levels of persistence than anticipated. Moreover, through model comparison, CADM augmented with political economic variables emerges as the …

An Investigation Into Teaching Sports Analytics, Josh Havstad

Master's Theses

Sports analytics arrived in the mainstream media through the novel and film Moneyball. However, its origins date back to operations researchers following World War II. Often considered a subdiscipline of statistics, sports analytics draws from statistics but also includes concepts from data science, communication, and marketing. As a passionate fan of sports, I have pursued statistics in my undergraduate and graduate education with the dream of working in sports for my career. However, educational opportunities in sports analytics are limited nationwide, and more specifically, there is no educational opportunity at my university, California Polytechnic State University in San Luis …

A Comparative Study Of The Npm, Pypi, Maven, And Rubygems Open-Source Communities, Saurav Gupta

Master's Theses

Open-source software (OSS) ecosystems, defined as environments composed of package managers and programming languages (e.g., NPM for JavaScript), are essential for software development and foster collaboration and innovation. Although their significance is acknowledged, understanding what makes OSS communities healthy and sustainable requires further exploration. This thesis quantitatively assesses the health of OSS projects and communities within the NPM, PyPI, Maven, and RubyGems ecosystems. We explore five research questions addressing project standards, community responsiveness, contribution distribution, contributor retention, and newcomer integration strategies. Our analysis shows varied documentation practices, insider engagement levels, and contribution patterns. Our findings highlight both strengths and different …

Filter: Framework For Integrated Legislative Transparency And Exploratory Research, Kenny Lau

Master's Theses

Digital Democracy, established at Cal Poly's Institute for Advanced Technology and Public Policy, initially provided users access to a distinctive dataset, including state legislative committee hearings, transcripts, videos, and more. However, the discontinuation of funding ended operations for the project and emphasized the need for a streamlined application independent of third-party dependencies and capable of offering real-time and organized access to the invaluable Digital Democracy dataset. We introduce FILTER, a cloud-hosted API designed for read access to the Digital Democracy dataset through twelve distinct endpoints. The system contains two databases: the Digital Democracy Database (DDDB) and the Digital Democracy Knowledge …

Generative Data Augmentation: Using Dcgan To Expand Training Datasets For Chest X-Ray Pneumonia Detection, Ryan D. Maier

Master's Theses

Recent advancements in computer vision have demonstrated remarkable success in image classification tasks, particularly when provided with an ample supply of accurately labeled images for training. These techniques have also exhibited significant potential in revolutionizing computer-aided medical diagnosis by enabling the segmentation and classification of medical images, leveraging Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) and similar models. However, the integration of such technologies into clinical practice faces notable challenges. Chief among these is the obstacle of acquiring high-quality medical imaging data for training purposes. Patient privacy concerns often hinder researchers from accessing large datasets, while less common medical conditions pose additional hurdles …

Sports Broadcasting In 2024: Analyzing The Transition From Linear To Connected Tv With An Emphasis On Sports Streaming, Noah Benjamin Holiber

Journalism

The ongoing movement away from linear television (broadcast and cable) towards connected TV (streaming services) has boosted popularity amongst streaming services greatly. Since the inception of the streaming services, sports have remained a linear TV attraction. However, the continued evolution of this transition has reached a tipping point characterized by rapidly intensifying competition between streaming platforms for sports programming. The “streaming wars'' will drive an increase in the overall value of sports media rights and fundamentally alter sports programming consumption behavior. Popular streaming services continue to bid for the rights to broadcast sports games. This paper will examine trends in …

Kcpr’S 2024 Audience Survey – Findings, Analysis, & Recommendations, Cayley A. O'Brien, Emily S. Tobiason

Journalism

This senior project explores the audience engagement strategies of KCPR 91.3 FM, the student run radio station at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and lays the groundwork for future leadership to optimize the station’s platform. The project consists of 10 weeks of audience research, conducted through a survey distributed through social media, on KCPR’s website and at a variety of events. Through a structured methodology using surveys and targeted promotions, we collected data from 83 total respondents, revealing insights into key audience demographics, preferences, and interaction patterns of both content on KCPR.org, and on-air presence both digitally and …

Smart Manufacturing For Cal Poly's Ime Curriculum, Grace L. Guarraia, Eric F. Ledesma

Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) takes pride of supporting one of the nation’s strongest undergraduate Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering programs. However, as industry evolves to accommodate advancing computing power, improved manufacturing algorithms, and improved robotics, it is imperative that Cal Poly’s curriculum evolves in parallel. Smart manufacturing is the future of the manufacturing industry, and Cal Poly is searching for the ideal method to teach and integrate Smart Manufacturing into its classes. With its upcoming switch to the semester system, coupled with its “Learn by Doing” motto, the department is at an ideal period for the …

Two-Story Dod Office Building, Jacob Ost

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

This report is a comprehensive analysis of the fire protection and life safety components for an administrative office building designed for the Department of Defense. The owner of the facility has requested that all identifying information, including name and location, not be included in this report and has since been removed from the documents.

The building was designed in 2019 and is currently under construction. The building is two stories with a total area of approximately 125,000 square feet. The building is primarily used as office space for administrative personnel and consists of open and single-user office space, conference rooms, …

Student Center Building, Mark Slonina

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

The new Student Center (SC) is planned as a 140,000 GSF four (4) story building with a basement. The program for the building includes classrooms, an auditorium, fabrication & assembly, glass blowing, student organizations that build & test vehicles, meeting rooms, demonstration kitchen, café, retail, and a lounge. An exterior courtyard is planned on Level 2 which allows for outdoor assembly spaces.

This report identifies major code requirements for means of egress, structural fire protection, fire suppression, and fire alarm systems. The report also identifies the major fuel loads in the building. A performance-based assessment is provided for roof construction …

Sim Racing Pedal Assembly, Ben Wold, Owen Clobes, Angel Perales, Mike Mcmasters

Mechanical Engineering

At an increasing rate, professional and amateur race car drivers are utilizing simulated racing as a training aid and even a substitute for real-life car racing. The team’s objective in this project was to create a sim racing pedal assembly aimed at filling this gap in the industry, aided by Justin Jang of Data Driven Racing LLC. The project resulted in a fully operational throttle and brake pedal which incorporated dual spring brake pedal resistance system and radial displacement sensor in the throttle. By collecting real race car data and selecting and testing spring setups based on this real data, …