Digital Commons Network^™

Using Ensemble Disagreement To Stabilize Conformal Prediction Under Distribution Shift, Patrick D. Murphy

Master's Theses

Semantic segmentation of eelgrass from drone imagery is crucial for coastal habitat monitoring, restoration, and management, as these habitats continue to see rapid changes due to climate change and human influence. However, the reliability of generalizing a deployed classification model relies on both high-accuracy segmentation as well as robust uncertainty quantification that holds up when conditions change over years or locations. Conformal prediction (CP) is a method that converts a classifier's output into prediction sets with a guaranteed average coverage level for in-distribution data. However, the “vanilla” conformal score can often under-cover in hard or out-of-distribution (OOD) regions under drift. …

Mechanistic Framework Of Wood Decomposition In Post-Storm Vegetative Debris Piles Using Continuous Quality Theory, Thomas T. Lee

Master's Theses

Storm events generate significant quantities of vegetative debris composed of wood, branches, twigs, and other organic materials. Efficient post-storm resource recovery and carbon accounting depend on reliable predictions of decomposition within these large, heterogeneous debris piles. While small-scale wood decay is well studied, decomposition dynamics within multi-layer debris piles remain poorly characterized, limiting municipalities' ability to estimate material longevity and resource recovery potential.

To address this gap, this study develops the WOOD_DK (Wood Organic Oxidation and DegraDation Kinetics) model, a preliminary, exploratory one-dimensional multilayer decomposition framework simulating coupled temperature, moisture, oxygen, and carbon dynamics in MATLAB. Microbial decomposition follows Continuous …

Neurosymbolic Counterpoint Generation, Paul D. Jarski

Master's Theses

Recent advancements in generative artificial intelligence have revolutionized music generation, yet research has predominantly focused on raw audio synthesis over music in symbolic form, i.e. a score. This thesis presents the first neurosymbolic model designed to generate imitative Renaissance counterpoint in symbolic (MIDI) format. By leveraging an autoregressive Transformer architecture, this research explores the capacity of deep learning models to manage independent voices and strict stylistic constraints.

We compare multiple data representation strategies with distinct tokenization methods. The proposed model incorporates a symbolic component that enforces fundamental contrapuntal rules. Additionally, this thesis contributes a preprocessed dataset of Renaissance polyphony, in …

A Simulation Framework For Edge Lane Roads And Bicycle Shared Roadways, Nick Sauciur

Master's Theses

Edge Lane Roads, also referred to as Advisory Bike Lanes, are a shared roadway treatment that designates space for cyclists while allowing flexible use of the roadway by motorists. They are commonly applied on lower speed corridors and can be used both where roadway width is limited and where agencies seek to manage vehicle speeds, clarify cyclist positioning, or improve shared roadway operations. The configuration provides visually designated space for cyclists while allowing motorists to encroach into that space when yielding to opposing traffic. Although interest in these facilities is growing in North America, quantitative tools for evaluating their operational …

Portable Ice Cube Maker, Ayden Ziegler, Emiliano Hansen, Wyatt Engdahl, Dane Hansen

Mechanical Engineering

This Final Design Report outlines the senior design project undertaken by a team of mechanical engineering students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, for the development of a portable backpacking ice cube maker. The project aims to design, build, and test a lightweight, compact device that produces ice cubes for backpackers in remote outdoor environments. The goal is to create a functional prototype that is durable, user-friendly, and suitable for backcountry use. This document details background research, project objectives, and project plan, and current design status.

Pollinators Exhibit For Paso Robles Children’S Museum, Isabelle Moll, Matthew Moore, Joseph Hovanesian, Evan Stock, Matthew Wiecking

Mechanical Engineering

This report documents the design and development of an interactive pollination exhibit created for the Paso Robles Children’s Museum as part of the Mechanical Engineering Senior Project program. The goal of the project was to design a durable, safe, and engaging educational exhibit that introduces children to the role of pollinators in local ecosystems and agriculture through hands-on play. The final design features a triple-track system with rolling bee elements and a central pollen ball pathway that demonstrates how pollinators move between flowers and return resources to the hive. The exhibit incorporates visual feedback and locally inspired design elements to …

Baja Sae Gear Testing, Selina Bayles, Lucia Giacalone, Claire Cornelsen, Sarah Talbert

Mechanical Engineering

The Baja SAE Gear Testing project outlined a test stand and procedure to update the S-N curve currently used by the Baja SAE team. Currently the Cal Poly Baja SAE geartrain team uses a S-N curve to design custom gears, but this S-N curve does not accurately reflect the gears uses and their fatigue life. This project outlines the exploration of a dyno set up to allow for future testing of different categories of short life cycle gears to collect data and generate a new S-N curve and, ultimately, update the design of the gears. This team created a dyno …

Mel’S: A Modern Soup Brand Reshaping The Industry, Melody Chaerin Braunstein

Graphic Communication

My senior project focuses on the primary stages of creating a soup brand through market/trend research and branding. During this project, I aim to better understand the process of creating a brand, and the organization needed to flow through different stages.

My project hopes to analyze the current market and determine what it takes to create a successful product that stands out. My goal is to have a cohesive vision of the brand that creates a better baseline for later steps, such as graphic and packaging design, social media, and marketing.

3d Bouldering Project, Joseph Robison

Liberal Arts and Engineering Studies

Many indoor rock climbers struggle to make the transition from indoor to outdoor bouldering due to differences in route visualization. This project applies photogrammetry to create 3D scans of outdoor holds with accurate measurements and textures to improve climber visualization. The measurements were then mapped onto a Tension Board 1 simulation. Six climbers were divided into control and simulation groups to test effectiveness. Results showed that confidence and perception of outdoor ability were increased in the simulation group. Performance outcomes were approximately equal between both groups. These findings suggest that visualization tools can enhance mental preparation for outdoor climbing.

Digital Print Ordering System For Ugs, Han Nguyen

Graphic Communication

This project redesigns the UGS digital storefront to make ordering custom prints clearer and less confusing for students. Research showed that many delays happen because users submit incorrect files, such as wrong formats, low-resolution images, or missing fonts. To address this, I created an interactive prototype that guides users step-by-step through the ordering process and includes a built-in file checklist with simple export instructions. Instead of relying on a separate PDF guide, the new system supports users directly within the workflow, helping reduce errors and making the process smoother for both customers and UGS staffs.

Regulatory Cost Of Production In Napa County Vineyards, Lynn Hamilton, Michael Mccullough

Agribusiness

Regulatory costs are an increasing concern for California growers. Recent studies in Salinas Valley lettuce and San Joaquin Valley fruit, vegetable and row crops show that regulatory costs are growing at a much faster rate than costs of production. Napa County Farm Bureau contacted Cal Poly to conduct a case study of regulations accruing to Napa Valley vineyards. We interviewed one large (1000-acre) and one small (200-acre) vineyard in 2025 and documented the costs of complying with regulations in the following categories:

• Education and Training for Regulatory Compliance
• Air Quality
• Water Quality
• Surface and Groundwater Regulations …

Retained Placenta Removal Device (Womb-A), Savannah Fujimoto, Ciana Villar, Edward Barba

Biomedical Engineering

Womb-a aims to design a safe, minimally invasive, and effective product that solves the issue of removing retained placentas after childbirth reducing the risk of infection and uterine trauma. Womb-a brings a handheld motorized device that can be used at the bedside immediately after delivery of a baby. Retained placentas happen to approximately 1-3% of deliveries [1] which elevates the likelihood of postpartum infection and hemorrhaging. Current solutions include manual removal, windmill technique, and D&C which individually have severe issues such as elevating risk of infection, inconsistent removal of adhered placenta, and surgical complications. The Womb-a aims to mitigate these …

Reimagining The Laguna Lake Driving Range, Audrey Bonifacio, Jessica Rice

City and Regional Planning

The Laguna Lake Municipal Golf Course is located in San Luis Obispo, California, and is operated by the city. Recently, the community, city staff, and the City Council have begun a conversation regarding the use of the golf course. To explore the different uses, this senior project presents four alternative developments for a selected area of the golf course. These four uses include enhancing the existing driving range, a sports facility, a children’s center, and a senior living community. To assess these alternatives, the project explores current urban planning theories, development trends, and case studies for each use. Through this …

Cathy's Trike, Jameson Stengel, Victor Robles, Asher Becker

Mechanical Engineering

Cathy Hoenig needs a better way to safely steer her trike since she recently had her arm amputated at the elbow. Right now, the standard steering setup doesn’t work for her because it’s designed for someone with two arms. The main issue is that because she can't hold the steering bar with both hands, she loses control and stability while riding, which takes away from her freedom and independence. We’re looking to design some kind of support or adaptive steering system that’ll let her feel safe and confident on her trike again. Our goal is to create a solution that …

Bonderson Workbench, Han Xu, Aidan Robleto, Sean Murphy, Victor Duran

Mechanical Engineering

This project redesigns the existing creative workbenches in Cal Poly's Bonderson High Bay to improve mobility and functionality for students and staff in the Mechanical Engineering Department.

Fsae Bespoke Brake Calipers For Hub Motor Architecture, Connor William Vaughan, Liam Upton Walsh, Bradley Brian Kern

Mechanical Engineering

Brakes are the most critical safety system on any performance vehicle, and as Cal Poly Racing transitions their Formula SAE car from a single rear motor to a four-in-wheel motor setup with regenerative braking, the team identified an opportunity to develop a bespoke brake caliper tailored to their specific needs. This document outlines the research, design, manufacturing, and validation of custom front brake calipers designed to improve upon commercial motorcycle calipers in key areas such as serviceability, mounting rigidity, thermal behavior, mass, and hub motor integration. The resulting design is a two-piece, four-piston, radially-mounted aluminum caliper featuring titanium pistons, toolless …

Semi-Automated Oxide Etch System, Chloe Dodson, Andrew Korpela, Bobby Machado, Thomas Slayton

Mechanical Engineering

This document presents the scope of work for the senior design project titled Semi-Automated Oxide Etch System. This project arose from the need to improve the current method the microfabrication laboratory at Cal Poly uses to lower 100-mm diameter silicon wafers into a hydrofluoric acid solution to remove layers of oxidation. The goal of this project is to create a system where silicon wafers can be safely loaded into a holder and lowered at reliable time and depth increments into hydrofluoric acid. In this scope of work, we will present the relevant background research we have conducted, the specific objectives …

Creation Of The 2-Way Cross Laminated Timber Subroutine For Computing Dynamic Analysis Parameters, Joseph Freitas

Architectural Engineering

This document will describe the inputs, methodology, and outputs for the CLT 2-way subroutine for cases with and without openings recently added to a proprietary structural analysis software. For the sake of simplicity, most of the discussion will be focused on cases without openings from here on out, as the verification process for a novel method for cases with openings is still in progress. The CLT 2-way module calculates multi-point resistance functions for panels without openings by automating the procedure outlined in an industry-standard structural design manual. The subroutine also finds the appropriate dynamic response factors, kinetic load multipliers, mass, …

A Reflective Case Study: Mission Plaza Enhancement Project, Emma J. Roeller, Sheridan R. Green

City and Regional Planning

This reflective case study examines the purpose and process that has guided the Mission Plaza Enhancement Project. This leads us to our research question:

How do foundational theories of behavior in public space in tandem with evolving community needs shape the motivations and process behind the Mission Plaza Enhancement Project? What lessons can be drawn from observed behavioral patterns and planner perspectives to inform future phases of the plan?

To gain a deeper understanding of what makes a public space successful and how to record and analyze behavior in a public space, we will use foundational planning literature from the …

Cvj Torque Loss Dynamometer, Malaika Sriram, Coleman Brown, Zachary Norris, Logan Mast, Chris Mattis

Mechanical Engineering

This report details the design and results of a dynamometer testing rig built to measure torque losses in constant velocity joints (CVJs) for Cal Poly Racing's Baja SAE team. The rig spins a flywheel connected to articulable CVJs up to 800 RPM using a motor, then decouples it and measures the spin-down rate from 800 to 100 RPM to calculate angular acceleration and torque loss. The data collected from this dyno will be used to inform freewheel packaging for future Baja car development.

Video Generation Techniques For Novel View Synthesis With Flow-Matching Transformers, Xiuyuan Qiu

Master's Theses

Novel view synthesis (NVS) aims to generate images of a scene from unseen camera viewpoints. Recent work, such as Stable Virtual Camera, shows that large-scale image diffusion models like Stable Diffusion can be adapted for pose-conditioned view synthesis by incorporating video-generation techniques with camera conditioning. In this thesis, we introduce MVFlow, a new NVS model that extends this approach to a different image generation architecture: a flow-matching diffusion transformer, specifically FLUX.1, which has demonstrated strong performance in image synthesis. We evaluate MVFlow under varying input view counts and pose distance settings. Our results show that this architectural transfer is feasible; …

Sustainabake, Kevin Kunta Swanson Ii

Electrical Engineering

This senior project outlines the development of an oven that utilizes renewable energy to operate safely and effectively. It aims to test building an oven using mostly basic hardware students acquired during their time at Cal Poly and provide a starting point for those interested in creating a solar-powered oven. As our society continues to innovate and increasingly relies on electricity, it is important to place more emphasis on how we can make our lives sustainable to take care of our environment without introducing excessive pollutants. Food preparation is a daily activity that typically involves significant energy consumption, making this …

A Scalable Iteration Of The Horizon Simulation Framework Using Multithreading Techniques, Jason E. Beals

Master's Theses

The Horizon Simulation Framework (HSF) occupies a unique space in the modern aerospace modeling landscape, enabling flexible, modular modeling of mission-level agent behavior through an object-oriented, hierarchical design. HSF's hallmark breadth-first search scheduling algorithm explores a "multiverse" of possible mission execution pathways, enabling exhaustive evaluation of schedule combinations against user-defined heuristics.

As aerospace systems become increasingly complex, HSF faces critical challenges in establishing verifiable, deterministic behavior. The framework's core scheduling algorithm had not undergone systematic validation, leaving questions about temporal consistency, state management correctness, and reproducibility across different program executions. Furthermore, the exponential growth of schedule combinations creates computational bottlenecks …

Tourniquet Tester, Tyler Offerman, Thuy Nguyen, Ryan Ly, Cody Hoeptner

Biomedical Engineering

The Tourniquet Tester is a device intended to be used as a standardized testing device for tourniquets. Due to the lack of a standard testing device for testing tourniquets that can produce accurate and reproducible results, it is difficult to test the efficacy of tourniquets currently being sold on the market. A standard testing device that can produce consistent and reproducible results would allow tourniquet manufacturing companies to properly test the efficacy of their product and develop proper guidelines and directions for users of the product. Medical professionals and military personnel who may use tourniquets in their line of work …

Babycheck, Ayla V. Campbell, Eleanor M. Tweedy

Biomedical Engineering

The BabyCheck project was created to design and test a device that can collect a small blood sample from the fetal scalp during labor. The goal is to reduce uncertainty when fetal heart rate tracings are unclear, especially in Category II cases where it can be difficult for clinicians to decide the safest next step. Current monitoring methods either rely on interpreting heart rate patterns or use more invasive procedures to gather biochemical information. BabyCheck was designed to provide a simpler and more controlled way to collect a small blood sample that could help guide these decisions.

The final prototype …

Jaundease Phototherapy Vest Test Plan, Sujay Panthulu, Jasdev Banwait, Gwynn Moss, Solomon M. Fernandez

Biomedical Engineering

Neonatal hyperbilirubinemia is a common condition affecting more than 60% of newborns, caused by an excess buildup of bilirubin in the blood due to the liver’s limited ability to process it efficiently [1]. The standard treatment involves hospital-based phototherapy, where infants are placed in incubators under blue light to break down bilirubin in the skin. Although effective, this approach requires infants to remain under the lights for 12–18 hours per day, often with eye protection, and separated from their parents—disrupting early bonding and potentially contributing to toxic stress that can impact neurological and emotional development [2]. While at-home phototherapy solutions …

Improving Cellular Retention And Distribution To Promote Arteriogenesis In A Mouse Model Of Chronic Arterial Occlusion, Nancy Huang

Biomedical Engineering

Peripheral Arterial Occlusive Disease (PAOD) affects millions of people in the United States, creating pain, discomfort, and limited mobility due to restricted blood flow from obstructed arteries. While current treatments include lifestyle changes and revascularization procedures, these options are often insufficient or inaccessible because of procedural pain and socioeconomic barriers. In some cases, this can lead to critical limb ischemia and amputation as a last resort. Increasing blood flow to the extremities by enhancing collateral vessel growth, a biological process called arteriogenesis, with cell-based therapies can redirect blood flow around obstructions and has potential to mitigate and treat the effects …

Iud Insertion Pain Management, Sandhya Sridhar, Olivia Armas, Lucy Campochiaro

Biomedical Engineering

This project focuses on developing an atraumatic cervical stabilization device that serves as a modern alternative to the traditional tenaculum used during IUD insertion procedures. Current devices rely on sharp metal prongs that pierce the cervix and often cause significant pain and bleeding. The goal of this project is to design a device that provides the same stability and control for clinicians while eliminating the need to puncture cervical tissue. The device is intended to be used by gynecologists, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, primary care physicians, or any medical professional performing an IUD insertion. The device is intended to be …

Cpap Belly Prevent, Alek Corpuz, Emma Hoffman, Danielle Tran

Biomedical Engineering

Neonates with low gestation periods often face complications such as respiratory distress syndrome, or RDS, which increases risk for complications such as necrotizing enterocolitis. Use of bCPAP helps facilitate regular breathing, but can also force air into the stomach and consequently cause abdominal distention. Clinicians currently use an already inserted feeding tube to vent the accumulated air, however this interrupts the feeding process.

The PreVent device was developed to allow for simultaneous feeding and venting. The dual function minimizes interruptions to NICU nurse workflow and improves capability to relieve abdominal distention before the onset of adverse complications.

Newborn Spinal Needle, Allison Inouye, Kyle Morton, Evan Russell

Biomedical Engineering

Spinal punctures, or lumbar punctures, are important diagnostic procedures used to collect cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) to diagnose issues in the central nervous system (CNS) such as meningitis. While these procedures are routinely performed on adult and neonatal patients, the current tools are not optimized for use on newborns. Existing spinal needles are often modified versions of adult devices, leading to challenges in fluid collection efficiency, user ergonomics, and patient safety when used in neonatal care.

The Newborn Spinal Needle Project aims to design and develop a spinal needle specifically optimized for neonatal anatomy and clinical workflow. The goal is to …