Digital Commons Network^™

Cryogenic Fuel Delivery System, Carter Josef, Reilly Humphreys, Joseph O'Connor, Nick Spreen

Mechanical Engineering

This project presents the design and validation of a cryogenic fuel delivery system aimed at enabling sustainable aviation through hydrogen fuel vaporization. Developed by a team of senior mechanical engineering students at Cal Poly and sponsored by Boeing, the system utilizes atmospheric air to vaporize liquid nitrogen, used as a stand-in for hydrogen, via forced convection heat exchangers, eliminating the need for engine-supplied heat and reducing parasitic loads. A feedback loop and turbine component are integrated to regulate pressure and recover energy, respectively. A benchtop prototype was built and tested to evaluate system performance, with results closely aligning with analytical …

Conversational Social Robot, Julianna M. Christopoulos, Mackenzie Goldman, Cece E. Hujanen, Jared Hunter

Mechanical Engineering

Background: Social robots are used in various settings to reduce burden on human workers and expand opportunities for people in need of assistance.

Challenge: Design a humanoid robot head and torso capable of holding conversations and interacting with a user using a LLM and motion. Conversations are limited to discussing Cal Poly resources and opportunities with visitors to the Bently Research Center on campus.

Scitechatorium, Olivia Lafferty, Yvonne Brien Miller, Colton Swinth, Savannah Pinheiro, Gage Heinze

Mechanical Engineering

Bellevue Santa-Fe Charter School (Bellevue) is a K6th grade public charter elementary school in Avila Beach, California. The primary focus at Bellevue is fostering unique learning experiences, empowering students through project-based learning, and engaging students in creative endeavors. Following these themes, the school has allocated space and funding for an on-campus science and technology museum known as the SciTechatorium. The museum is currently open during students’ lunch period, providing interactive displays on concepts in human biology, nature and wildlife, physics, and electronics. Bellevue’s K-6th grade science teacher, Christian Strauli, and Bellevue parent volunteers are primarily responsible for the museum’s upkeep …

Evoque Delivery System Fixture Optimization, Jack Ellis, Florence Duff, Noah Dunsmore, Timothy Hunter, Rafael Castillo

Mechanical Engineering

No abstract provided.

3d Printed Fixed Wing Aircraft Competition, Sidney E. Long, Mitchell Heise, Jack Bride, Daniel Salinas

Mechanical Engineering

Cal State LA and Arlington University, Texas are hosting the same 3D printed, fixed wing aircraft competition for 2025. Cal Poly requires a competitive plane that can adhere to each rule and be piloted remotely to achieve the longest time in the air. The plane must utilize solely 3D printing technology for the wings, body, and all other structures. The only off-the-shelf components can be the motor and electronics, as well as mechanical devices such as hinges.

Combustion Liner Optimization, William Weeks, Daniel Reed, Isaac Trull

Mechanical Engineering

Solar Turbines provides gas power generation solutions, focusing on gas turbine engines and compressors. The Gas Turbine Products Engineering (GTPE) team at Solar Turbines needs a way to efficiently and cost-effectively maintain the combustion liner of the Taurus model gas turbine at or below the cold-side temperature target. The current system involves a manufacturing process with ergonomic concerns and uncertain cooling effectiveness.

To address this, our team proposed a new combustion liner system featuring impingement cooling. We provided Solar Turbines with heat transfer models of both the existing and proposed designs, demonstrating improved cooling performance. Additionally, a prototype of the …

License To Drill, Gabrielle Noemi Orlando, Alexcias Olga Meeks, Dayana Guadalupe Gonzalez, Mark Dahmen

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of this project is to provide the student machine shops with an updated License to Drill (LTD) certification training, formally known as the Red Tag. The current training has two key components: a preliminary Canvas course and an in-person training with a safety tour, safety quiz, and a hands-on project. Currently, the hands-on project is outdated and unengaging. Thus, the primary focus is to replace it with an inspiring and memorable project, which includes written and visual instructional content on how to make it. The Canvas will thus be updated, a new instructional video will be created, and …

Pendulum Wave Generator, Abigail Jocelyn Romero, Paul Staley, Wendy Dong, Kyle Schumacher

Mechanical Engineering

The Cal Poly Mechanical Vibrations Laboratory (Vibes Lab) serves to educate and excite students about mechanical vibrations through hands-on experiments. While the lab contains several relatively complicated technical experiments, it lacks simple demonstrations with immediate visual interest to appeal to audiences with less technical backgrounds. Because of this, faculty desired a fun and interactive demonstration project that could be operated with no prior training. The project chosen for this is a Pendulum Wave Generator which is a set of multiple pendulums with differing lengths that combine to create complex and observable patterns over time. This project was completed by a …

Adaptive Riding Mount Block, Lucas R. Reynolds, Lukas M. Moreau, Patrick J. Michael, Jandre D. Lafradez

Mechanical Engineering

Professor Sarah Stewart from the Animal Science Department at Cal Poly seeks to develop a solution to help people with disabilities mount horses. Users need a mounting block that can bring them closer to the horse’s back to ease mounting. The current system, consisting of two plastic two-step blocks, is inadequate—unstable, too small, and inaccessible for wheelchair users.

The required solution must meet several key specifications: it should accommodate at least three people standing side by side, be sturdy enough to support their combined weight, and remain stable on rugged terrain like gravel or sand without tilting or sinking. Additionally, …

Lidss Raft Battery Pack Integration, Jack Maxwell, Vincent Stevens, Matthew Hoodmaker, Colin Flanders

Mechanical Engineering

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is a critical member of the United States Department of Defense. Their Independent Diagnostics Scoring System (LIDSS) uses rafts that operate in the ocean to collect missile test data. Several times a year, the United States will test their Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles by launching them into the ocean near the Marshall Islands. This is where the LIDSS rafts collect their test data. Our project was centered around re-designing the battery pack used by the rafts. The current battery pack design experiences water ingress problems and is difficult to access. Our re-designed battery pack is waterproof to …

A Digital Dive: Redesigning The Cabrillo High School Aquarium Website, Jacob V. Cacho

Graphic Communication

Tucked away on the Central Coast in Lompoc, you’ll find the Cabrillo High School (CHS) Aquarium. Started in 1986, the CHS Aquarium is the only high school aquarium of its kind in the nation run entirely by high school students. This 10,000+ square foot aquarium serves an underserved community at a Title I school, where students manage all aspects of animal care, nutrition, breeding, educational curriculum development, and visitor tours.

This program is truly one-of-a-kind and deserves the spotlight for just how unique it is. As a CHS graduate, I felt the current website lacked in many areas and could …

Ray Collection: Forging A New Fashion Genre, Olivia R. Cooper

Graphic Communication

This senior project addresses a gap in the fashion industry by creating a new genre through a unique collection and comprehensive branding. The "RAY" collection draws inspiration from the designer's artistic roots and is a deeply personal homage to influential female artists like Frida Kahlo, Louise Bourgeois, and Leonora Carrington, whose works have inspired the designer's creative journey. Each piece in the collection draws direct inspiration from these artists, reflecting the creator's vision and self-expression, a key element of the streetwear genre incorporated into the designs.

The project also heavily emphasizes fashion branding, encompassing a logo, brand identity, social and …

Project Cheetah: Narrative Website Design For The Cheetah, A Record-Breaking Human-Powered Vehicle, Natalie Olivia Garbarino

Graphic Communication

The Cheetah is a 1992 world speed record-breaking bike designed and built by three mechanical engineering graduates from UC Berkeley: Jon Garbarino, James Osborn, and Kevin Frantz. After years on display at the Tech Interactive in San Jose, the bike is returning home to Berkeley’s engineering school for public display. In accompaniment of the exhibit, the Cheetah engineering team requested printed signage with a QR access to a comprehensive website detailing the Cheetah narrative. There is an abundance of media from the engineering process — extensive photographic documentation, substantial archival documents, reputable external media coverage, and an in-progress docuseries — …

Downtown L.A. To Glendale Light Rail Line Project Study, Alaina Michelle Ortiz

City and Regional Planning

Los Angeles is undergoing a transit revival driven by persistent traffic congestion, a growing population, and an evolving mindset that increasingly favors public transportation.

As Los Angeles prepares for the future, it finds valuable lessons in its past. This light rail proposal draws inspiration from the extensive Pacific Electric Railway system that once formed the backbone of L.A. County’s transit network. Specifically, this study reimagines segments of the historic Glendale-Burbank Line, Echo Park Local Line, and San Fernando Valley Line. These routes once covered key corridors such as Sunset Boulevard and Brand Boulevard, but today, they are underserved by rail …

Eeri 2024: Seattle Solstice, Elizabeth P. Splees

Architectural Engineering

This senior project documents the design, analysis, construction, and testing of Seattle Solstice, Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s entry to the 2024 EERI Seismic Design Competition. Developed through ARCE 453, the interdisciplinary effort involved architectural, structural, and geotechnical coordination in response to a fictional client brief set in downtown Seattle. The team designed a five-foot-tall balsa wood tower with a shifting vertical massing, integrating sustainability features and public use spaces while addressing seismic challenges such as center of mass vs. rigidity alignment, overturning risk, and off-grid load paths. The structure was modeled using ETABS and evaluated using both numerical …

Prepare Lora Physical Layer For Testing In Low Earth Orbit On A Cubesat, Sammy Brunton

Electrical Engineering

This project is a collaboration with OWL Integrations, a company that specializes in adaptable, low-cost communication systems. OWL has developed a board specifically designed for space applications called the Space Quacker Advanced Development (SQuAD), which is an adaptation of their existing board called the Quaker Advanced Development (QUAD).

This project focuses on testing the existing SQuAD board design to make sure that it is flight-ready for deployment on Cal Poly CubeSat’s satellite, SAL-E. To achieve this, the project must ensure compatibility with Low Earth Orbit (LEO) conditions by testing the integrated high-power long-range (LoRa) receiver and enhanced hardware to meet …

2024 – 2025 Cal Poly Wind Power Ac-Dc Rectification Subsystem For Collegiate Wind Competition 2025, Ryan Rayos, Annabella Piercey, Alex Liu

Electrical Engineering

This project focuses on the design and development of a bidirectional AC-DC rectification subsystem for a wind energy conversion system (WECS), tailored for the 2025 Collegiate Wind Competition. The subsystem is defined by its core inputs and outputs where it receives AC power from the wind turbine generator and delivers stable DC power to auxiliary electronics and variable loads. Conversely, the system can also accept DC power, such as from wall power, and output AC power to drive the permanent magnet synchronous machine (PMSM) as a motor, overcoming cogging torque and initiating turbine blade rotation. This bidirectional functionality is enabled …

Expeditionary Ocean Power Generator, Ethan Gossard, Julian Steele, Alex Gray, Hunter Herring-Alderete

Electrical Engineering

Point Absorber Wave Energy Converters are currently being explored as a new form of energy harvesting. The Naval Facilities' Expeditionary Ocean Warfare Center (NAVFAC EXWC) has commissioned an interdisciplinary project for students at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, to design a prototype Expeditionary Ocean Power Generator (ExOPG) for charging batteries in the ocean.

The Mechanical Engineering team is responsible for assembling the prototype chassis, which converts the vertical bobbing motion of a buoy into kinetic rotational energy that can be used to rotate a generator shaft. They are additionally tasked with isolating the electrical components from the harsh …

Aurela App Mockup – Discreet Drug Detection Wearable, Piper Ferch

Graphic Communication

Aurela is a discreet drug detection technology jewelry brand, and the wearable will connect to the app to tell users if their drink is safe when they test it with the jewelry. Drug-facilitated sexual assault is a deep rooted societal issue, and Aurela works to empower customer’s control of their safety. The brand was created by my beach volleyball teammate Addie Bounds, and my project aims to show how the app would provide fast, accessible information to users, in an easy-to-read and streamlined format. It will include a map feature, that displays ratings of local businesses, likely bars, given by …

New Tsg Processes: Improving Workflow Efficiency Through Desktop Ux/Ui Design, Evelyn Guzman Ramos

Graphic Communication

This senior project is focused on improving the equipment handling processes for the Technical Service Group (TSG) in the Electrical Engineering Department at Cal Poly through the design and development of a user-friendly desktop application. The goal is to create an intuitive and efficient interface tailored to the needs of student staff and faculty, reducing the time and complexity associated with current manual and outdated systems. The design will prioritize usability, accessibility, and task efficiency, key pillars in User Experience (UX) and User Interface (UI) design for desktop environments (Nielsen & Budiu, 2012). This user-centered approach emphasizes desktop-specific interaction patterns …

Quantifying Harmful Trunk Postures: Inertial Sensor Analysis Of Trunk Angle To Support Low Back Pain Prevention, Elsa E. Bates

Master's Theses

Low back pain is a highly prevalent condition worldwide, impacting up to 80% of individuals at least once in their lifetime. A critical gap in current prevention strategies is the lack of tools to accurately measure trunk posture and movement in real-world environments. Accurate identification of biomechanical risk requires information about movement intensity, duration, and frequency, yet traditional assessment methods rely on self-reporting or visual observation, which are time-consuming and prone to error. To address this gap, a wearable monitoring method, consisting of two Inertial Measurement Units, was designed to quantify risk exposure to the spine by measuring angular position …

Electroporation Protocol Development For Cal Poly Cell Therapy Laboratory Courses, Gabrielle Melamed

Biomedical Engineering

Cancer is a heterogeneous disease caused by unchecked cell proliferation. The disease contributed to 9.7 million deaths worldwide in 2022, with hematological malignancies (leukemias, lymphomas, and myelomas) accounting for over 1.4 million deaths in the United States from 1999 to 2020. This thesis focuses on the treatment of these cancers, with an emphasis on non-Hodgkin lymphomas (NHLs). R-CHOP (Rituximab-Cyclophosphamide, Doxorubicin hydrochloride, Oncovin/Vincristine, and Prednisone) is the standard of care first-line treatment for diffuse large B-cell lymphoma (DLBCL), the most common subtype of NHL, and encompasses a mixture of chemotherapy, immunotherapy, and corticosteroids. The R-CHOP regimen cures 50% to 70% patients, …

Biofeedback For Upper Limb Bionics, Arissa Anaya, Adam Moger, Connor Bly, Theodore R. Hughes

Biomedical Engineering

The purpose of this document was to present a senior design project from Cal Poly sponsored by Matt Robinson at the Hanger Clinic in San Luis Obispo to provide biofeedback for users of upper limb protheses. This project focuses on individuals with trans-radial upper limb amputations, including patients with congenital limb deficiencies who use trans-radial prosthesis, who receive very little or no sensory feedback from their prosthetic device. This sensory feedback device was intended to be used as a training tool with a myo-electric hand-like upper limb prosthesis in a clinical setting. This document provides an overview of the different …

Simulated Live Studio Audience, Theodore David Shellenberger

Computer Engineering

The Simulated Live Studio Audience is a Python based application that utilizes Vosk, Roboflow, and Llama 3.2 to provide a user with auditory feedback based upon both visual and audible input from their device's microphone and camera. This system functions with a custom trained computer vision model to detect a specified object and when individuals walk in and out of the camera frame, outputting sitcom style simulated crowd reaction sounds accordingly. The simulated studio audience program also takes in vocal input from users, converts it to text, and, using a large language model, analyzes it for content that can be …

High-Frequency Current And Voltage Sensing Buck Converter Compatible With Model Predictive Control, Cathy G. Chen, Lani K. Nguyen

Electrical Engineering

This paper presents the design and implementation of a high-frequency buck converter operating at 1 MHz, integrated with voltage and current sensing capabilities for enhanced output regulation. The primary objective is to minimize transient dips in output voltage commonly observed during load disturbances or switching events. The converter design is intended to be compatible with a Digitally Assisted Analog Computing Circuit (DAACC) for real-time model predictive control (MPC), which leverages fast analog elements with programmable digital components to solve a penalty-based reformulation of the quadratic optimization problem underlying conventional MPC.

Single-Sided Hearing Assistance Application, Harryson Nguyen, Jp Haratani

Electrical Engineering

The product is a hearing assistance smartphone application which aims to improve the quality of life of people with single-sided hearing loss/deafness by providing them with a cheaper and more reliable alternative to medically-prescribed hearing aids. Due to development setbacks, the product instead uses open-ear earbuds. Since the earbuds are not directly inserted into the user’s ear canals, they will not obstruct the hearing of the user’s non-deaf ear, and the user will still be able to hear the sounds that come from their non-deaf side. Some users may find that Bluetooth earbuds can be quite expensive, but are ultimately …

Wireless Communication In Autonomous Vehicles, Ethan Paul Spalard, Alan Rubalcava, Jarnail Singh Sanghera

Electrical Engineering

This project focuses on building a realistic, standards based V2X communication platform using DSRC (IEEE 802.11p) to support future autonomous vehicle control research. The system is built around commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) hardware, specifically the NXP i.MX 8XLite – V2X Evaluation Kit, which integrates an automotive-grade processor and the SAF5400 V2X modem to handle low-level DSRC transmission in the 5.9 GHz band.

We successfully completed the hardware bring-up, verified over-the-air communication between two nodes, and performed initial RF characterization using a spectrum analyzer. The SAF5400 was confirmed to operate on all seven DSRC channels (172–184), maintaining the correct 10 MHz bandwidth …

Piezoelectric Actuator Driver System, Daniel Hoefer

Electrical Engineering

This work presents the design, fabrication, and testing of a high-voltage piezoelectric actuator driver system purposed for integration into defense and aerospace precision motion control applications, particularly those in laser optics. The core challenge addressed was the mismatch between the standardized 28V DC power bus used in military systems and the significantly higher voltage requirements of piezoelectric actuators. Existing commercial drivers were evaluated and found unsuitable for field deployment due to inadequate ruggedness, excessive complexity, or power limitations. Consequently, a modular system architecture was designed featuring four independent driver channels, each using a high-voltage, high-current linear amplifier topology to scale …

Direction Finding From Aerial Platforms With Amateur Radio Arrays, Ben Duval Iii, Esteban Perez

Electrical Engineering

This senior project presents the development of a communication network designed to remotely control and program a distributed digital antenna array for autonomous synchronization and calibration. The system facilitates command transmission using a custom BPSK communication protocol operating in the UHF band (430–450 MHz) and employs a two-tone waveform to extract frequency, phase, and timing offsets between array nodes. These offsets are critical for aligning received signals in preparation for digital beamforming. The array comprises four nodes: three aerial units and one ground-based control unit. Each node is built using a LimeSDR Mini 2.0, Raspberry Pi, portable battery pack, and …

Mesh-Networked Uav Swarm: Experimental Leader-Follower Formation Control, Toma Grundler, Jack Ryan

Electrical Engineering

In recent years, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have demonstrated significant potential for multi-agent coordination applications, yet reliable formation control algorithms remain challenging to implement in real-world environments. This report presents the design, simulation, and hardware implementation of four leader-follower formation control strategies for UAV swarms. The implemented algorithms include a semi-rigid PI controller based on forward and lateral distance error, a hybrid PID controller utilizing mixed error signals with velocity and position feedback, a simplified velocity-based PID controller operating on individual coordinate components, and a GPS offset controller with direct positional control. MATLAB simulation validated controller performance in four different …