Digital Commons Network^™

Aged 539 Internship Report, Kenny C. Saephan

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 Escalon High School 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 Escalon High School, the agriculture program and the community.

Aged 539, Christopher Golden

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 Bakersfield High School 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 Bakersfield High School, the agriculture program and the community.

Multiple Object Tracking For Marine Science, Nicholas A. Wachter

Computer Science and Software Engineering

As drone and computer vision technology has been improving, many fields of study have been quick to utilize it to improve the accuracy and ease of data collection. The combination of the two technologies is perfect for surveying large areas and identifying features of interest. Marine science utilizes these technologies for activities such as animal tracking and population counting. I am working with the Drones for Marine Science research group at Cal Poly who want to build a fleet of drones that will fly out over the ocean to identify and track various marine animals. My role will be to …

Introducing Students To Computer Science: Using Python To Build A Basic Quiz Game, Alex Diosdado

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This outreach program activity was designed to increase interest in the field of Computer Science within students in middle and high school. It focuses on some of the basic concepts of programming, like Strings, Integers and printing to the screen as it was designed to be an introduction for those students who had little to no previous programming history. This activity was tested with a smaller group of high school Algebra 1 students, most of whom did not have any prior programming knowledge. It ultimately fulfilled its goal as a survey that was conducted at the end of the activity …

Solid Thermal Storage As An Energy Storage Device In Insulated Solar Electric Cookers: Thermal Modeling And Experiment, Michael Antonio Fernandez

Physics

The use of solid thermal storage (STS) as an energy storage device in insulated solar electric cookers (ISEC) was explored using a thermal simulation before retrofitting an existing cooker without energy storage and testing it under several conditions. STS sizing, material selection, and geometry were examined from both theoretical and practical perspectives and re-examined following experimental results. Characterization of the system’s thermal interfaces and methods to improve their thermal conductivities were investigated resulting in several performance enhancements to the system.

Developing A New Gamma Ray Selection Criteria Based On Χ2 For Veritas, Brett W. Dinsmore

Physics

This paper investigates selection criteria for enhancing gamma-ray signal events relative to cosmic-ray background events used in the identification of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) by the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System, or VERITAS. We tested a new selection criteria based on the reduced chiSquare metric in hopes of reducing background events while increasing signal. The results of the study proved that the new metric was not as strong as previous selection criteria already in use by VERITAS. Throughout the study, we gained important insights into the reduced chiSquare metric that will guide further analysis efforts.

Barrier Knockdown Test Control System For The Cal Poly Kinesiology Department, Regina M. Chapuis

Computer Engineering

The goal of this project is to design and implement a new control system for the LEDs and buttons on an existing Barrier Knockdown setup in the Cal Poly Kinesiology department. The Barrier Knockdown test is a testing apparatus in which subjects knock down a series of mechanical barriers in one of three patterns. The computer system times their reaction and movement time, and the test as a whole provides students with data to study the phenomenon of Contextual Interference. This system was previously controlled by an old computer setup that ultimately crashed. This project recreates the logic and user …

The Poly Rover Project, Eric Lei, Alla Alamsi, Neil Patel, Diego Ramos

Computer Engineering

The Polyver Project is an idea born from the curiosity of a few students who wondered what the interaction between a physical person and a rover as the host of random internet users would look like. It is also an experiment to enhance the exploration of real world sites in real time while also having the power of interaction.

The goal of the Polyver Project is to build the foundation for a system that can serve as the interface between the internet and a fleet of rovers. Each rover is equipped with at least a camera, microphone, and a speaker …

Controlling Temperature Of Dc-Dc Converter Using Switching Frequency Adjustment, Sajjad Ahsan, Arsalan Mughal, Mark Rapiz

Electrical Engineering

As DC-DC converter operates under different load conditions, the amount of loss within the converter varies accordingly. Consequently the temperature of the DC-DC converter will also change based on the load demand. For PWM based DC-DC converters, one factor that contributes to the loss; thus, the increase in temperature is the switching frequency at which the converter operates. The higher the switching frequency used, the bigger the switching loss and in turn the hotter the converter. In this project, the temperature of a DC-DC converter is controlled by changing the switching frequency used by the converter. The hardware investigation used …

Hybrid Ac/Dc Light Bulb, Celina Mendez, Kristian Vincent Cruz, Nouman Baryal

Electrical Engineering

A hybrid AC/DC house aims to maximize the use of AC electricity from the utility grid and DC electricity from renewable energy sources such as roof-top solar panels. The hybrid system will therefore improve the reliability of the electrical by enabling power to be delivered to the loads even when one of the sources is not operational. One of the critical loads that every house needs is lighting. The hybrid AC/DC system should therefore be reliably facilitating the power delivery to the lighting. In this project, a localized hybrid AC/DC for LED light bulbs is designed and constructed. The hybrid …

Smartphone Control Of Rc Cars, Weston R. Fitzgerald

Electrical Engineering

The smartphone-controlled RC (remote-controlled) car is an inexpensive remote-controlled car designed to be fast and portable. Instead of manufacturing, packaging, and shipping a separate controller, the remote control is implemented in a phone application, which saves time and money in both the design process and the manufacturing process. Utilizing the user’s smartphone is more cost-effective since mobile devices are a common recurrence, and packaging fewer devices results in overall better portability of the product.

This smartphone-controlled car is speedy and intuitive to learn for typical smartphone users. The user can change the car’s speed and direction wirelessly using their phone; …

Hybrid Ac/Dc House: The Road To A Sustainable Future, Nicholas Mcadams, Luis Rodriguez

Electrical Engineering

The Hybrid AC/DC house is a sustainable alternative to preexisting residential power systems. The implementation of a DC bus in current homes will allow inefficient DC-AC and AC-DC conversions to be circumvented. This provides a direct path for current to flow to DC loads from DC sources such as solar panels to minimize power losses. In doing so, this will give users the ability to power their homes strictly from renewable sources and substantially decrease reliance on the utility. For this purpose, the hybrid AC/DC house is also designed in such a way to be entirely grid-independent to provide power …

Behind The Ear (Bte) Hearing Aid, Marco Gaitan, Jaclyn Kimoto, Lawrence Lai, Billy Pho

Electrical Engineering

The product is a Behind The Ear (BTE) hearing aid with the capability to improve the quality of life for people with mild to severe hearing loss and caters to a different consumer through bold exterior design to increase awareness of deafness and normalize hearing loss. In comparison to In The Ear (ITE) and In The Canal (ITC) hearing aids, the BTE hearing aid provides the best amplification while retaining an affordable price. Sound amplification depends on two or more directional microphones embedded in the product to give users the ability to discern the direction of incoming sound easily in …

Microgrid Energy Storage Branch, Evan Luu, Jeffrey Shieh

Electrical Engineering

The microgrid is the future for the electrical utility system. Because of this, future power engineers need to be well-versed in this topic when they go into industry. Cal Poly has created a microgrid laboratory for this very purpose. However, it is missing its battery based energy storage branch. Due to safety concerns, a traditional chemical battery is not suitable for student use. In order to maintain Cal Poly’s learn-by-doing approach, an alternative solution must be implemented. A regenerative power supply meets the criteria for student use. It is capable of simulating the sinking and sourcing capabilities of a battery …

Multi-Effect Guitar Pedal, Ryan K. Madden

Electrical Engineering

This product is a multi-effect pedal to be used with an electric guitar. This unit can distort and overdrive the weak signal from a guitar as well as add chorus, phaser, and compressor effects to the signal. Additionally, the user can choose different serial combinations of the effects, allowing full creativity and experimentation with a multitude of signal chain options. This product, having many different effects, saves space than if the effects were all individual devices. To interact with the product, there is a user interface with buttons, LEDs, and an OLED screen to allow the user to customize the …

Carrier Card For Nvidia Jetson Agx Xavier, Kyle Chang

Electrical Engineering

This project prototypes and implements custom carrier cards for interfacing with the Nvidia Jetson AGX Javier within the Zendar Processing Unit (ZPU). The Jetson module is an AI computer used as a computing system for autonomous machines, including robots, drones, and self-driving cars. The carrier card functions as an I/O interface with the Jetson module, and it is designed for and sponsored by Zendar, a start-up designing high-resolution radar imaging systems. The purpose of the carrier card is to function as a collection of multiple I/O interfaces, including HDMI, USB, and PCIE, for users to control the Jetson, to input …

A City Planning Card Game, Francisco Alfarozierten

City and Regional Planning

This senior project aimed to create a card game based on the concept and professional practice of city & regional planning. It consists of 103 unique cards, being separated in the following manner:

• 1 City Center card
• 6 Unique Zoning cards
• 74 unique Development cards
• 22 unique Action cards

Moon Rocker: Eva Sample Bag And Dispenser, Birk D. Smith, Albert J. Kasinski, Christian Clephan

Mechanical Engineering

NASA’s next mission to the moon (Artemis) requires a device to dispense bags for holding and collecting rock samples on the lunar surface. The device must be lightweight, easy to use with an astronaut suit, and capable of withstanding the moon’s harsh environment. Our team has designed and revised several prototype dispensers to accomplish this challenge. Through testing and observations made while building our structural prototype, changes were made to build a more durable and usable dispenser. This led to our verification prototype, which was constructed with a carbon fiber frame and aluminum, or 3D printed smaller components. After manufacturing …

Sunsation’S Solar Powered Picnic Table, Michelle M. Barnett, Christopher Barber, Casey Durham, David Mason

Mechanical Engineering

Team SunSation is an interdisciplinary senior design project group that was tasked with developing a semi-permanent seating area for Cal Poly's electrical engineering courtyard. The EE courtyard is populated with plastic folding tables and chairs that are slowly falling apart. Dale Dolan, the head of the EE department, requested that a table design be developed that incorporates the use of solar panels. The addition of the solar panels to the table would help promote clean renewable energy as well as provide shade to those sitting in the courtyard.

The solution that SunSation arrived at is broken up into mechanical/structural, electrical, …

8 Dof Quadrupedal Hopping Robot, Clayton T. Elwell, John Bennett, Tyler Mccue, Daniel Munic

Mechanical Engineering

The goal of our senior project was to fabricate an eight degree of freedom (DOF) prototypical quadrupedal robot, develop a controller than commands the quadruped to repeatedly jump 10 cm in the air, and fabricate a modular test stand to safely deploy our controller on the quadruped. The creation of a functional quadruped will bring attention to Dr. Siyuan Xing and Charlie Refvem’s research group, Cal Poly Legged Robots, and will give future Cal Poly undergraduate and graduate students a learning tool to explore dynamic control of biomimetic robotic systems.

Over the course of our senior project, we successfully manufactured …

Physics In The Garden 2.0, Zachary Colwell, Maddy Rossitto, Sean Porter

Mechanical Engineering

The following series of documents illustrate the design processes performed by a senior project team of three students in the mechanical engineering program at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. The designs produced and discussed in this report were created for sponsors from the San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden (SLOBG), Eve Vigil and Michael Kahl. The project focuses on the redesign, production process, and implementation of two successful, functional interactive physics exhibits: a gearbox and an air cannon. We found that the previous exhibits were salvageable and demonstrated design features we wanted to improve upon. To focus on …

Coil Quick (Rv Sewer Hose Compressor) Device, Arturo Guijosa-Ruiz, David M. Bourgoin

Mechanical Engineering

The purpose of this design project is to design, build, and test an RV sewer hose compactor device that can be used by the project sponsor and marketed to other RV owners. The goal of the RV sewer hose compactor device is to mechanically compress an RV sewer hose from its fully extended length to its fully compressed and storable state. Since a prototype device has already been developed, this project will aim to improve the prototype design to make it smaller, quicker, quieter, and more durable. Additionally, we improved the device to make it more user friendly and have …

Dual-Axis Precision Imager, Gary Huarng

Computer Engineering

The Dual-Axis Precision Imager (DAPI) is a drawing robot that processes images and draws them on a whiteboard. The system has two modes: a Sobel filter mode that finds the edges of the input image with a Sobel filter, and a tri-tone grayscale mode that approximates the shading of the input image with the colors white, gray, and black. The DAPI consists of an Arduino-controlled XY gantry system with a pen mounted on the gantry head, and a Processing IDE program that processes the original image, converts the processed image into gantry instructions, and sends them to the Arduino for …

Crissy Field Improvement Project, Giselle Huan Beld

City and Regional Planning

This senior project report is an exploratory analysis of the National Park Service’s passively-managed lands at Crissy Field.

There are always multiple alternatives to a new development project and the priorities established at the beginning of a process can have a major impact on the final outcomes. This senior project report investigates implications of reconnecting the city with the northern waterfront and investigates key recommendations related to transportation, environmental, and historic planning.

North Hollywood To Burbank Airport Red Line Extension, Benjamin Lieber, Matthew Hu, Michael Lo

City and Regional Planning

The North Hollywood-Burbank Airport Red Line Extension is a proposal that plans to connect the Red Line from the North Hollywood Station to the Hollywood Burbank Airport. The main focus of the extension is to reduce traffic by allowing a direct Metro rail to the airport. Extending the line will help commuters traveling between Los Angeles to San Fernando Valley and new arrivals at the Hollywood Burbank Airport. In the proposal, commuters will have a direct connection to Amtrak’s Pacific Surfliner and Coast Starlight without having to travel down to Union Station. New arrivals will also have access to cities …

The Mustang Bridge, Dominic Loreto, Jacob Bulotti

City and Regional Planning

The purpose of this project is to develop a pedestrian overpass in San Luis Obispo, California at the entry of the city that will successfully provide crossing and safety on Boysen Ave. and Santa Rosa Street connecting Mustang village to university square. The current circulation routes have a significant impact on a community’s pedestrians, cyclists, and automobile drivers. Safety becomes a growing concern when the streets are illegally crossed in unsafe sections, putting everybody at risk. The planned environment will be revised and accurately assessed to provide safety, flexibility, and proper use of the circulation route in place. The community’s …

The Tragedy Of The Commons: A Podcast Exploring Solutions To The Housing Crisis In California, Delaney Li-Ming Faherty

City and Regional Planning

Affordable housing has become increasingly inaccessible across the United States, particularly in California. Because of its long history and far-reaching span, California’s housing crisis is a complexity that affects individuals at most income levels. Accordingly, opinions on solving the crisis vary among each public.

A popular solution is increasing the amount and scale of housing, however, barriers, such as single-family zoning, exist at the state and local level. While statewide legislation is working to counteract municipal zoning codes, local opposition is rampant. Because of this pushback, and the slow pace at which housing reliant on individual action is built, today’s …

Transportation In Us National Parks: Case Studies And Recommendations, Abraham Lamontagne

City and Regional Planning

This report examines several parks’ transportation systems internally as well as their connections to gateway towns and nearby major cities. From this, I outline what successful parks do and what goals other parks should try to meet to make their transportation systems shine.

Efficacy Of Chemical And Biological Stump Treatments For The Control Of Heterobasidion Occidentale Infection Of California Abies Concolor, Adrian Luis Poloni

Master's Theses

We conducted an experimental evaluation of treatments to limit Heterobasidion occidentale infection of white fir (Abies concolor) stumps and wounds in California mixed conifer forests. We tested the efficacy of urea, borate, and a mixture of two locally collected Phlebiopsis gigantea strains in preventing pathogen colonization of fir stumps and separately, urea and borate as infection controls on experimental stem wounds. These were paired with a laboratory test on ~100 g wood blocks with and without a one-week delay between inoculation and treatment. Urea, borates, and Phlebiopsis treatments all significantly reduced the stump surface area that was colonized …

Comparing Learned Representations Between Unpruned And Pruned Deep Convolutional Neural Networks, Parker Mitchell

Master's Theses

While deep neural networks have shown impressive performance in computer vision tasks, natural language processing, and other domains, the sizes and inference times of these models can often prevent them from being used on resource-constrained systems. Furthermore, as these networks grow larger in size and complexity, it can become even harder to understand the learned representations of the input data that these networks form through training. These issues of growing network size, increasing complexity and runtime, and ambiguity in the understanding of internal representations serve as guiding points for this work.

In this thesis, we create a neural network that …