Digital Commons Network^™

Srs Training Facility, Brandon Romero

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

This report presents a comprehensive fire protection and life safety analysis of the Savannah River Site (SRS) Training Center. A detailed prescriptive code analysis confirmed the building's compliance with applicable standards regarding construction features, occupancy classification, and fire-rated assemblies. Fire resistance provisions are met, with key areas such as exits, stairwells, and the records storage room. The building’s layout, height, number of stories, and floor area also comply with the allowable limits established by the IBC. Fire protection systems include a proprietary fire alarm system with voice notification, extensive smoke and heat detection coverage, and a wet-pipe sprinkler system designed …

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 …

Development And Demonstration Of The Operational Sustainability Index (Opsi): A Multidimensional Metric For Building Performance Evaluation, Oluwafemi Awolesi, Margaret Reams

Faculty Publications

In promoting sustainable cities and societies, accelerating the shift from sustainable building design to sustainable building operations is essential. A persistent challenge lies in the absence of a unified, multidimensional metric that enables meaningful performance comparisons across buildings of similar types and functions, both regionally and globally. This study develops and demonstrates the operational sustainability index (OPSi)—a novel metric grounded in case study research that integrates indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and energy utility quality (EUQ). OPSi is applied to six buildings in three comparative cases: (1) LEED-certified and non-certified dormitories, (2) LEED-certified and non-certified event buildings, and (3) male- and …

Maximum-Likelihood Estimation Of Glandular Fraction For Mammography And Its Effect On Microcalcification Detection, Bryce J. Smith, Joyoni Dey, Lacey Medlock, David Solis, Krystal Kirby

Faculty Publications

Breast tissue is mainly a mixture of adipose and fibro-glandular tissue. Cancer risk and risk of undetected breast cancer increases with the amount of glandular tissue in the breast. Therefore, radiologists must report the total volume glandular fraction or a BI-RADS classification in screening and diagnostic mammography. In this work, a Maximum Likelihood algorithm accounting for count statistics and scatter is shown to estimate the pixel-wise glandular fraction from mammographic images. The pixel-wise glandular fraction provides information that helps localize dense tissue. The total volume glandular fraction can be calculated from pixel-wise glandular fraction. The algorithm was implemented for images …

High-Significance Detection Of Correlation Between The Unresolved Gamma-Ray Background And The Large-Scale Cosmic Structure, B. Thakore, M. Negro, M. Regis, S. Camera, D. Gruen, N. Fornengo, A. Roodman, A. Porredon, T. Schutt, A. Cuoco, A. Alarcon, A. Amon, K. Bechtol, M. Becker, G. Bernstein, A. Campos, A. Carnero Rosell, M. Carrasco Kind, R. Cawthon, C. Chang, R. Chen, A. Choi, J. Cordero, C. Davis, J. Derose, H. Diehl, S. Dodelson, C. Doux, A. Drlica-Wagner, K. Eckert, J. Elvin-Poole, S. Everett, A. Ferté

Faculty Publications

Our understanding of the γ-ray sky has improved dramatically in the past decade, however, the unresolved γ-ray background (UGRB) still has a potential wealth of information about the faintest γ-ray sources pervading the Universe. Statistical cross-correlations with tracers of cosmic structure can indirectly identify the populations that most characterize the γ-ray background. In this study, we analyze the angular correlation between the γ-ray background and the matter distribution in the Universe as traced by gravitational lensing, leveraging more than a decade of observations from the Fermi-Large Area Telescope (LAT) and 3 years of data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES). …

X-Ray Polarization Of The Magnetar 1e 1841−045, Rachael Stewart, George A. Younes, Alice K. Harding, Zorawar Wadiasingh, Matthew G. Baring, Michela Negro, Tod E. Strohmayer, Wynn C.G. Ho, Mason Ng, Zaven Arzoumanian, Hoa Dinh Thi, Niccolò Di Lalla, Teruaki Enoto, Keith Gendreau, Chin Ping Hu, Alex Van Kooten, Chryssa Kouveliotou, Alexander Mcewen

Faculty Publications

We report on IXPE and NuSTAR observations beginning 40 days after the 2024 outburst onset of magnetar 1E 1841−045, marking the first IXPE observation of a magnetar in an enhanced state. Our spectropolarimetric analysis indicates that both a blackbody (BB) plus double power-law (PL) and a double blackbody plus power-law spectral model fit the phase-averaged intensity data well, with a hard PL tail (Γ = 1.19 and 1.35, respectively) dominating above ≈5 keV. For the former model, we find the soft PL (the dominant component at soft energies) exhibits a polarization degree (PD) of ≈30% while the hard PL displays …

Research Newsletter Faculty Of Arts & Sciences: Issue Iv, Faculty Of Arts And Sciences

Faculty of Arts and Sciences Archives

• Research Newsletter
• RISE Programme
• Early Career Faculty Support
• Grant Writing
• Community-Based Water Management
• Climate Change Projects
• Student Internships
• AHRC Network Workshop
• Dr. Nichola Khan
• Grants Consultant
• Mishal Hammad Saeed

Irrigation Companies: Perspectives In The Great Salt Lake Basin, Bailey M. Holdaway, Courtney G. Flint

Environment and Society Student Research

In an effort to better understand the water management practices of Utah irrigation companies within the Great Salt Lake Basin, interviews and surveys were conducted with company representatives. These discussions aimed to capture insights across a variety of key topics related to water resource management. This report describes the interview and survey efforts undertaken to assess these irrigation companies. Findings from both interviews and surveys are organized by question topic and then by theme.

Understanding Perspectives On Nonstructural Strategies In Louisiana's Southwest Coastal Project, Fenstermaker, Restore The Mississippi River Delta, Uno-Chart

CHART Publications

The Southwest Coastal Louisiana Storm Risk Management and Ecosystem Restoration Project (referred to as the SW Coastal project) is a project run by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) to reduce hurricane and storm damage risk in a 4,700 square mile area located in Calcasieu, Cameron, and Vermilion Parishes. Due to the low elevation, flat terrain, and proximity to the Gulf of Mexico in these Parishes, the people, economy, environment and cultural heritage are at risk of flooding from tidal surge and waves from tropical storms. Land subsidence, combined with sea-level rise, is expected to increase the potential for …

Assessing Solar Photovoltaic Accessibility And Social Vulnerability In Santa Clara, Andréa Georgenes

Silicon Valley Power Sustainable Futures Program

The City of Santa Clara is expanding its solar photovoltaic (PV) infrastructure to meet ambitious climate goals, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2035 [1]. While solar energy is a clean, increasingly affordable alternative to fossil fuels, adoption remains uneven. Low-income households and communities of color continue to face barriers to access, highlighting a critical need to align clean energy goals with equity strategies.

Foreword, Mark D. Janis, Jennifer D. Oliva, Alivia D. Benedict

Indiana Law Journal

In this issue we are delighted to present papers from the symposium “Law and Technology at the Crossroads: A Centennial Summit,” held in Bloomington in November 2024. The symposium originated from the collaborative efforts of the Indiana University Maurer School of Law’s law and technology faculty and the Indiana Law Journal’s editorial board, notably 2023–2024 Editor-in-Chief John Vastag and 2024–2025 Executive Articles & Symposium Editor Paige Wynkoop. The Maurer School of Law’s Center for Intellectual Property Research provided funding, as did Indiana University through its Research Conference Grant Program. Indiana University’s Ostrom Workshop and the Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, …

Multiplicity As An Ai Governance Principle, Michal Shur-Ofry

Indiana Law Journal

As AI becomes increasingly embedded in our daily lives, this Article explores one of its critical, yet overlooked, societal implications: the propensity of large language models (LLMs) to generate mainstream, standardized content, potentially narrowing their users’ worldviews.

Taking a close look at the technological underpinnings of LLMs, the analysis suggests that—due to the combination of human judgments, training datasets, and inherent features of the underlying technological paradigm—LLMs’ outputs are likely to be geared toward the popular and to project to their users concentrated, mainstream worldviews, sidelining a broader spectrum of perspectives. This Article explores the asymmetrical power relations between LLMs …

Unpacking Open Source Bio, Jorge L. Contreras

Indiana Law Journal

For at least a quarter of a century, life science researchers around the world have undertaken initiatives loosely based on principles, goals, and institutional structures derived from the open source software (OSS) movement—approaches that I term “open source bio.” Yet open source bio lacks a clear definition and set of guiding principles. Given public calls for greater openness in life science research, it is useful to understand how open source bio projects have fared over the past quarter century: how they were structured, what they hoped to achieve, and, as social and policy experiments, whether or not they were successful. …

On Software Bugs And Legal Bugs: Product Liability In The Age Of Code, Asaf Lubin

Indiana Law Journal

Despite software’s ubiquity in modern life, its classification within product liability law remains unsettled. Is software a product, a service, a good, a component, a medium, a force, or something else altogether? Under the Restatement (Third) of Torts, a product is defined as a “tangible personal property distributed commercially for use or consumption.” But has this definition been embraced by states? And how has it been applied in the courts, since its adoption some twenty-six years ago?

Through a fifty-state survey and the canvassing of all relevant case law, this Essay reveals widespread doctrinal inconsistencies within the common law. Some …

Defragging Ownership: How Corporations Sliced, Diced, And Sold The Bundle, Joao Marinotti

Indiana Law Journal

Personal property ownership is in a precarious state, facing structural, economic, and legal assaults. As a result, the autonomy, security, and privacy that ownership once protected have been displaced by a tenuous reliance on opaque contractual arrangements and corporate goodwill. Owners no longer enjoy the unfettered right to access, use, and control their personal property. Through a range of seemingly unrelated business practices, companies have leveraged their growing power to disaggregate the property bundle into compartmentalized rights and privileges, which can then be individually licensed, leased, restricted, or even revoked. Purchases no longer mark the end of buyer-seller relationships; instead, …

Efficient Blending Of Large Language Models, Sandeep Chatterjee

Master’s Dissertations

Due to the limited capabilities of single Large Language Models (LLMs), multiple LLMs can be employed in tandem for better reliability of answers. Blending refers to combining the strengths of various LLMs to make use of their complementary capabilities for generating high-quality responses. It is a non-trivial problem, and the task becomes even more difficult when aiming for minimal latency and supervising the blending components. The standard framework, LLM- Blender, approaches this in three stages: response generation, candidate selection via ranking, and response fusion through summarization. However, this pipeline faces two critical limita- tions—high latency due to repeated ranking steps, …

Word Level Attack For Text Ranking, Tanmay Karmakar

Master’s Dissertations

Neural Ranking Models (NRMs) have become state-of-the-art in information retrieval, demonstrating remarkable effectiveness across various search and ranking tasks. However, their increasing deployment in real-world systems raises critical concerns about their robustness and susceptibility to adversarial attacks. This project investigates the fragility of modern NRMs by proposing and evaluating a document perturbation method based on targeted, single-word perturbation. Our approach strategically identifies an influential word depending on the query to be substituted or added in the document. We have done experiments on benchmark datasets to assess the impact of these minimal perturbations on ranking performance. Our findings reveal that even …