Engineering Commons^™

Skip The Grid: Solar Powered Systems In The Navajo Nation, Julian A. Chavez

Construction Management

The Skip the Grid initiative, a collaboration between Cal Poly students, SOLV Energy, Goal Zero, and facilitated by the non-profit Heart of America, aimed to enhance the quality of life for Navajo Nation families. Facing disparities in access to electricity and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the project installed photovoltaic energy systems with lights in 27 homes, benefiting students of the Red Mesa Unified School District. This initiative addressed the challenges of remote learning by providing reliable, no-cost, off-grid power solutions. Completed on March 30, 2023, the project not only improved the immediate circumstances in the Navajo Nation, but also …

Skip The Grid: Providing Power And Light To The Navajo Nation, Esai Contreras

Construction Management

Skip the Grid was created as an initiative to power communities that are in need. This project was made possible through a collaborative effort from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) students, industry partners SOLV Energy and Goal Zero, and facilitated through the educational non-profit organization Heart of America (HOA). The goal of this project was to help families of school age children in the Navajo Nation by providing solar energy systems including a battery and lighting. We hoped to achieve a long-lasting effect on the families by installing necessities for families with school-aged children. For the …

Garden Improvements For "The Ranch", Ayden J. Cole

Construction Management

The Ranch spans over ten-and-a-half acres and provides employment opportunities for individuals with disabilities. The core focus of The Ranch is cultivating small crops and raising livestock, which are tended to and harvested by individuals with disabilities. The ultimate aim is to provide them with hands-on experience of working on a farm and how to take care of livestock and grow food. However, the existing property of The Ranch was not exactly what they wanted for their students' learning environment. The existing area where the crops were being grown was not fenced in so critters were getting into the garden …

The Perceptions And Effects Of Nutrition On Worker Health And Productivity In Construction, Matthew Scott Howell

Construction Management

Construction workers often have poor dietary habits due to poor nutrition education, lack of nutritious food options, and social stigma. These habits often lead to health problems like obesity, diabetes, and heart disease which can decrease productivity and put workers at risk of on-site injury. This preliminary study examines how nutrition impacts worker safety and productivity. A survey was distributed to six students involved in construction work for Cal Poly’s Residential Construction course. This survey identified their eating habits and inhibitors for healthy eating. Two meals, one with high nutritional value and one with low nutritional value, were given to …

New Bike Path On Highland Drive, Christian T. Pedersen

Construction Management

The purpose of the following paper is to provide a breakdown of the preconstruction and construction processes for a new bike path to be built on Highland Drive. Studies about the selected construction method and materials needed to complete the project are included. Soil-cement will be at the forefront as it offers the cheapest and most efficient way for the proposed new path to be constructed. The explanation for why soil-cement was chosen along with the various other ways in which it can be used are included. One concern the paper will address is the fact that the current bike …

Feasibility Of Funding Construction-Related Projects With Cryptocurrencies, Farbod Pourdehmobed

Construction Management

The current method of acquiring funds for construction projects consists of loans and/or a board of investors. With the emergence of the cryptocurrency industry in the past five to ten years, an influx of cash has been inserted into the market and is simply being held captive by government regulations. With development and construction being an attractive investment for most anyone, these "crypto billionaires" are insistent on financing possible projects. The issue lies within the construction industry and the possibly outdated financial system and whether it is capable of adhering to certain requirements that come with the usage of crypto …

Parental And Family Leave In The California Construction Industry, Hailee Malins

Construction Management

Struggles between work life balance often result in lower levels of job and life satisfaction, and higher rates of inefficiency and employee turnover, with varying impact on employees based on seniority, gender and parenthood. Policies such as paid parental leave have shown positive effects on work life balance, but there is a lack of information on leave policies within the American construction industry. Focusing on California, this research aimed to determine employee's understanding, use and acceptance of these leave policies. Using a survey, we gain a better understanding of these goals. Rates of confidence in knowledge of paternal and family …

Building Artificial Reefs From Recycled Construction Materials: A Feasibility Study, Nicholas H. Lew

Construction Management

Naturally occurring reefs are some of the world’s most biologically diverse ecosystems formed by jagged rocks tucked slightly below sea level. In recent years global warming began to pose a major threat to many reef habitats. Most relevant is the increase in surface seawater temperatures that cause coral to bleach, taking away major food sources for larger marine species. Researchers have combated this by deploying artificial reefs in substitution for naturally formed limestone rock formations in order to promote the expansion of coastal habitats. This project specifically aims to utilize construction waste towards the production of artificial reefs, effectively upcycling …

Developments In Construction Insurance And Their Effects On General Contractors, Luke Z. Martin

Construction Management

Before a construction project can begin, insurance must be purchased by each involved construction player to ensure the financial and physical health of the project and those working to complete it. The necessity of construction insurance on every project has turned it into a behemoth of a market sector, one that significantly affects the construction industry as well as a plethora of others. Although many are unaware, developments and shifts in construction insurance deeply affect the well-being of the public, from the roads they drive on to the buildings they live and work in. This research piece will delve into …

Cal Poly Construction Management 2022 Summer Bootcamp Team Service Project, Chris Montero

Construction Management

This paper describes the project logistics and pre-construction planning of the 2022 Cal Poly Construction Management Summer Bootcamp service-learning project, including a plan, schedule, and estimate of materials. The service-learning project will be a wooden park bench for the San Luis Obispo Botanical Gardens. Four teams of six students each will be provided drawings and, throughout the week-long summer camp, each team will have nine hours and thirty minutes to interpret the plans, cut the materials, and build one bench. The first day will consist of a one-hour project introduction that focuses on the fundamentals of plan reading and preparation …

Las Vegas Commercial Contractors' Mitigation Techniques For Inflationary Impacts, Kannen I. Caldwell

Construction Management

Recent rises in inflation have impacted global business. The construction industry in particular has experienced a decrease in already slim margins due to a plethora of factors. Employers have had difficulty affording increased labor rates to accommodate higher costs of living, ultimately leading to a labor shortage in many areas. Supply chain issues are a product of this labor shortage, but also a myriad of other inflation related issues like the price of gas and global trade agreements. This has led to dramatically increased lead times and has posed major supply chain management issues for project management teams. Construction professionals, …

Growing Grounds Farm, Santa Maria - Greenhouse Planter Bench Tables, Joseph Miller

Construction Management

This paper covers the planning, fundraising, design, construction, and installation associated with building the Growing Grounds Farm of Santa Maria greenhouse planter bench tables. Growing Grounds prides itself on nourishing the local community through a combination of horticulture therapy, and vocational training for individuals with severe and persistent mental illness. The farm offers various opportunities for socialization and interaction with coworkers and customers. After meeting with the farm managers, Anna Wiens and Keith Bartlett, it was clear that this project was of the highest priority. Upon agreement of the project, the farm managers and I determined the future vision and …

Urban Densification At Twin Creeks Apartments: High-Density Living With Low-Density Luxuries, Ryan Griswold

Construction Management

Urban sprawl is characterized by the rapid growth of the extent of cities and towns. In the United States, urban sprawl is greatly influenced by housing density. In the past half-century, developers have favored constructing and consumers have preferred living in neighborhoods of detached, single-family homes. This is because low-density living provides more housing services, or additional benefits, than most high-density developments, such as apartments and townhomes. Residents of low-density living often have more privacy, outdoor space, interior natural light, and many other benefits over residents of higher-density developments. However, Twin Creeks Apartments, located in San Luis Obispo, California, is …

Future Of Augmented And Virtual Reality In Construction, Cameron Ghoddoucy

Construction Management

A series of virtual design contractors were interviewed regarding the future involvement of augmented and virtual reality software integration with construction processes. Within the construction industry, VDC specialists rely on Building Information Modeling (BIM) and Computer Aided Design (CAD) to create digital models that can be used to analyze the design of a building from all points of view. The interviewees responded to questions about software implementation advantages, and related user experiences. Six interviews were conducted, amongst three industry leading companies. Their assumptions of future AR and VR usage in construction were based on learned knowledge and prior field exploration. …

Regenerative Power System Itech Itm-3633, Yang Naing Myint

Electrical Engineering

In EE295 classes, students have been using variable resistors and a 125V DC source from the wall. Both of them have weaknesses and therefore, the regenerative power system Itech IT-M3633 is used in this project. Moreover, two of the experiments, 7 and 8, have some problems with the EE295 lab manual. There is accuracy in experiment 7 and experiment 8 has been stopped for a while now by a few professors if not all. These experiments were conducted again with ITech IT-M3633 for better accuracy.

Fire Life Safety Design Of Technology Office, Jared Ellis

Fire Protection Engineering: Culminating Experience Project Reports

The subject building is an approximately 180,000 SF technology office; the location and some details are omitted for privacy of the project and client. It is a 3-story heavy timber frame (Type IIIA) over 1 level of concrete basement stepped into a hillside.

The building is compliant with the prescriptive building code for egress, fire alarm, and fire sprinkler systems. A NFPA 72 compliant fire detection, notification and communication system is provided. The building is fully sprinklered with a system that is hydraulically designed per NFPA 13, 2016 Section 11.2.3 Water Demand Requirements – Hydraulic Calculation Methods. Water supply is …

Mechanical Metamaterials, Brent A. Peluso, Oliver T. Parker

Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical metamaterials are an emerging design strategy aimed at tailoring lattice structures to achieve specific properties such as negative Poisson’s ratios and guiding wave propagation. These metamaterials have received increasing attention from various application domains, including medical devices, aerospace, automobile, and infrastructure. The scope of this project is to vary a single lattice parameter and quantify its effect on the structural properties of the given 3D lattice.

Planar Element Alignment System, Benjamin E. Lavigna, Benny F. Cruz, Samuel Gierhan, Jacob Q. Henriksen

Mechanical Engineering

Precise alignment to the micron level is a necessity for microfluidic/micromechanical devices to function as designed. Because of this, a micro-alignment device was commissioned by Professor Hans Mayer on behalf of the Cal Poly Microfluidics Laboratory. Prototype creation was bounded by a set of requirements including, ability to align PDMS & Silicon wafer halves to ± 10 microns, total process speed of three minutes, and total budget of $3000. Some major design hurdles included an ability to verify alignment, possible non-planar alignment pieces, and an inability to contact any point on the face of the alignment pieces after bonding treatment. …

Analytical Methods For Determining Connectivity Leakage In Collaboration With Meissner Filtration Products, Ennis Cuhadaroglu, Finn Mccarthy, Alvin Ng

Biomedical Engineering

The scope of our project involved choosing existing testing procedures and determining a viable sample size to determine an accurate leakage rate of single-use system connections (SUS). Another goal was to assess the effects of gamma irradiation on the material integrity of the hose barb to tubing connections.

Our key customer requirements included: being able to determine an overall leakage rate and making a repeatable testing process. The importance of these requirements was determined through our house of quality and Pugh charts. To achieve the requirements, we tested the leakage in low-pressure and high-pressure scenarios with a large enough sample …

Reinforcement Learning Framework For The Unreal Engine, Justin B. Wheeler

Master's Theses

This dissertation addresses the need for using machine learning-based methods rather than traditional rule-based methods for controlling non-playable characters (NPCs). The goal of the Reinforcement Learning Framework for the Unreal Engine is to enable game development studios to create, train, and more easily implement smarter, more compelling AI characters in major video game releases. The framework contains three distinct software libraries: an Unreal Engine reinforcement learning library whose purpose is to enable Unreal Engine levels to act as reinforcement learning environments, a python library which provides convenient abstractions and implementations to the reinforcement learning process, and a flexible connection system …

Racketframes: A Dataframe Implementation For The Racket Programming Language, Shubham Kahal

Master's Theses

The DataFrame is a powerful table-like data structure used frequently in Data Science, the in-demand and innovative field focused on the extraction of valuable insights from data. Typically, datasets are not perfect upon collection and need to be prepared so that the resulting dataset is useful for statistical analysis. A DataFrame API supports optimized methods such as, selecting, aggregating and filtering rows, columns, and cells as well as renaming row and column labels. It also supports methods for normalizing data, merging data, adding new columns and labelling missing data among numerous other features. An API to work with tabular data …

Analysis And Usage Of Natural Language Features In Success Prediction Of Legislative Testimonies, Marine Cossoul

Master's Theses

Committee meetings are a fundamental part of the legislative process in which
constituents, lobbyists, and legislators alike can speak on proposed bills at the
local and state level. Oftentimes, unspoken “rules” or standards are at play in
political processes that can influence the trajectory of a bill, leaving constituents
without a political background at an inherent disadvantage when engaging with
the legislative process. The work done in this thesis aims to explore the extent to
which the language and phraseology of a general public testimony can influence a
vote, and examine how this information can be used to promote civic …

Trajectory-Tracking Control Of The Ball-And-Plate System, Dominic E. Riccoboni

Master's Theses

The Mechatronics group in the Mechanical Engineering department of Cal Poly is interested in creating a demonstration of a ball-and-plate trajectory tracking controller on hardware. The display piece will serve to inspire engineering students to pursue Mechatronics and control theory as an area of study. The ball-and-plate system is open-loop unstable, underactuated, and has complicated, nonlinear equations of motion. These features present substantial challenges for control - especially if the objective is trajectory tracking. Because the system is underactuated, common nonlinear trajectory tracking control techniques are ineffective. This thesis lays out a theoretical foundation for controlling the hardware.

Several important …

Simple Open-Source Formal Verification Of Industrial Programs, Christopher Disney Peterson

Master's Theses

Industrial programs written on Programmable Logic Controllers (PLCs) have become an essential component of many modern industries, including automotive, aerospace, manufacturing, infrastructure, and even amusement parks. As these safety-critical systems become larger and more complex, ensuring their continuous error-free operation has become a significant and important challenge. Formal methods are a potential solution to this issue but have traditionally required substantial time and expertise to deploy. This usability issue is compounded by the fact that PLCs are highly proprietary and have substantial licensing costs, making it difficult to learn about or deploy formal methods on them.

This thesis presents the …

Electrochromic Smart Glass: Supplier Comparison Return On Investment Analysis, Hayden Stewart Owens

Construction Management

In recent years, sustainability in construction has become the focus of how the industry can progress with minimal environmental impact. As sustainability certifications become more desirable, key companies in the construction industry have started to seek greener alternatives to standard building systems. There are many sustainable products that are released, but these products are typically so complex that members of the industry are not familiar with these new systems. One novel piece of technology introduced to the industry is electrochromic glass, or smart glass. Electrochromic glass windows examine sunlight and heat exposure from the surrounding environment and change their opacity …

United Methodist Children Center Drain Project, Ethan Mikio Lin

Construction Management

No abstract provided.

United Methodist Children Center Drain Project, Andy Abdelnour

Construction Management

The United Methodist Children Center in San Luis Obispo is a preschool for young children in our community. Some of these students are the children of Cal Poly faculty and staff. The previous drain was not draining water properly and was uneven with bumps and dips that became a hazard for the children. Children would trip, fall, and hurt themselves on the drain. A team of two Cal Poly Construction Management students Ethan Lin and Andy Abdelnour worked together to estimate, design, coordinate, demolish, and construct a new section of the drain that would be safe for the students. The …

Northrop Grumman Collaboration Project, Nikkia Rae Psomas-Sheridan, Santiago Robles, Ben Elkayam, Benjamin Ulfhake

Mechanical Engineering

The Northrop Grumman Collaboration Project (NGCP) is a collaborative club project sponsored by Northrop Grumman for the students of Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (CPSLO) and Cal Poly Pomona (CPP) to create a fleet of vehicles to aid in the simulated rescue of stranded hiker. The CPSLO club is responsible for delivering an autonomous flight vehicle that can suppress a fire and retrieve a payload. Mechanical Design Team of the CPSLO team was responsible for the design of the frame, electronics housing, and payload and fire suppression systems.

Active Church Auditorium Redesign And Renovation, Jonah S. Kim

Construction Management

Active Church is a life-giving and dynamic church that exists to move people from where they are to where God wants them to be. This church for most of its lifespan has been located at the Fremont Theater as they did not have a building that they owned. However, in 2022 the church closed escrow on a building that was owned by another church located at 3172 Johnson Ave, San Luis Obispo, 93401. Before moving into the building major renovations needed to be done as this was a very old building from the 1960s. The initial design of the auditorium …

Project Management And Systems Engineering Framework For Educational Cubesat Missions, Bailey Garrett

Master's Theses

The rising complexity of CubeSat missions and the unique challenges faced by educational CubeSat programs lead to high rates of mission failure. Implementing project management and systems engineering practices can alleviate these challenges and improve mission success rates for educational CubeSat developers. However, existing project management and systems engineering resources are too cumbersome and often assume the student has a base-level understanding of project management and systems engineering fundamentals. A new universal project management and systems engineering framework was created and tailored specifically to the needs of an educational CubeSat mission. The framework was designed to accommodate first-time CubeSat developers, …