Engineering Commons^™

Vadose Zone Recharge Through Shallow Hydraulic Fracturing, Daniela Barrera-Zarco, Lucila Campos, Ryan Eberhard, Brackon Rawlinson

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Effective utilization of water is an ever-increasing concern throughout the world. Finding new ways to store and effectively utilize water received from rainfall events is crucial to mitigate flooding and to recharge the Earth’s subsurface aquifers. In a growing and changing world, the need for adaptive and cost-effective solutions to water storage and utilization is critical.

Solutions Centered Engineering (SCE) set out to find an economical and environmentally friendly solution to the collection and storage of water. We were specifically searching for ways to reduce runoff and recharge water in the vadose zone. The vadose zone is below the ground …

Utah State University Parking Garage, Reed Burr, Ty Koppenhafer, Nathan Lamoreaux, Taylor Shapiro, Kaehan Shour, Nathan Williams

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Utah State University (USU) is known for its excellent engineering and agricultural programs. USU’s main campus is in Logan, UT and is Utah’s largest public residential campus.

USU’s Logan campus currently has a parking deficiency that cannot accommodate increasing parking demand each year.

• USU had a total of 17,667 students and 2,585 faculty and staff during the Fall 2019.

• Only 8,924 parking spots available to accommodate this student and staff population.

• Office of enrollment is expecting a growth of 691- 1400 more students by 2025.

• USU’s 2017 Transportation Master Plan determines a need for 414 additional …

Comparison And Evaluation Of Two Sensors For Dynamic Measuring Of Foam Level In Single-Use Bioreactors, Alyssa Cisneros, Harley Cragun, Crystal Rain Fowler, Mikelle Kearnes, Annika Saunders

Biological Engineering

Single Use Bioreactors (SUBs) are used for microbial cell culture for many industries, such as cell cultures of pilot-studies, food, and cosmetics¹. Foaming in bioreactors is common and is responsible for the fouling of equipment.

• The goal of the project is to test and develop two possible dynamic foam level sensors for the 30 and 300L SUBs

Objectives:

1. Manufacture a scalable foam sensor housing unit

2. Create a program that allows for ease of sensor use when implemented into controller

3. Safe for biological cultures

4. Test the system to ensure accurate and simple sensor output …

Computational Model Of Angiogenesis In Wet Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Kelsey Bradshaw, Michael Cotner, Jacilyn Fielding, Andrew Kjar, Teren Teeples

Biological Engineering

Age-Related Macular Degeneration (AMD)

• Leads to vision loss and blindness

• Localized to subretinal layers (Figure 1.)

Electrocoagulation For Removal Of Nitrates From Fgd Wastewater, Jacob Watkins, Julissa Van Renselaar, Amanda Moravek, Tallon Beckstrom, Shaylynn Cannon

Biological Engineering

Flue gas desulfurization (FGD) processes are often utilized to mitigate pollution from coal-based plants by removing sulfur oxides¹. However, FGD wastewater streams still contain pollutants such as nitrates that must undergo further treatment². The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELG) that dictate the allowable concentrations of the contaminants in FGD wastewater effluent. While common treatment approaches can meet these requirements, efficiency drops with chemical concentration flux, which is a common situation with FGD wastewater. A novel method that could both meet ELG requirements and handle chemical concentration flux is electrocoagulation (EC). EC is able to target a …

Uvc Automatic Door Handle Sanitizer, Dean Dalton, Tate Patterson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Infectious disease is easily spread through the use of door handles

• A virus placed on a single door handle can spread through the remainder of the building within 2 to 4 hours
• Ultraviolet Class C light (UVC) is effective at sanitizing surfaces easily and at a low cost
• UVC light can be harmful when there are high levels of direct exposure to the eyes

Automatic Door Handle Sanitizer

• The device applies UVC light to effectively sanitize while safely allowing the use of the door

Automatic Paint Booth Ventilation, Cooper Despain

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Problem and Solution

• For paint to cure properly, air flow must be maintained during the entire curing process.
• Proper air flow is also essential for the health and safety of those working within the paint booth.
• Automatic ventilation control of the booth will ensure that the air flow is sufficient while personnel are painting, as well as maintain the proper air flow when operators have left and the paint is curing.
• PLC system will monitor conditions within the booth and ducting, and the supply and the exhaust fans will be adjusted accordingly.

3d Mapping Robot, Konnor Andrews, Ryan Jacobson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Problem: Current 3D interior mapping methods are cumbersome, complicated, and costly. A consumer typically cannot purchase or operate the existing tools.

However, 3D mapping has a myriad of practical applications, such as interior design, virtual reality environment creation, and robotics research. This project aims to make 3D mapping tools more accessible for consumers.

Solution: This project combines modern control theory and signal processing to create an autonomous robot that can traverse and map unknown indoor areas. This robot can be managed using a simple interface on any device with a web browser. The scan that the robot generates can then …

Armed Bike Lock, Nick Elmer

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Bikes are too easy to steal, especially out of the back of pickup trucks

Goals:

• Create a notification system to alert you even if you are away the bike
• Stop the theft
• Save your bike and money

Turtlebot 3, Jarome Allen, Nathan Beazer

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Autonomous small vehicle
• Built from scratch.
• Rechargeable battery for continued use.
• All wheel drive
• Upgradeable components
• Built to have additional features added
• Easy to use for wide range of users.

Autonomous Delivery Robot, Sam Petersen, Nathan Haws

Electrical and Computer Engineering

We designed and assembled a self-driving delivery vehicle.

• People and companies spend a lot of time delivering food, packages, and other items.
• A self-driving delivery vehicle could save these people time and money.
• We set out to design and assemble an autonomous vehicle that could safely and securely navigate around its environment to deliver a package to a user-defined destination.

Cablecam System, Brian Strickler, Nikolas Clark

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Existing cable camera systems are limited in the number of options and the excessive costs. CableCam seeks to provide smooth linear motion control at an affordable price. Channeling inspiration from making amateur videos with a desire for improved quality, this team has created an inexpensive cable camera system with professional features such as 3-axis stabilization and automatic motion control.

Gym Power Generation System: Exercise Bike Generator, Richard Beck, Cedric Mannie

Electrical and Computer Engineering

What?

• Design and build an exercise bike that produces power!

Why?

• Nobody likes pollution from burning fossil fuels.
• We need more renewable power sources.
• Energy from exercise is usually wasted.

Considerations:

• The bike needs to have adjustable resistance.
• The power produced needs to be usable.
• The system needs to be safe & user-friendly.

Pawtomatic Pet Door, James Cosgrove, Austin Hillyard

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Pet doors aren’t secure
• Pet doors don’t allow the user to restrict access to specific animals
• Pet doors that do lock/close must be locked/closed and reopened manually

Garden Helper Robot (Ghr), Tye Foster, Matthew Jacques, Joshua Mecham

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Engineer Joshua Mecham's grandfather Jerry Hansen loves to garden; however, Jerry's arthritis prevents him from pursuing his passion.

There had to be some way to incorporate an ordinary hose box into a mobile gardening bench. This solution would simultaneously water Jerry’s plants as well as provide a seat Jerry could use instead of getting on his hands and knees.

For this reason, the GHR was designed with people like Jerry in mind that want to continue their hobbies despite disabilities/sickness/age troubles.

The Module Tinkering Vehicle (Motiv), Steve Brezenski

Electrical and Computer Engineering

MoTiV is a remote-controlled car kit hat a user can assemble and add additional components to as desired.

The goal for MoTiV is to provide an introduction to electronics that:

• Appeals to a diverse audience, both experienced and novice
• Limits frustration on the part of the learner by working reliably and consistently
• Allows for new functionality to be added as desired with a method for easily updating device software

Infant Earmuff System, Beth Powell

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Infant Earmuff System allows caretakers to prevent hearing damage in infants when wearing the device.

• Infants have smaller ear canals and are therefore more susceptible to hearing damage than adults
• Hearing damage in infants is permanent but infants are bad at communicating if the noise level is too loud.
• The Infant Earmuff System allows caretakers to understand the level of noise an infant is hearing and whether that level is dangerous.

Real Life Jrpg, Jacob Wilson

Electrical and Computer Engineering

JRPG is a very popular video game genre, it’s turn based battle system allows the player to create interesting strategies impossible to find in real time games.

The goal of Real Life JRPG is to bring that experience away from the TV. Fight a dragon by actually swinging a sword.

Up to 3 players will work together to defeat the dragon, attacking it will Lower it’s health points and if the Dragons health points reach 0 the players win. But the Dragon will retaliate and if all players lose their health points, the dragon win.

Making Loud Noises Quiet, Logan Voigt, Nicholas Williams

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Guns are loud. Putting on ear protection takes time. Hunters need to listen for animals, so they can not wear ear protection constantly. Hunters have limited time to react when they see their target. They do not have time to put on ear protection. The Shot Silencer protects hunters’ hearing by actively noise cancelling the sound of the gunshot.

Sdgpu - Fpga Linux Gpu, Usu Department Of Electrical And Computer Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Video output and accelerated rendering are an increasing important need for personal computers.
• FPGAs provide a hardware platform for reconfigurable hardware acceleration.
• This project involves designing and building a hardware platform, FPGA logic, and Linux driver stack for video output and accelerated rendering.
• Targeting a PCIe add-in card form factor with 1080p 60 Hz output via HMDI means the system works out of the box with nearly all modern hardware.
• An extensible software and HDL design serves to provide a platform for computational and graphical acceleration.

Card Barn, Taylor Nielson, Nicholas Wallace

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Create an automatic card storage system.

• The user first provides a stack of cards to be inventoried, and then allows the system to scan each card and store the scanned cards in a storage bin for later retrieval.
• The user can query the system for what cards are stored in the system, and the system will inform the user of which bin the desired card is in.

Enxor Open-Source Logic Analyzer, Matthew Crump

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Professional grade logic analyzers can cost a fortune, putting these devices out of reach from students and electronic hobbyists

• Enxor is an open-source FPGA project allowing anyone to use or customize it
• Enxor can be used to monitor external signals or added as a submodule in a larger FPGA allowing internal signal testing
• No device specific modules allowing Enxor to run on any FPGA
• User interface works on Windows and Linux

Modular Engine Control System (Mecs), Christian Hogan

Electrical and Computer Engineering

There are two purposes of this project:

• Develop an open source platform for designing electronic engine control systems
• Demonstrate the platform by designing an electronic control system for a small gasoline powered engine

Demonstration Objectives:

• Modify a small gasoline engine to run on electronic control
• Write a VHDL library
• Construct all components and wiring in a durable fashion

Code Learning Laptop, Max Gesullo

Electrical and Computer Engineering

• Learning basic coding skills on your own is difficult. You need to worry about the language, coding programs, and instructional content
• The above barriers to entry keep people from starting to learn coding who would otherwise enjoy it
• This project is designed to consolidate all the resources needed to learn basic coding concepts into one easy to use device

Plugsy Gardening System, Brandon Deakin, Andrew Williams, Daniel Beckett

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Planting and Landscaping Utility Gardening System for You (PLUGSY) is an automated garden system. The PLUGSY performs many gardening tasks, including planting, watering, and weeding the garden.

The purpose of the PLUGSY is to make gardening more accessible and enjoyable. This will help remove some of the barriers that people experience when first getting into gardening. These include barriers such as limited time, burnout, and lack of gardening knowledge. The PLUGSY helps solve all of these barriers by performing the most time consuming and tedious tasks for the user. In this way, the PLUGSY will be able to help …

Single Machine Washer Dryer, Usu Department Of Electrical And Computer Engineering

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Current Washer-Dryer Units take over 6 hours to completely clean a single load of laundry

• The drying cycle is what causes the long cycle time
• To dry the clothes, a dehumidifier is employed to remove water, little to no heat is used to help dry

This system

• Uses a modified drum to create more space inside the machine

Speak Tool, Eric Rowles

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Speech instructors are important to help students speak accurately and clearly.

However, the most important part of learning is practice. Students can currently only practice while with their speech instructor.

This tool would allow students to practice while away from their instructor. This would help them learn more quickly and effectively.

Instructors would also be able to use this tool to monitor student progress.

Zootap, Zane Winkler

Electrical and Computer Engineering

A day at the zoo can be stressful. ZooTap solves two of the biggest problems found at every zoo.

1. Customers not being able to find Zoo Animals
2. Zoo customers not staying at an exhibit for an extended period of time

With ZooTap, you and your kids will be able to interact with every animal physically and digitally with the use of a cell phone

ZooTap will result in adults and kids being more involved in a single exhibit at any zoo. Aiding them in finding animals and causing them to stay at an enclosure for a longer amount of time

Space Weather Probes (Swp), Jason Powell, Levi Norman, Connor Landeen

Electrical and Computer Engineering

Problem:

Ionospheric plasma bubbles distort radio waves, causing disruptions with satellites to ground stations

Solution:

The objective of SWP is to understand the preconditions leading to plasma bubbles

• The is accomplished by measuring the electron density, 𝑛_𝑒, of the plasma environment in the Earth’s Ionosphere
• Previous Iterations of this project have been designed at the CSE (Most recently SPORT). This design attempts to improve upon those designs. 

Walkmatic, Chaz Cornwall, Ryan Berg

Electrical and Computer Engineering

The Walkmatic is a baby push toy with automated steering to keep babies from pushing the toy into walls or down the stairs. Parents who are anxious to watch their child learn how to walk will often buy push toys to help their child stand up while they learn to walk. Unfortunately, parents must constantly guide the push toy to prevent the baby from pushing it into obstacles. This can take a toll on parents’ backs and knees. With the Walkmatic, parents can relax while they watch their baby play with their fun new toy.

When the Walkmatic is first …