Engineering Commons^™

Qualitative Analysis Of Surface Modification On Wiffleball Aerodynamics, Cole Lanni

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project investigated how surface modifications to a Wiffleball affect its aerodynamic behavior, particularly its vertical and horizontal movement when thrown. The study tested the hypothesis that altering surface texture through cutting or sanding would influence airflow and pressure differentials, thereby changing the ball's movement. Six ball conditions: including unmodified, sanded, and various cut patterns were tested using a pitching machine in a controlled indoor environment. Each variation was pitched ten times, and movement was analyzed through measurements of contact points on posterboards and performing statistical testing, specifically ANOVA with Post Hoc analysis. Results indicated that surface modifications significantly increased …

Design Of An Active-Control Pressure Regulator For A Rocket, Seth Arkwright

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

An electronically actuated pressure-regulation valve and controller are necessary for maintaining pressure levels in a pressure-fed liquid-fueled rocket engine. Mechanical regulators are too heavy and have unacceptably high-pressure variation throughout the operation of a dynamic system like a rocket. Developing an electronic pressure regulator using a PID controller is a method by which a reliable, accurate, and lightweight flow regulator can be built for use on a rocket vehicle. This work will outline the development of flow simulations, PID controller, physical valve hardware, and initial testing.

Urotropine As A Corrosion Inhibitor In Steel Rebar: A Molecular Dynamics Study, Tyler Zadrozny

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project investigates the behavior of corrosion in rebar, a critical component in infrastructure such as roads and skyscrapers. Corrosion of rebar can lead to structural instability, visible as cracks or pitting on the surface. The primary focus is on the potential of urotropine as a corrosion inhibitor. Urotropine, known for its ability to inhibit corrosion in mild steel in acidic environments, is hypothesized to be effective in preventing corrosion on rebar. To explore this, molecular dynamics simulations using LAMMPS were conducted, modeling urotropine molecules in an acidic solution (PH = 1) interacting with iron atoms, mimicking rebar. Simulations were …

Modeling The Thermodynamics Of Butadiene And Carbon Dioxide Coupling Reactions, Alexis Sarantos

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will analyze the synthesis reaction of ethenylated 𝛿-valerolactone (EVL), specifically to determine certain thermodynamic properties of EVL and its coproducts. The thermodynamic properties of the reaction products can then be utilized to make the development of a large-scale process simpler and safer. The properties that will be determined are the heats of formations, heat capacities, and changes in enthalpy caused by each product during the reaction, and these will be used to determine whether the energy produced by the reaction is sufficient to maintain formation of the desired product. Additionally, a process model of heat flows and energy …

Gamegpt, Elia Albaba, Andrew Markland

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

GameGPT is a proof-of-concept project aimed to show how large language models (LLMs) can be used to enhance video games by allowing the user to have intelligent and adaptive interactions with non-playable characters (NPCs), each presenting their own personality, which adds aesthetics to the game. This was completed by using Groq Artificial Intelligence (AI) cloud-computing service to host the AI models to power the NPCs and engage with the user. Using AI to power NPC’s presents a way to lean away from traditional hard-coded and scripted dialogues, and strive towards intelligent and versatile conversations. GameGPT currently has 3 playable characters: …

Software Literacy In Construction, Aidan Cazares

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The construction industry increasingly relies on software like Bluebeam Revu for their quantity takeoff, document management, and collaboration needs. This project will outline pertinent information obtained through their Bluebeam professional training program and reflect it with a detailed estimate of a real life construct project.

Automatic Scoring Cornhole Board System, Eric Diffendal, Jonah Harsh, Connor Lengel, Brett Sukie

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective is to create a self-scoring cornhole board that can detect and calculate each team's score based on the bags thrown each round and to be created at a low cost/eventually being sold at the current cost of a normal board. When playing cornhole, the game is simple: throw a bag on the board; however, the scores are variable (deduct and add) across each round. The most common issue when playing cornhole is miscalculations of the scores and forgetting the correct scores. Thus, this invention will make gameplay easy for all to play.

Zips Racing Electric - Vehicle Control Unit, Ryan Stoller, Brian Glen, John Wozencraft, Tetra Engdahl

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Zips Racing Electric is a design team at the university that builds and races electric cars. The racing team wants to design a four-wheel drive system to increase performance, but the current computer on the vehicle cannot control the more complex power train. The goal of the project will be to build a hardware device that can read sensor inputs and control the torque output to each motor individually. The control device being designed will need to interface with the existing systems on the car and control regenerative breaking, torque vectoring, and other auxilliary systems on the car.

Dc To Dc Buck Converter, Matthew Bildstein

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This research project focuses on the design, implementation, and optimization of a high-efficiency DC-to-DC buck converter that steps down 12V to 5V for applications such as USB-powered devices, embedded systems, and automotive electronics. Building on my Associate’s degree project, where a 555 timer-based was replace with a LM2576 switching regulator IC.

The research involves circuit simulation in Multisim, PCB layout optimization in Ultiboard, and prototype testing to assess voltage stability, efficiency, and thermal performance. The project will incorporate best practices in power electronics design, including proper grounding techniques and thermal management strategies.

Expected outcomes …

Vilp: Imitation Learning With Latent Video Planning, Zhengtong Xu, Qiang Qiu, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

In the era of generative AI, integrating video generation models into robotics opens new possibilities for the general-purpose robot agent. This letter introduces imitation learning with latent video planning (VILP). We propose a latent video diffusion model to generate predictive robot videos that adhere to temporal consistency to a good degree. Our method is able to generate highly time-aligned videos from multiple views, which is crucial for robot policy learning. Our video generation model is highly time-efficient. For example, it can generate videos from two distinct perspectives, each consisting of six frames with a resolution of 96 × 160 pixels, …

Embrace The Journey: Exploring Induction Experiences Of Teachers In Ohio Independent Stem Schools, Laura Sass

Indiana STEM Education Conference

The beginning years of a new teacher are a critical period. This study investigated perceptions of induction activities of new teachers in Ohio Independent STEM schools. STEM-based pedagogies such as problem-based learning and inquiry are core strategies in STEM schools but can be new for beginning teachers. Through a Q-sort, thirteen participants from three Independent STEM Schools ranked statements on a +5 to -5 scale of agreement. This along with a post-sort survey resulted in themes. Positive school culture and colleague collaboration and the impact of the mentoring were found to be the most impactful. This research aligns with literature …

Unit: Data Efficient Tactile Representation With Generalization To Unseen Objects, Zhengtong Xu, Raghava Uppuluri, Xinwei Zhang, Cael Fitch, Philip Glen Crandall, Wan Shou, Dongyi Wang, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

UniT is an approach to tactile representation learning, using VQGAN to learn a compact latent space and serve as the tactile representation. It uses tactile images obtained from a single simple object to train the representation with generalizability. This tactile representation can be zero-shot transferred to various downstream tasks, including perception tasks and manipulation policy learning. Our benchmarkings on in-hand 3D pose and 6D pose estimation tasks and a tactile classification task show that UniT outperforms existing visual and tactile representation learning methods. Additionally, UniT's effectiveness in policy learning is demonstrated across three real-world tasks involving diverse manipulated objects and …

Experimental Comparison Of Cycle Modifications And Ejector Control Methods Using Variable Geometry And Co2 Pump In A Multi-Evaporator Transcritical Co2 Refrigeration System, Gabriele Toffoletti, Riley Barta, Steven M. Grajales, Haotian Liu, Davide Ziviani, Eckhard A. Groll

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

To reduce the direct global warming impact of refrigerants in HVAC&R applications, low-global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants, including natural refrigerants, have been extensively investigated as alternatives to hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants. Among the natural refrigerants, Carbon Dioxide (CO2) offers several advantages, such as excellent transport and thermo-physical properties, being neither toxic nor flammable, and having a low price and high availability around the world. However, the high critical pressure and low critical temperature of CO2 often lead to transcritical operation, resulting in lower efficiency due to the additional compressor power necessary to achieve transcritical operation relative to subcritical HFC cycles. Therefore, …

Range And Accuracy And Of In-Plane Anisotropic Thermal Conductivity Measurement Using The Laser-Based Angstrom Method, Aalok U. Gaitonde, Justin A. Weibel, Amy M. Marconnet

CTRC Research Publications

High heat fluxes in electronic devices must be effectively dissipated to prevent local hotspots, which are critical for long-term device reliability. In particular, advanced semiconductor packaging trends toward thin form factor products increase the need for understanding and improving in-plane conduction heat spreading in anisotropic materials. The 2D laser-based Ångstrom method, an extension of traditional Ångstrom and lock-in thermography techniques, measures in-plane thermal properties of anisotropic sheet-like materials. This method uses non-contact infrared temperature mapping to measure the thermal response to periodic laser heating at the center of a suspended sample. The spatiotemporal temperature data are analyzed via an inverse …

Shaping Engineering Technology Students’ Perceptions Of Manufacturing Through Experiential Learning In A Flipped Classroom – A Case Study, Rustin Webster

School of Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

This study examined how an introductory, survey-based manufacturing systems and processes course – which uniquely integrated a flipped classroom structure and multiple experiential learning elements – influenced engineering technology (ET) students’ perceptions of careers, workforce expectations, workplace dynamics, and essential industry skills within manufacturing. Pooled qualitative data from 52 ET student’s pre- and post-course reflection surveys, administered across four cohorts, were analyzed using topic modeling, sentiment analysis, comparative assessments, keyword frequency analysis, and/or impact assessment. The data offered valuable insights into students understanding of essential job skills, definitions of a good job, and perceptions of factory work. Before the course, …

The Current State Of Dimensioning And Tolerancing Pedagogy In United States Post-Secondary Engineering And Engineering Technology Programs, Jaime Berez, Rustin Webster, Rudy Ottway

School of Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

Dimensioning and tolerancing (D&T) is understood to be a crucial element of the engineering product lifecycle and has been documented as an important skill for various careers, e.g., engineering, design, manufacturing, and metrology. Even so, there is a widely perceived skills gap in today's workforce. In response to this perceived misalignment between employer expectations and student preparation, a survey of post-secondary engineering and engineering technology (ET) degree programs in the United States was conducted to quantitatively characterize the current state of D&T pedagogy. Respondents (n = 67) who identified as being the instructor-of-record for a course(s) that required students to …

Indiana Stem Teachers’ Perceptions Of The Shift From In-Person To Virtual Training During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Steve Heinold

Indiana STEM Education Conference

The COVID-19 pandemic brought uncertainty to Indiana teachers in 2020. School closings caused disruptions to teachers’ classroom settings, ongoing training, and social and mental well-being (Pozo-Rico et al., 2020). Indiana GEAR UP’s commitment to teacher professional development for STEM educators led to a shift from their in-person summer teacher training sessions to virtual, just months after the school shutdowns in spring 2020. Participant evaluations showed that teachers appreciated the virtual training options and were able to learn new strategies to apply to their new virtual learning spaces. The online training sessions also had drawbacks. This research brief describes recommendations to …

Spatio-Visual Reasoning And Teamwork Through Hands-On Stem Construction Activities, Comfort Temitope Aje, Maria Eloisa C. Nuguid, Melihan Ünlü, Humphrey Chinenye Ochulor

Indiana STEM Education Conference

This study examined a STEM activity in which students in grades K-6 designed and built a model of Snoopy’s doghouse with considerations for constraints, teamwork, and iterative design. By combining spatial reasoning with imagination and visualization, students collaborated to create 3-D structures from 2-D plans, demonstrating enhanced spatial visualization and the ability to connect geometry to a tangible engineering task. The findings highlight the value of spatio-visual design activities in promoting skills like spatial reasoning, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

Voice Operated Automatic Chessboard, Logan Pursley, Rafael Soler, Jason Roser, Tyler Hoxworth

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Chess is a board game played at a variety of skill levels worldwide. Over 1000 years, chess has always required players to move the pieces manually. Unfortunately, anyone who lacks dexterity in their hands or arms cannot manually move the chess pieces on their own. Consequently, a chess board that can be played without hands or arms must be created to accommodate a broader audience. This is the motivation behind the Automatic Chessboard. This design will allow a player to engage in a dynamic and physical game of chess using only their voice. A 3-axis control system will allow for …

Automatic Cat Caretaker, Connor Mcclenathan, Ryan Anderson, Andrew Tate

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will involve developing and constructing a self-cleaning litter box with feeding and watering functions attached. The machine will have a user interface for setting both the feeding and watering times, as well as how much to fill the food and water bowls at the same time. The project will involve the use of motors for the cleaning, feeding, and watering functions, sensors to detect when to perform those functions, and a microcontroller to process all the data and to tell the motors when to perform their respective functions. This project's goal is to make the task of caring …

Trace Flight Computer, Zachary Stratton, Vandad Mossavand Varkaneh, Nicholas Ely

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In the world of collegiate rocketry, there are currently no commercial-off-the-shelf flight computers capable of being fitted to liquid engine rockets with thrust vectoring control. Currently, amateur rocketeers utilize unreliable Arduino-based systems or expensive drone computers. The objective of this project is to design a flight computer capable of data collection and filtering, telemetry transmission, and real-time controls of critical safety systems using readily available commercial-off-the-shelf components to allow rocketeers to complete their designs within a reasonable budget. The system will collect data from two IMUs, a barometric altimeter, and a magnetometer, then filter the collected data using custom Kalman …

Monitoring A Small Network With Snmp, Dillon Taynor

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project takes a look at the implementation of three distinct free Network Monitoring Systems (NMSs) and their usage of monitoring a small, virtualized network using the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). The 3 free NMSs are PRTG, LibreNMS, and Zabbix. The network is virtualized within Cisco Modeling Labs. A literature review on relevant media is conducted alongside a review of the three NMSs based on installation difficulty, user friendliness, reporting ability, and their ability to respond to changes in the network. A brief discussion on the difference between an SNMPv2 and SNMPv3 packet is included as well.

Cultivating Ethical Data Stewardship For Undergraduate Research: A Framework And Toolkit Duo, Wei Zakharov, Senay Purzer, Carla Zoltowski

Libraries Faculty and Staff Scholarship and Research

Data drives nearly every aspect of research today, from the earliest stages of problem definition to the final dissemination of results. Undergraduate students—often at the beginning of their research journeys—are increasingly working with complex, data-intensive projects. Yet many enter these environments without sufficient training in how to manage, share, and use data responsibly. They may know how to run code or analyze a dataset, but questions of ethics, reproducibility, preservation, and stewardship are rarely an explicit part of this preparation. To address this gap, our interdisciplinary research team at Purdue University launched a multi-year, NSF-funded project entitled Prioritizing Data Life …

Vibtac: A High-Resolution High-Bandwidth Tactile Sensing Finger For Multi-Modal Perception In Robotic Manipulation, Sheeraz Athar, Xinwei Zhang, Jun Ueda, Ye Zhao, Yu She

School of Industrial Engineering Faculty Publications

Tactile sensing is pivotal for enhancing robot manipulation abilities by providing crucial feedback for localized information. However, existing sensors often lack the necessary resolution and bandwidth required for intricate tasks. To address this gap, we introduce VibTac, a novel multi-modal tactile sensing finger designed to offer high-resolution and high-bandwidth tactile sensing simultaneously. VibTac seamlessly integrates vision-based and vibration-based tactile sensing modes to achieve high-resolution and high-bandwidth tactile sensing respectively, leveraging a streamlined human-inspired design for versatility in tasks. This paper outlines the key design elements of VibTac and its fabrication methods, highlighting the significance of the Elastomer Gel Pad (EGP) …

Leveraging Undergraduate Expertise For Effective Stem Instruction: Insights From A Forensic Science Teaching Partnership, Swagata Sarkar, Hui-Hui Wang, Austin R. Jenkins, Mariah K. Stollar

Indiana STEM Education Conference

Although integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) instruction has been cited as a viable instructional approach to increasing the number of students interested and prepared to enter the STEM workforce, teacher content knowledge can be a limiting factor to effective implementation (Ejiwale, 2013). To address this limitation, college STEM majors can use their content expertise to support the development and implementation of integrated STEM experiences for K-12 students (Ferrara et al., 2018). This research brief reports on a university-high school partnership where undergraduate students in a university forensic science club created and implemented integrated STEM lessons in a local …

The Aftermath Of An Earthquake: Healing Power Of Engineering For Turkish Elementary School Children, Pinar Fettahlioglu, Senay Purzer, Cagan Findikkiran

Indiana STEM Education Conference

The February 6th, 2023, earthquake significantly impacted children in Turkey, causing both physical and emotional challenges. To help students enhance their understanding of earthquakes and their impact, we have integrated engineering-based STEM activities in a 5th-grade classroom. Students designed earthquake-proof structures and tested their strength. The research involved 15 students from the earthquake-affected region of Adana. Data included a conceptual understanding scale using a single-group pre-test and post-test design. Analysis indicated that students had limited prior knowledge about the causes of and safety measures for earthquakes before the intervention. Post-test results revealed statistically significant improvements in their learning.

Stem Education In Indiana: Analyzing The Availability Of Stem-Certified Schools For Underrepresented Communities, Bryan J. Duarte

Indiana STEM Education Conference

This study examines the equity of access to STEM-certified schools in Indiana, focusing on differences in student demographics between STEM-certified and non-STEM-certified schools. The results show no statistically significant differences in the percentage of female, non-White, or lower socio-economic students between the two groups. However, significant differences were found in the percentages of Latiné/a/o/x, Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, and Asian students, with these groups being underrepresented in STEM-certified schools compared to non-STEM-certified schools.

Boosting Computational Thinking In Integrated Stem Education With Cad, Hyeong Kyun Park, Jung Han, Yunjin Lim

Indiana STEM Education Conference

Integrated STEM education offers a powerful approach to enhancing students’ learning. By integrating science inquiry, technological literacy, engineering design, and mathematical thinking, integrated STEM fosters students’ 21st-century competencies, such as creativity, critical thinking, collaboration, and computational thinking. Drawing from a national integrated STEM project, this research uses a classroom case study to investigate the integration of Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and 3D printing into a STEM learning activity. It examines the use of mathematical computation to determine the best solution for a prototype that meet functional criteria. This research highlights how introducing CAD instruction enhances computational thinking within a conceptual framework …

Effects Of Soil Properties On Cp Performance, Cecilia Segretario

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This research aims to evaluate the affect of various soil properties on the effectiveness of cathodic protection (CP) in preventing underground pipeline corrosion. Metal coupons of common pipeline materials with applied CP will be mounted in several separate controlled soil environments to manipulate real world underground corrosion scenarios. Each soil environment will have different physical properties by mixing the soil with a prepared chemical solution. The physical properties to be evaluated include pH, resistivity, and moisture content. At the end of a corrosion duration, weight loss method will be used to evaluate the corrosion rate over that period. Additionally, the …

Rapid Convective Quench Apparatus Design, Samuel Fenik, Tyler Horvath, Dane Manias, Nicholas Michel

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In this project, we will research, model, and simulate the heat transfer of a red-hot steel plate undergoing a rapid quenching process by high pressure water jets. Our objective is to quench the steel plate in such a way so that the steam formed from the initial water contact does not inhibit the oncoming water from making proper contact with the plate. After sufficient research has been done, we will design an apparatus which will perform the optimal quenching method and record temperature data with the goal of obtaining the heat transfer coefficient. The purpose of our project is to …