Electricity & the Arts: Creative Thesis Projects

Description
Engineering, and more specifically, electrical engineering can be a difficult topic to explain through spoken communication. Along with taking years of education to learn and understand necessary topics, the field is riddled with jargon and items that may take lectures

Engineering, and more specifically, electrical engineering can be a difficult topic to explain through spoken communication. Along with taking years of education to learn and understand necessary topics, the field is riddled with jargon and items that may take lectures to explain. However, this type of education may not be feasible for a younger or inexperienced audience. Therefore, engineers must find new ways to explain such difficult topics, especially in an attempt to garner interest in children, for example, through art.
Date Created
2023-12
Agent

User Inspired Engineering for Patients in Children's Hospitals

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Description
Children's hospitals can be a scary place for children and their parents. Patients are stressed and anxious because they are in a space that is unfamiliar to them, and being forced to be in a confined space feels like a

Children's hospitals can be a scary place for children and their parents. Patients are stressed and anxious because they are in a space that is unfamiliar to them, and being forced to be in a confined space feels like a punishment. Parents accompanying their children in hospitals are also emotionally stressed due to the overwhelming parental and financial responsibilities. There is a product opportunity gap which allows the patients to interact with the environment to make it more familiar to them and interact with the people around them to alleviate stress anxiety. This project aims to use the user-inspired engineering process to close that product opportunity gap.
Date Created
2023-05
Agent

Social Insect-Inspired Behaviors for Collective Search Operations by Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) Swarms

Description
A swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has many potential applications including disaster relief, search and rescue, and area surveillance. A critical factor to a UAV swarm’s success is its ability to collectively locate and pursue targets determined to be

A swarm of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) has many potential applications including disaster relief, search and rescue, and area surveillance. A critical factor to a UAV swarm’s success is its ability to collectively locate and pursue targets determined to be of high quality with minimal and decentralized communication. Prior work has investigated nature-based solutions to this problem, in particular the behavior of honeybees when making decisions on future nest sites. A UAV swarm may mimic this behavior for similar ends, taking advantage of widespread sensor coverage induced by a large population. To determine whether the proven success of honeybee strategies may still be found in UAV swarms in more complex and difficult conditions, a series of simulations were created in Python using a behavior modeled after the work of Cooke et al. UAV and environmental properties were varied to determine the importance of each to the success of the swarm and to find emergent behaviors caused by combinations of variables. From the simulation work done, it was found that agent population and lifespan were the two most important factors to swarm success, with preference towards small teams with long-lasting UAVs.
Date Created
2023-05
Agent

Student-Focused Cobot Training Course

Description

A student-focused course was created that provides students with a fundamental knowledge of cobot use and capabilities. Students learn to use a Universal Robots UR3e cobot, first with an exisiting free online training simulator. After completing the online training, students

A student-focused course was created that provides students with a fundamental knowledge of cobot use and capabilities. Students learn to use a Universal Robots UR3e cobot, first with an exisiting free online training simulator. After completing the online training, students gain hands-on experience completing tasks with a cobot on a custom-built workstation. Two of these workstations were created. Two students trialed the program, and both reported enjoying the program and feeling significantly more confident in their cobot programming abilities.

Date Created
2023-05
Agent

Development of Affordable Metal-Capable Desktop CNC Mill

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Description
The CNC mill is a highly valuable tool for engineering design, allowing for the creation of precise and complex metal parts. However, due to their high cost, many engineers do not have access to these machines until they enter industry,

The CNC mill is a highly valuable tool for engineering design, allowing for the creation of precise and complex metal parts. However, due to their high cost, many engineers do not have access to these machines until they enter industry, limiting the knowledge and experience of engineering students. This also restricts the level of engineering design they can participate in as they are limited to lower strength materials and processes. To expand the possibilities for engineering students, hobbyists, and small businesses, we created a reliable and affordable desktop CNC mill. Our machine is capable of cutting non-ferrous metals such as aluminum with 70μm repeatable part precision and be compatible with coolant and vacuum systems.
Date Created
2023-05
Agent

Development of Affordable Metal-Capable Desktop CNC Mill

Description

The CNC mill is a highly valuable tool for engineering design, allowing for the creation of precise and complex metal parts. However, due to their high cost, many engineers do not have access to these machines until they enter industry,

The CNC mill is a highly valuable tool for engineering design, allowing for the creation of precise and complex metal parts. However, due to their high cost, many engineers do not have access to these machines until they enter industry, limiting the knowledge and experience of engineering students. This also restricts the level of engineering design they can participate in as they are limited to lower strength materials and processes. To expand the possibilities for engineering students, hobbyists, and small businesses, we created a reliable and affordable desktop CNC mill. Our machine is capable of cutting non-ferrous metals such as aluminum with 70?m repeatable part precision and be compatible with coolant and vacuum systems.

Date Created
2023-05
Agent

Enhancing Visual Odometry in Autonomous Vehicles

Description

Visual odometry (VO) plays a crucial role in determining the position and orientation of an autonomous vehicle as it navigates through its environment. However, the performance of visual odometry can be significantly affected by errors in disparity estimation and LIDAR

Visual odometry (VO) plays a crucial role in determining the position and orientation of an autonomous vehicle as it navigates through its environment. However, the performance of visual odometry can be significantly affected by errors in disparity estimation and LIDAR depth measurements. This thesis investigates the use of LIDAR depth correction and Stereo disparity matching, combined with stronger match filtering, to improve the accuracy and reliability of VO estimations. The study utilizes a dataset consisting of a sequence of image frames, ground truth position data, and a range of feature detection, description, and matching techniques. Results indicate that the proposed approach significantly improves the accuracy of VO estimations, providing a valuable contribution to the development of reliable and safe autonomous navigation systems. The proposed method consists of two main components: (1) an advanced disparity matching algorithm to obtain more accurate and robust disparity estimations, and (2) a LIDAR depth correction module that employs a sensor fusion approach to refine the depth information generated by LIDAR sensors. The LIDAR depth correction module combines data from multiple sensors, including LIDAR, camera, and inertial measurement unit (IMU), to produce a more accurate depth estimation. The performance of the proposed approach is evaluated using real-world datasets and benchmark visual odometry challenges. Results demonstrate that the proposed method significantly improves the accuracy and robustness of visual odometry, leading to better localization and navigation performance for autonomous vehicles. This research contributes to the ongoing development of autonomous vehicle technology by addressing critical challenges in visual odometry and offering a practical solution for more accurate and reliable self-localization

Date Created
2023-05
Agent

LED Light up Message Board

Description

The goal of this thesis project is to work with children’s hospitals in the valley to develop unique exhibits or artifacts that would help children and families feel less anxious during hospital visits and stays. We would like these artifacts

The goal of this thesis project is to work with children’s hospitals in the valley to develop unique exhibits or artifacts that would help children and families feel less anxious during hospital visits and stays. We would like these artifacts to encourage children to feel safe and happy by sparking fun moments that would evolve into cheerful memories. Overall, we created an LED Light Up Message Board, that will allow children the ability to reduce stress and help express themselves. We created the PCBs to make the letters light up and be easy enough to plug into the board so that the children can create messages on it.

Date Created
2023-05
Agent