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Responsible Solid Waste Management Plan for Cerrito School
No full textThis project enhanced the efficiency and sustainability of waste management at the Cerrito School, a self-sustaining agricultural institution operated by Fundación Paraguaya in Paraguay. Previously, waste was unsorted, recycling income was lost, and wildlife spread trash. To address this, a Solid Waste Management Committee was established to collaborate with staff and students to design a comprehensive Solid Waste Management Plan and a new waste sorting system. This proposal outlines our approach and recommendations for improving the school’s waste management
7Factor 2024-2025: AWS Analysis
No full textFor the last four years, WPI Students worked with 7Factor—a software engineering consulting company—to evaluate AWS ECS clusters and optimize their infrastructure for cost efficiency. Previous teams have implemented and refined a tool to do just that, but it has not been tested with the prospective users, 7Factor employees. During the 2024-2025 school year, we conducted a Think-Aloud User Study to assess usability, gather feedback, and implement new data-backed features and fixes to enhance the tool’s effectiveness
The Establishment of Green Meadow Elementary School in Maynard, MA
No full textMaynard Elementary School, also known as Green Meadow Elementary School, goes through a comprehensive design process before construction can begin. As part of the electrical consulting team, this project focuses on developing and designing the electrical system for the new school. Subdisciplines within the electrical system include lighting, HVAC equipment, power, fire alarm, technology, and security. The design process utilizes Revit 2024, AutoCAD MEP, and Bluebeam Revu, with submission sets to be printed and sent following a project timeline. The project follows three key phases: ensuring compliance with national codes, meeting MSBA guidelines, and developing a safe design that can be approved for construction. The designs are reviewed and refined by a licensed professional electrical engineer and other project consultants. The deliverables of this project include the final set of design drawings and a Revit model. The project is set to start construction in February 2025
Extent of PFAS Contamination of Drinking Water Sources in Rhode Island
No full textPer- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a group of emerging contaminants that have garnered praise for their unique abilities, and notoriety for their pervasiveness in the environment. This study with RIDEM sought to identify fire stations and disposal sites in Rhode Island as potential PFAS source areas, and homes with private wells in their immediate surroundings. These findings resulted in an interactive ArcGIS map, hypothetical site models, and sampling and treatment plans for the future of PFAS grants
The Dodo Board Game Collection
No full textThis project addresses the need for preservation of board games as both cultural artefacts and working research materials for multiple fields. A board game's very nature is one that promotes quick decay, loss, and damage over time due to the physical quality of materials and required user handling. Dean O'Donnell's donated board game collection containing decades of rare and common games has been the perfect for us, the students of WPI, to work on board game archival techniques. The goal is to digitally archive each game to ensure longevity and accessibility of the cultural artifacts for research, study and use globally as a part of our archival collection in WPI's Gordon Library. This year's IQP focused on testing archival techniques that we hope future IQPs will be able to continue to use with the rest of The Dodo Board Game Collection
A Guide for New Small-Scale Oyster Farmers: Understanding Strategies to Improve Environmental Sustainability and Economic Feasibility
No full textOyster aquaculture can produce sustainable farmed seafood, with economic benefits for local farmers and communities. However, barriers to entry, including regulatory processes and limited land availability, and a changing climate create challenges for those in and entering the industry. Oysters are important members of local and ocean ecosystems, with their ability to absorb excess nutrients in water, restore reefs, and feed themselves. With a growing demand for oysters, there are opportunities for new farmers to participate and innovate within current systems. The goal of this project is to understand the business practices and sustainability measures of small-scale oyster farms in New England by surveying those in the industry and through case-study analyses. Data collected was used to develop recommendations for new small-scale oyster farmers, in addition to the creation of a financial planning calculator
History of Business Education at WPI
No full textThis project explores the history of Business Education at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) through a methodology involving interviews with current and retired faculty members, as well as archival research. It constructs a comprehensive timeline of events and addresses significant milestones, including faculty contributions and AACSB accreditation. A feature wall and timeline, installed outside of Washburn 229, underscore the nature of business education at WPI, highlighting its adaptability over time and the impact of notable faculty and events on its development
Art of Living: Yoga Through the Lens of Physics
No full textThis Interactive Qualifying Project (IQP), titled "Art of Living: Yoga Through the Lens of Physics," explores the application of physics to analyze the mechanics of yoga poses. The project's goal was to understand how different yoga poses affect the body mechanically, and to compare the physical execution of these poses between novice students and experienced yoga instructors. The study involved five specific yoga poses—bending, dancer, eagle, standing, and tree—and used LoggerPro software connected to a platform that records the movements and translates them into graphical data on a computer. This setup allowed for precise measurement and analysis of physical parameters during each pose. The participants, two inexperienced students and two experienced yoga instructors, were assessed to determine variations in pose execution. The analysis revealed that experienced instructors achieved more mechanically efficient poses compared to novices. Despite this, both groups showed significant variability in their performance, emphasizing the impact of individual physical differences. The project not only provided valuable insights into the physical dynamics of yoga but also equipped the participants with analytical skills beneficial for future studies in biomechanics or physics-related fields
An Exploration of Phishing and Hardware Key Multi-factor Authentication
No full textMulti-factor Authentication (MFA) has grown increasingly common as a security practice and aims to ensure user authenticity. The United States Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) claims that FIDO2/WebAuthn MFA is resistant to phishing. This paper explores these claims. We present three meddler-in-the-middle (MITM) phishing attacks on MFA. The first attack, which we call RDPhishing, redirects a user to a virtual machine (VM) through a phishing link. This technique allows an adversary to persuade victims into authenticating to a legitimate website, and can circumvent MFA. The second attack, leveraging RDPhishing and Bluetooth-based QR code FIDO2 MFA, allows an adversary to capture cryptographic tokens in transmission and gain unauthorized access. The final attack socially engineers users to connect to a rogue Wi-Fi access point (RWAP) and install a fraudulent certificate authority. This allows an adversary to acquire session tokens and unauthorized access, even with the use of hardware key FIDO2 MFA. Our user study demonstrates that users may not notice the symptoms of an RDPhishing attack. It also shows that a significant portion of users can be socially engineered to complete the RWAP attack workflow. Our findings suggest that the deficiencies in FIDO2 MFA arise not from its cryptographic framework, but rather from its reliance on users’ ability to manage their environment and recognize phishing attempts. These results challenge the notion that MFA alone can effectively protect users against phishing attacks
7Factor 2024-2025: Staffing Tool/Project Force (Team 1)
No full text7Factor Software, LLC, is a software and cloud services company based in Atlanta, Georgia. One of 7Factor’s Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platforms is ProjectForce, a staffing tool used to track employees’ time spent on projects and subsequently bill clients for said time. This paper presents our enhancements to ProjectForce, which includes a page where engineers can view their assigned projects and a modal where engineers can enter their time spent on each project