41530 research outputs found
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3D Printing Scoliosis Braces
No full textAs 3D printing technology continues to transform the healthcare industry, the need for FDA-compliant additive manufacturing facilities in public universities has become increasingly important. While private companies and medical research institutions have successfully integrated 3D printing for medical device prototyping and surgical planning, public universities—including Cal Poly—lack the dedicated infrastructure needed to support FDA-regulated medical manufacturing and research. This project aims to bridge that gap by researching, designing, and implementing a dedicated FDA-compliant section within Cal Poly’s multi-purpose 3D Printing Facility. Over the course of eight weeks, student researchers will study FDA regulations, design an optimized facility layout, and implement a structured additive manufacturing workflow to ensure compliance with FDA, ISO 13485, and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP) standards. The designated section will feature controlled workspaces for medical 3D printing, post-processing, quality control, and regulatory documentation, ensuring adherence to safety and validation requirements. Once operational, this facility will provide students, faculty, healthcare professionals, medical researchers, and industry partners with a regulatory-compliant workflow for designing and producing medical-grade 3D prototypes, while also serving as a foundation for future FDA-compliant proof-of-concept developments
Orbital Mechanics and AI
No full textTraditional orbital mechanics courses typically start with simpler problems that can be solved on paper, gradually progressing to more complex problems that require computational tools. In the AERO department, we have traditionally used MATLAB for these computational tasks. However, the industry is increasingly shifting toward platforms like Python for coding these types of problems. Additionally, with the rapid rise of AI, tools like ChatGPT are now at the forefront of code generation. To stay ahead, students need to learn how to generate code using AI and assess whether the generated code is functioning as expected. This SURP will have students solve problems in both MATLAB and Python, then compare their solutions with AI-generated code. As part of the project, a database of best practices will be developed, and a paper will be written for ASEE
Choose: Helping Young Adults Make Confident Decisions
No full textThis senior project is called Choose, a prototype decision-making app designed to help young adults make quicker, more confident choices by offering three evidence-based decision methods: random choice, friend delegation, and structured pros and cons lists. Informed by research on decision fatigue, cognitive load, and user-centered design, the app addresses everyday and high-stakes decisions by tailoring each method to its most effective context. The development process included literature review, competitive analysis, style exploration, iterative sketching, and Figma prototyping, as well as incorporating user feedback to refine usability and feature relevance. The resulting high-fidelity prototype demonstrates how multi-method decision support, combined with encouraging messaging and thoughtful UX, can reduce indecision, improve user confidence, and fill gaps in existing decision-making tools. Although the prototype is not yet a functional app, this project highlights both its potential for real-world application and the design skills gained through its creation
Ensemble Graph Attention Networks Enable Interpretable Biomarker Discovery for Breast Cancer Subtyping
No full textThe reproducibility crisis in biomarker discovery stems from traditional approaches that often treat molecular features as independent variables while ignoring the networked nature of biological systems. We present an interpretable-by-design framework that models individual tumor network states using graph attention networks (GATs) to discover robust breast cancer biomarkers. By constraining the search space through biologically informed gene selection and multi-relational graphs integrating protein-protein interactions, pathways, and co-expression networks, we guide the model toward genuine biological relationships rather than spurious correlations. Our ensemble GAT approach achieved 77.4% balanced accuracy for molecular subtype classification. Systematic analysis of attention weights revealed an unexpected finding: 98 of 99 high-confidence biomarkers were terminal nodes rather than network hubs, consistently connecting to established breast cancer drivers including TP53, EGFR, ESR1, and CCND1. We successfully distilled these network-based discoveries into a 70-gene diagnostic panel using interpretable linear models, achieving 75.3% accuracy with expression data alone. Our biologically constrained, interpretable-by-design approach demonstrates how network-guided machine learning yields both mechanistic understanding and reproducible biomarkers
From Margins to Center: Black Feminism and Radical Imagination in the Classroom
No full textWe center Black feminism and the radical imagination as necessary conditions of abolitionist pedagogy, and share our experiences of how the prominence of these epistemological frameworks fostered the co-construction of knowledge in a police and prison abolition course at one of the richest and whitest private educational institutions in the United States. Drawing on our experiences as abolitionists, activists, and scholars, we remain resolved that abolitionist epistemologies and pedagogies can and should be incorporated into traditional classroom settings to the benefit of all classroom members. Traditional postsecondary curriculums and the preeminence of official knowledge require the segregation and diminution of subjective and subjugated knowledge from which abolitionist ideals and practices are derived. In defiance of this tension, we propose the proliferation of a pedagogy consistent Black feminism and the radical imagination honors the genealogical roots of abolition by challenging classroom members to imagine a world that does not yet exist, to see themselves as members of a classroom community of care relatively free from surveillance and stigma, and to understand how power shapes credibility and legitimacy
Daring to Dream: Practicing Hope in a Discipline Dependent on Maintaining the Carceral Status Quo
No full textAbolitionist educators may grapple with the cognitive dissonance produced by ethical conflicts arising in their work within academic institutions with well-established ties to the Prison-Industrial Complex (PIC). This is especially likely for those within criminal justice departments whose mission and ideological underpinnings often clash with abolitionist principles. Teaching in classrooms outfitted with furniture produced through the labor of imprisoned people, instructing students who plan to work within the criminal legal system, and contributing to a curriculum that may support State violence and injustices are just a few examples of the tensions that abolitionists in Academia encounter. Additionally, we recognize that our own careers may be contingent upon maintaining a carceral State, even as we discuss in our classrooms and in our scholarship the need to dismantle that very system. Drawing on our own experiences, this essay critically reflects and analyzes how abolitionist educators navigate the tension between their values and their roles within an institution that directly and indirectly supports carcerality and State violence. We also discuss strategies to reconcile this dissonance, such as using critical pedagogies that challenge conventional narratives around policing and punishment while centering abolitionist alternatives and transformative justice. We conclude by proposing that the presence of abolitionist educators within the Academy can provide opportunities to shift universities from sites that maintain the PIC to sites of resistance by fostering critical discourse and empowering students with the analytical tools to imagine a future that rejects carcerality
Research for Structural Change: An Abolitionist Teaching Activity for Early-Career Scholars
No full textIn recent years, social work practitioners, educators, and scholars have increasingly wrestled with the harmful history of the profession, and sought ways to align the field with the anti-oppressive principles it has long espoused. One expression of this struggle is a growing interest in prison-industrial complex (PIC) abolition, primarily among social work students and early career scholars, who are eager to study this critical theory of change and apply it to the various domains of social work practice and research (e.g., schools, family policing, healthcare, the legal system, and beyond). As social work educators and scholars whose work is centered on reducing the size, scope, and power of the PIC, we regularly engage with doctoral students who wish to align their work with their deeply held values of justice, solidarity, and liberation. In response to these conversations, we designed a workshop for doctoral students in our program titled “Research for Structural Change.” This workshop provided students with a primer on PIC abolition and explored the framework of non-reformist reforms—a concept firmly rooted in abolitionist praxis—as a way to apply abolitionist thinking to their research inquiries. Non-reformist reforms, as opposed to reformist reforms, are changes that seek to alter the very foundation of a structure rather than leaving it intact and tinkering at the margins. This framework offers questions and heuristics which we employed to guide students working across substantive areas in developing research questions and designs that maximize the potential for structural transformation. During the workshop, we first modeled the exploration of examples from our own work, including projects that were uncompromising in their pursuit of abolitionist principles, as well as projects in which we negotiated the tensions of available opportunities, partnership constraints, and funding demands, or made deliberate decisions to engage in harm reduction within a systems context. We then provided students with prompts that helped them excavate and interrogate their specific areas of inquiry. For example, we asked them to identify the constructs and metrics traditionally centered in their area of research and to examine the underlying assumptions of those constructs and metrics. To help students engage with this exercise, we talked through “recidivism” and “criminogenic risk,” two commonly accepted measurements that are ubiquitous within our realm of criminal punishment work and uphold harmful constructions of safety. Our facilitation approach created an intentional space for students to be vulnerable about their difficulties. We found that students openly shared examples, questions, and conundrums, and were able to generatively challenge themselves and others. Afterward, we received affirmation and appreciation from students about how the workshop shifted their thinking. This manuscript will provide an in-depth description of this original teaching activity, and offer our reflexive experience as educators and facilitators. It will show how this teaching activity expanded our students’ capacity for recognizing how research can uphold systems of oppression, and strengthened their skills in designing research for structural change
AGED 539 Graduate Internship Report - Johansen High School
No full textSupervised Agricultural Experiences (SAEs) are a foundational component of agricultural education, yet inconsistent implementation and assessment practices can limit their instructional impact. This project presents the development and implementation of a standardized SAE project framework designed to support equitable, work-based learning experiences across a secondary agricultural education department. The framework includes a unified student guide, analytic grading rubric, reflective components, and aligned assessment tools that emphasize accurate recordkeeping, skill development, and professional communication. By establishing consistent expectations for annual SAE completion across all agricultural courses, this project promotes student accountability, clarity, and fairness while strengthening alignment with the National FFA Three-Circle Model and California Career Technical Education standards. Findings suggest that standardized SAE resources improve student understanding of experiential learning requirements, enhance reflective practice, and support meaningful connections between classroom instruction, career readiness, and industry engagement. This project contributes a practical, replicable model for strengthening SAE implementation in secondary agricultural education programs
AGED 539 Graduate Internship Report- El Capitan High School
No full textThis graduate internship portfolio demonstrates the development and implementation of a comprehensive agricultural education program at El Capitan High School. It includes evidence of meeting California Agriculture Education standards through classroom instruction, SAE supervision, and FFA leadership activities. The document showcases key program components such as course outlines, advisory committee materials, program plans, recruitment efforts, budget processes, and professional development. A major focus of the internship was creating structured curriculum resources including pacing guides for the introductory agriculture course to strengthen instructional continuity and student engagement. Through program organization, collaboration, and leadership development, this internship highlights meaningful progress in advancing a high-quality, student-centered agricultural education program
DC to AC Voltage Source Converter Control System
No full textThe Voltage Source Converter Control System integrates a control system for a 2-phase half-bridge voltage source converter (VSC) utilizing a TMS320F2837xD Dual-Core Real-Time Microcontroller. VSCs are critical for the integration of power production into the power grid. They allow for accurate control over DC-AC energy conversion. Additionally with the improvement of renewable energies VSCs play a critical role in controlling the flow of these environmentally controlled and more unpredictable sources of energy. The control system regulates the output current and voltage, regulates switching patterns, and maintains power stability under varying loads. Within the control system Digital control systems, PWM generation, and feedback controls are implemented in order to further system stability and reliability. Ultimately this project implements applications for a VSC control system in a scalable practical setting allowing for advanced power conversion and a more efficient and environmental power grid