23 minute read
AROUND CENG
CENG Kicks Off New Student Recognition Program
Cal Poly Engineering students are changing the world around them, one project, class and club at a time. To help students showcase their accomplishments both inside and outside of the classroom, the College of Engineering kicked off Engineering, by Design, a new CENG recognition program focused on helping students receive credit for all the good things they do.
Advertisement
“We partnered with Preciate, a peer appreciation platform where badges,” Eric Mehiel, associate dean for diversity and student success, said. “The badges correspond to the Engineering, by Design value areas, including work experience, leadership, civic engagement, inclusion, professional skills and cultural context.”
Engineering, by Design allows students to tap into something valuable: peer- and faculty-verified recognition, further valued by recognition by the Engineering Dean’s anyone can give and receive recognition, and created six custom
Office. n
For more on the Engineering, by Design program, visit www.ceng.calpoly.edu/engineering-by-design.
A BRIGHT FUTURE FOR COMPUTER ENGINEERING
After much discussion among college leaders, the College of Engineering is excited to announce that the Computer Engineering (CPE) program will become a department.
“This promising new direction comes as the college seeks to provide more value to CPE students and will ultimately strengthen the structure, system and culture of computer engineering,” said Dean Amy S. Fleischer. to implement, the goal is to have the department operational for the 2021-22 academic year. The department will have a dynamic, flexible and adaptive, interdisciplinary Learn by Doing curriculum that
will prepare students to become industry leaders, all with even stronger collaboration between the CPE, Computer Science and Software Engineering, and Electrical Engineering departments. n
The Cal Poly Computer Engineering Program had 459 students in 2019.
1
2
3
4
1 — More than 40 engineering students from Cal Poly attended WE19, the world’s largest conference for female engineers sponsored by the Society of Women Engineers, in Anaheim, California, in November. 2 — While out and about visiting San Diego alumni, President Jeffrey D. Armstrong, former Senior Director of Development Amanda McAdams and Dean Amy Fleischer happened upon a unique suspension bridge.
3 — Horns o’plenty: General Engineering Program Director Dan Jansen was easy to find in the crowd at the College of Engineering Student Welcome Assembly in September. 4 — A group of Cal Poly College of Engineering Ambassadors met astronaut Rick Sturckow (Mechanical Engineering, ’84), who piloted the STS-88 Endeavour in 1998, at the Evening of Green & Gold in Los Angeles.
5
6
5 —Dean Amy Fleischer, here with Congresswoman Norma Torres, was one of several engineering deans who advocated in front of Congress in Washington, D.C., about the importance of engineering and engineering education.
6 — Cal Poly’s Engineers Without Borders club (EWB) is currently working on four projects based in Nipomo, Fiji, Malawi and Nicaragua. The club, founded in 2005, has served several local and global communities mainly with issues around clean drinking water.
8
7 — With a record 263 companies on campus recruiting, the 2019 Fall Career Fair attracted more than 4,700 Cal Poly students to the Rec Center in October. 8 — Clad in a twinkling electricorange suit, structural engineer Ashraf Habibullah, president and CEO of Computers and Structures, Inc., delivered a memorable keynote address at the 2019 Winter Commencement.
NOTE FROM DEAN AMY S. FLEISCHER
COPiNG WITH covid-19: the new reality
Industrial and manufacturing engineering students meet on Zoom while working on six pandemic-related projects, including a lab facility to sterilize donated nonmedical masks. Since I became the dean of Cal Poly’s College of Engineering two years ago, I’ve seen countless examples of students employing their newfound engineering skills to help make the world a better place. But when COVID-19 threatened health worldwide, the virus presented a challenge like none other — and many of our students rose to that challenge, helping the scientific community battle this troublesome crisis.
Meanwhile, when we learned that the campus would have to move to virtual classes as part of a countywide shelter-at-home order, our faculty quickly adapted to virtual teaching with the kinds of creative ideas we have come to expect from our top-notch engineers.
Though many of the stories in this edition of Engineering Advantage highlight campus life prior to the pandemic, we wanted to “stop the presses” to include stories about how our CENG community has responded to it. And as we highlight students and faculty, I want to also thank those who have offered financial support. With your generosity, our students will continue to excel — because they can’t wait to make a difference. n
Hans Mayer, a faculty member in the Cal Poly Mechanical Engineering Department, uses multiple camera angles to enhance his virtual lab.
Learning from afar
FROM LAB TO SCREEN, FACULTY PUTS NEW FOCUS ON ONLINE LEARNING
In a lonely lab on a mostly deserted campus, Hans Mayer readies his three camera angles, launches his Zoom meeting, and goes live with his virtual lab.
On one side of the screen, students see numbers from a data acquisitions system, and on the other is a yellow panel featuring a compressor, condenser and several gauges. Currently offscreen is a whiteboard, which Mayer will also use for his heat transfer course.
“Okay, so this is what you would be standing in front of if you were in the lab with me today,” the mechanical engineering assistant professor tells his students.
When the Cal Poly campus went virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, faculty had to practice Learn by Doing of their own, quickly figuring out how they were going to teach classes remotely.
Mayer decided to employ multiple angles.
“I wanted to give my students the closest possible thing to actually being in the lab,” he said. “We’re all trying our best for our students, whatever form that may take.”
To help with hands-on learning from afar, some faculty sent equipment to students. Christian Eckhardt, a faculty member in the Computer Science and Software Engineering Department, sent virtual reality headsets to students for his Mixed Reality class, and the Electrical Engineering Department sent 274 students Analog Discovery 2 devices to generate and measure mixed signal circuits, said Department Chair Dennis Derickson.
“For $161, it’s a pretty good instrument,” he said.
Other electrical engineering students received radios purchased by Raytheon.
While students say they prefer the structure and facilities on campus to online instruction, electrical engineering lecturer Steve Dunton said he has learned from the challenge.
“I know I’ll come out of this with better presentation materials than I otherwise would have developed.” n
STEPPING UP DURING A CRISIS
STUDENTS AND GRADUATES USE ENGINEERING SKILLS TO BATTLE THE PANDEMIC
After he had to return home due to the coronavirus, Kadin Feldis, a mechanical engineering student, began helping his community by designing and producing protective shields for medical professionals.
Soon after Cal Poly’s campus went virtual due to the COVID-19 pandemic, engineering student Cristian Sion began using his Learn by Doing skills to make respirator masks for medical professionals in San Luis Obispo.
Meanwhile, 3,300 miles away in Alaska, fellow student Kadin Feldis began making protective face shields for hospital employees in his hometown of Anchorage, and Shaunessy Grant, a 2017 graduate, was helping NASA design a ventilator in Pasadena that could be easily mass produced. The three not only showed how quickly engineers can adapt to unforeseen scenarios, they also demonstrated how their training can be applied for good causes.
“I am glad that I am in a position to help, and am proud of the skills I have developed at Cal Poly and elsewhere that allowed me to take on this project,” said Feldis, a mechanical engineering major.
— Mechanical engineering student Kadin Feldis
continue learning remotely. Around that time, a hospital facilities engineer in San Luis Obispo asked Sion if he could help design and create respirator masks.
“I jumped at the opportunity and made a few prototypes for him the same day,” said Sion, a double major in materials and manufacturing engineering.
Not only did Sion and Feldis create needed equipment, they also improved on existing designs. Sion’s mask, for example, made it easier
Cal Poly Engineering alumna Shaunessy Grant poses for a photo at the Spacecraft Assembly Factory at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. Grant and a team of engineers at JPL designed an easy-to-make ventilator that others can manufacture.
Engineering student Cristian Sion is using 3D printers in his garage to make the N95-style respirators that medical professionals are finding in short supply.
for medical professionals to breathe, while Feldis’ creation was more durable and covered more facial area than existing shields. For both projects, input from medical professionals was crucial to the designs.
“As we gather feedback, we make modifications to the design for our next production batch,” Feldis said.
Professionals at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab also consulted with medical experts when they set out to design an easy-to-make prototype ventilator tailored to COVID-19 patients, addressing a critical nationwide shortage.
Grant, who graduated with a mechanical engineering degree, had previously worked on groundbreaking projects involving Jupiter and Mars. But once the pandemic broke, she became one of 175 on the ventilator team and one of 20 who performed hardware work in the lab as a quality assurance engineer. Their ventilator, designed in 37 days, was recently approved by the FDA, and the license was made available for free so others could quickly mass produce it.
“I think this is an amazing opportunity to give back during this unsettling time,” she said. n
HIGH TECH FOR ALL
CAL POLY ALUMNA KATRINA DICKSON WANTS TO SUPPORT DIVERSITY IN STEM
Katrina Dickson is a liberal arts graduate in a STEM world. And working at Apple Inc. has given her great insights and appreciation for tech careers.
“I entered the industry in 2008 through a graphic design position, which happened to be situated in a software organization,” she said. “I witnessed not only how technology had the potential to radically transform the way we live, I also became aware of the economic transformation it offered individuals who contributed to building those technologies.”
Since she benefitted from that field — and her education at Cal Poly — Dickson decided to give back, donating money for Cal Poly students to attend the Grace Hopper Celebration, the world’s largest gathering of women in computing.
“When you get to the conference, you are surrounded by thousands of amazing, talented women who you are going to find you have perhaps a surprising amount in common with,” she said.
The shortage of diversity in tech has been well documented. Dickson said that it impacts innovation and progress — from facial recognition technology that has higher error rates for dark skin to NASA’s recent cancellation of an all-woman spacewalk because they only had one space suit designed for a woman.
Katrina Dickson, right, with Ines Simbi at the HackerNest hackathon.
Greater diversity will ensure that technology is designed for everyone, said Dickson, who recently set up a scholarship to support students who are invested in racial and gender inclusivity while pursuing degrees in computer science, computer engineering and aerospace engineering.
“No matter your field, the fact is that having a diverse team enables you to build the best product,” she said.
More diversity in tech could also offset a societal imbalance, she said.
“As a country, we have a major opportunity gap and growing income inequality that disproportionately impacts women, communities of color and rural communities,” she said. “A STEM education and career is not a magic wand, and it may not be of interest to everyone, but anyone should be empowered to participate.”
As a child, Dickson was interested in both arts and technology.
“When I was in elementary school, my dad brought home an old computer from work, and as I played around on it, I found I was equally as interested in designing logos and letterhead for imaginary businesses as I was in figuring out how to ‘hack’ the startup screen to display a custom image,” she said.
At Cal Poly, art initially won her over.
“When I started, I thought I would get a degree related to design and then apply that to the music industry,” said Dickson, who was general manager at KCPR as a student. “I wanted to start my own record label.”
Then Apple called. n
CENG&COVID-19
Since our initial interview with Katrina Dickson, she has been continuing her work for Apple from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. As she reports: “Currently working remotely and appreciating the FaceTime app for staying connected with loved ones!”
Cal Poly Scholars: Building a Sense of Community
The Cal Poly Scholars program helped mechanical engineering student Dylan Ruiz feel more connected to the university.
Growing up, Dylan Ruiz would often ride dirt bikes with his father, leading to a lifelong hobby and an interest in how things work.
“My dad was mechanically inclined, so he would teach me about the different parts of the bike,” Ruiz said.
While his father never went to college, his lessons sparked Ruiz’s interest in mechanical engineering. Meanwhile, the Cal Poly Scholars program offered the first-generation college student a sense of belonging.
“The scholars program definitely helped me feel more connected to this university,” Ruiz said. “It introduced me to many great people from the start of the school year. It also gives opportunities to make you feel more included with its different activities.”
Cal Poly Scholars is a program that recruits high-achieving students with financial needs from California high schools. In addition to providing students scholarships, the program seeks to retain them by offering helpful workshops and housing them together.
“From the beginning, you are meeting your fellow scholars by living with them,” said Ruiz, from La Quinta, California. “It also gives opportunities to make you feel more included with its different activities.” Ruiz, who was supported specifically by Boeing’s Cal Poly Scholars scholarship, is currently a member of Cal Poly Racing, which builds cars for competition.
While his father inspired a lifelong dirt bike hobby, Ruiz now has bigger wheels in mind.
“My dream career is to work with cars or motorcycles,” Ruiz said. “I want to be involved with the design or creation of new models.”n
Support Cal Poly Scholars
The Cal Poly Scholars program, gives high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds opportunities they have earned through hard work and dedication.
A gift of $12,500 supports one Cal Poly Scholar for up to five years, while a $75,000 gift establishes an endowment fund to support one Cal Poly Scholar annually. Cal Poly will match scholarships up to $2,500 a year.
The program provides an annual scholarship, a two-year living-learning community for incoming freshmen, and workshops to support development and retention. For more information, visit the Cal Poly Scholars page at giving.calpoly.edu.
USING FAILURE FOR SUCCESS
VICE PRESIDENT OF WISH EMBRACES COMPUTER SCIENCE — AFTER NEARLY ABANDONING IT
Computer science student Louise Ibuna is vice president of Cal Poly’s Women involved in Software & Hardware.
After an early quarter that resulted in a jolting 0.35 GPA, Louise Ibuna didn’t feel like she belonged in the Computer Science Department — and it wasn’t just because of her grades. The Filipina transfer student was not only a woman of color, making her a rarity in her computer science classes, but she was also a transfer student unprepared for the intensity of the highly competitive program.
“It was definitely 100 percent ‘Imposter Syndrome,’” she said.
But as she considered changing majors, a visit to the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing conference caused her to
CENG&COVID-19 pause and rethink her future. And now, as vice president of Cal Poly’s Women Involved in
WISH members have continued to stay connected virtually during Software & Hardware (WISH) sheltering, said Vice President club, she’s hoping to inspire
Louise Ibuna. other women to succeed in the “We recently started office hours with Cal Poly Robotics so members historically male-dominated from both groups can come and tech program. hang out,” she said. “We’ve also held game nights every couple weeks to incorporate a fun environment.” “I feel a lot more confident Meanwhile, every other week, now,” she said. “One of the big
WISH advisor Zoë J. Wood hosts things I want to do before I
WISH alumni panels with three to graduate is to inspire people. four alumni discussing their experi ence in industry, with advice for Yes, I went through some members. pretty hard times as a software engineering major, and I had to go through these obstacles, but I pretty much had that motivation to not give up.” can dream before Ibuna was born, and her father followed as a legal build something from the ground up.” Grande. The community college, located in Santa Maria, was more herself in classes with students who Already feeling like an outsider, that disposition intensified in the spring of her first year, when her poor grades put her at risk for disqualification. “I just remember crying,” she said. “I felt like I didn’t belong in the major because of my identity or my motivation to work in an intense environment like Cal Poly.” On the edge of switching her major, she decided to attend the Grace Hopper conference. “I was very hesitant about going there because it was me missing a week of school to go to Florida,” she said. “And so I was thinking back to myself, ‘Is this actually worth it?’”
She did go. And while there, one of the speakers, from tech company Cisco Systems, gave her some sage advice.
“She said, ‘The biggest thing is to use your failure as a compliment to success,’” Ibuna recalled.
Meanwhile, a former career counselor at Hancock helped further, saying, “You told me you had a goal that you wanted to inspire other women. Why are you quitting on the school right now?”
Ibuna decided not to change majors.
She became more involved in WISH, eventually becoming vice
Ibuna’s parents grew up and went to college in the Philippines, where When Oracle and Yahoo! Pioneer Farzad (Zod) Nazem was recently her mother became a nurse and her father became a mechanical enpresented with an Honored Alumnus award on campus, Ibuna was gineer. Her mother moved to the United States, seeking the Ameriinvited to speak. citizen when Ibuna was five. “WISH has been a safe space for myself and the like-minded women While there was cultural pressure to follow her mother’s path to nursas a computing major,” she said during that speech. “The fight for ing, Ibuna wasn’t interested. “I did not want to do nursing or anyequality in computing is still a long path, but one day, organizations thing in the medical field because I didn’t want to deal with blood,” like WISH will be the reason why there is a community that wants to she said. “Engineering was really cool to me because I wanted to make that change.” Ibuna first went to Allan Hancock College, close to her native Arroyo now she does so with confidence. diverse and tight-knit compared to Cal Poly, she said. Once she trans“WISH has been a safe space for myself and the ferred to Cal Poly, she often found like-minded women around me who are handling the had already forged connections struggle of being underrepresented as a computing major. with their peers. The fight for equality in computing is still a long path, but
one day, organizations like WISH will be the reason why there is a community that wants to make that change.”
president. And, as she felt more accepted, her grades improved. around me who are handling the struggle of being underrepresented While it was difficult to open up about her experience, Ibuna said “I’m an underrepresented minority, I’m a transfer student, and I’m a woman in tech,” she said. “And this is how I handled it — basically by not giving up.” n
For more on Women Involved in Software & Hardware, visit calpoly.edu/~wish.
A LEARN BY DOING SUMMER
A
Biomedical engineering student Alyssa McCulloch checks out a solution in the lab as part of her SURP project.
A LEARN BY DOING SUMMER
B
C
A —“Scaled Autonomous Vehicle Development and Testing” was the summer focus of four mechanical engineering students. B — Engineering students worked out at the Cal Poly Educational Flight Range on a SURP project titled “Applications of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles.” C — Sponsored by Poly Gives, Professor Theresa Migler and a group of computer science and math students worked on the “Construction of a Cal Poly Academic Collaboration Network.”
KNOWN AS SURP, THE SUMMER UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH PROGRAM CONTINUES TO SOAR
On a foggy day in Avila Beach, California, during the summer of 2019, industry- and faculty-sponsored research. Expanding SURP, which will occur virtually in its “SURP lets the materials engineering students Matt third year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, is one students not Fuentez and Kevin Iu pull a line out of of the College of Engineering’s three primary the 40-foot water at the end of the Cal Poly Pier. campaign goals. only build a They’re not fishing for rockfish or salmon; their “catch” is a titanium coil that’s been submerged in the ocean for the past seven weeks. As part of their Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP), they are testing the impacts of seawater on the coil for a Cal Poly alumnus who plans to use titanium to make artificial reefs.
“We found some barnacles,” Fuentez says, after the team performs initial inspections. “We found some little scallops as well. And we’re trying to measure how well the titanium is suited in a marine environment.” “The challenge we have is that our engineering students are in such demand at the junior and senior level, that the younger students don’t have an opportunity to go out and get an internship because all of those are taken,” said Bob Crockett, associate dean for innovation infrastructure. “SURP lets the students not only build a resume but also build a set of skills that they might not get in the classroom.”
Expanding the popular program, though, requires more sponsors, Crockett said. Currently, the College of Engineering funds roughly half the projects — and the demand is there for many more.
classroom.”
Materials engineering students Dylan Elland, Matt Fuentez, Vincent Guarino and Kevin Iu hoist a titanium coil from the water off the Cal Poly Pier as part of their SURP project to build an artificial reef.
CENG&COVID-19
When it became clear that shelterat-home orders would impact the SURP program, the College of Engineering quickly worked with sponsors to transform this year’s program to virtual projects. Not only did sponsors develop projects that could be done remotely, they also offered increased financial support so more students than anticipated could participate. This year, the number of project proposals increased from 42, prior to the sheltering orders, to 50 revised virtual projects. Seventy students will participate in SURP 2020. This year’s program includes projects that will study the motion of baseball pitchers, use artificial intelligence to recognize sharks in aerial drone footage, and develop a deep space communication system for small spacecraft.
B
A — Computer science student Gabriel Medina-Kim explains his SURP networking project to College of Engineering Dean Amy S. Fleischer.
B — SURP students competed in a poster contest during the SURP Symposium. Posing with program director Bob Crockett, right, are third-place winner Alec Williams, left, and May Kyaw, who won first place with team members Arielle Sampson and Runjia Chen for her Applications of Unmanned Vehicles poster.
C — Biomedical engineering student Maddie Jackson employed a drill as part of her SURP project on microscopy of vascular networks.
D — Mechanical engineering student Abigail Jones worked with Professor Jacques Belanger on a project that aims to make the Cal Poly Gold Tree Solar Farm more efficient.
D
For 2019, the college had to limit the number of students in the program to 73, yet there were 350 students who wanted the opportunity, Crockett said. With the pandemic impacting internships and service jobs, the number of applicants for SURP 2020 increased to around 500 for 70 positions. “So sponsorships let us offer the same experience to a wider range of students.”
Each project costs $10,000 for two students and one faculty member.
While the main goal is to give students experience with research, many of the projects have potential impact beyond. Abigail Jones, a mechanical engineering student, worked on a project that would make Cal Poly’s solar farm more efficient. “It’s really important for me to be involved in a project that makes a difference for Cal Poly and California and to show that we, as a university, need to think about these things for our future,” she said.
Roger Benham, the alumnus who sponsored the artificial reef project, knows how difficult it can be for undergraduates to get relevant summer work.
“I know it’s a good program, and I hope Cal Poly can put more resources toward it,” said Benham, who owns LCS Inc., a corrosion control company in San Diego. “I remember being a student and not being able to get internships and working at a bike shop or a plating shop or construction jobs over the summer.”n
