U . S . N AVA L A C A D E M Y A L U M N I A S S O C I AT I O N A N D F O U N D AT I O N
2021–2022 IMPACT REPORT:
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
2021–2022 IMPACT REPORT
PROJECT-BASED LEARNING SUMMARY
Mathematics and Science and Humanities and Social Sciences. Traditionally held each spring, Capstone Day
Project-based learning is an integral part of the Brigade
offers midshipmen the chance to present their project-
experience. Midshipmen gain real-life experience
based learning research to their peers and the Naval
through teamwork, problem solving and designing
Academy community.
their own experiments. The yearlong process involved creating proposals, debating ideas, collecting data and
The Capstone Day 2022 Brochure and the Capstone Day
demonstrating their results.
homepage offer detailed descriptions on the diverse range of projects and programs that use project-based learning.
The Naval Academy’s annual federal appropriation
The teams also coordinated web presentations through
does not fund the entire range of project-based learning
their academic departments. To view some of these
activities necessary to achieve these goals, so the
projects and watch their presentations, please visit the
generosity of donors provides a vital margin of excellence.
following pages:
Thanks to these supporters, project-based learning continues to be instrumental in preparing midshipmen
PROJECTS FROM THE SCHOOL OF
for the challenges they will face in the Fleet.
ENGINEERING & WEAPONS
With the support of faculty, partner organizations and
PROJECTS FROM THE SCHOOL OF MATH & SCIENCE
sponsors, every midshipman completes a research project
PROJECTS FROM THE SCHOOL OF
in their field of study before they graduate. This year’s
HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES
graduating class included more than 270 multidisciplinary projects in the fields of Engineering and Weapons,
U.S. Naval Academy midshipmen present their capstone project in Alumni Hall
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PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
This brief review highlights just a few of the projects
testing, RSat was delivered to NASA for a launch to the
and programs that use project-based learning in Hopper
ISS in Nov 2023. The student team will be coordinating
Hall, Aerospace Engineering and Weapons, Robotics and
its operation in orbit via coordination with the astronauts
Control Engineering majors.
on the ISS, connecting remotely through ground control at NASA Marshall.
AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING
The Aerospace Engineering Department utilized donor
The Mechanical Engineering Department utilized generous
funding to purchase electronic equipment and hardware
private funding to support the following project-based
for various aircraft design projects supporting the
learning initiatives:
Principles of Aerospace Engineering course. Teams of
•
Digital Fluid Flow Trainer—This 6’ x 6’ foot rolling lab display was built with two tanks and various piping to allow water to be pumped from one tank to the other in a variety of ways. Used as a classroom demonstration aid as well as in lab settings, the trainer allows students to become more familiar with the major and minor head losses associated with pumping fluid through different components. Students develop a better physical understanding of how pressure changes throughout a system and gain more intuition for using Bernoulli’s equation in real life settings.
•
Digital Image Correlation System—Mechanical Engineering purchased portions of a digital imaging correlation system that can quantify how a part is deforming across the entire surface as it is stretched, bent, or compressed. Most experimental methods collect this data at only a few select points or in many cases assume that all points behave the same. By knowing what is happening at all points on the surface students can better identify where and why parts break. This system will be used in the classroom to expand our hands-on lab exercises as well as to support future independent research projects. Work is currently being done to apply this system to a lab in the Strength of Materials course.
•
Materials to support several capstone projects, including general purpose prototyping equipment used by several projects, the Build My Wheelchair project (in particular a hydration system), an automated pill dispenser project, Spike skeleton shoes for skeleton project to mimic toe-tap for parathletes and the Audiball project where the device produces an audible tone or sounds to allow for location of a basketball.
students applied the knowledge gained in the course to design and build aircraft and competed to determine which design best met mission requirements. The project gave students an opportunity to directly apply engineering concepts to an operable aircraft. The projects included: •
Maritime Adversarial Defense Penetrating Net retrieved Unmanned Tester (MAD P-NUT) unmanned aircraft—This aircraft is designed to defeat anti-unmanned aircraft systems.
•
Data Acquisition Vehicle in Storm (DAViS) unmanned aircraft—The DAViS aircraft was designed to be launched from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s WP-3 “Hurricane Hunter” aircraft. It has the ability to send atmospheric data from the eyewall of the hurricane to the WP-3.
•
Arctic Eider survey unmanned aircraft system—Arctic Eider was designed to detect underground polar bear dens on Alaska’s North Slope. The aircraft employed multispectral cameras to survey large areas of land. Due to the terrain, the aircraft was designed to take off vertically and transition to forward flight in the air. The bear locations were used to ensure development was planned to minimize impact on the environment.
The Aerospace Engineering Department also sent capstone students to NASA Huntsville Space Flight Center in Huntsville, AL to perform capstone research and NASA Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston, TX for a fit test of the RSat in preparation for launch and its installation on the International Space Station (ISS). The purpose for RSat is to create a robotics system capable of on-orbit assembly, repair and imaging. In developing this experiment, the midshipmen are breaking new ground as this technology does not yet exist. After successfully
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2021–2022 IMPACT REPORT
ENGINEERING & WEAPONS
ELECTRICAL AND COMPUTER ENGINEERING
RICKOVER CAPSTONE DESIGN SPACE The Department used a space in Rickover (RI-002) as
The Department utilized donor funding to procure:
a prototype for future interdisciplinary capstone design spaces. An initial configuration was established and
•
Parts, solder, IC chips, buttons, sensors and motors to greatly enhance the available on-hand selection of parts for capstone projects.
•
RF cables and adaptors to support the creation of a new RF anechoic chamber. This facility provides a previously unavailable ability to design and test high frequency radio frequency components such as antennas.
•
Supplies to facilitate a USNA railgun project; in particular, magnetic cores to create inductors that could handle 1kA DC pulse currents to drive the armature of the railgun
implemented and there are six capstone teams assigned to the space this academic year. Generous donor investments add tools, prototyping materials, digital displays and furniture for a creative space. The projects using the space this year include a solar collector for an organic rankine cycle, a disc golf launching system, a pedal assist bike for a person with a disability, and an adapted steering system of a canoe for a veteran competing in the Paralympics. The electronics, tools, monitors and a portion of the rolling workbenches have been purchased and will be in use
WEAPONS, ROBOTICS & CONTROL ENGINEERING
shortly. Additional equipment will be purchased to enable students to stream from their computers directly to the monitors. The project also includes furniture to create a
This Department utilized private funding to enhance a
more relaxed, creative environment in one corner of the
wide spectrum of project-based learning experiences,
room.
including:
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PROJECT-BASED LEARNING
•
Sailbot 2022—funding provided solar panels and control software to work with on-board solar charging in preparation for a trans-Atlantic voyage of the USNA Sailbot
•
Gears, hardware, electrical connectors and flow sensors were purchased for the EW309 gun turret design project, a Nerf gun turret redesign for a guided design experience course lab apparatus.
•
Many student projects were improved through the acquisition of Inertial Measuring Units—BNO-055 IMU boards—that measure velocity, position and acceleration using inertial sensor chips.
•
Transmitters and receiver sets were purchased for manual operation of Robot Football platforms, allowing midshipmen to tele-operate the robot football players using remote control
•
The Student Unmanned Aerial Systems (SUAS) team used private funding to improve systems integration in the UAS as well as obtain high gain directional antennae that provided the needed signal strength to extend the range of their UAS. The four Robotics & Control Engineering majors and two faculty advisors were able to travel to Patuxent River, MD
to finish internships that finished their entries to the AUVSI-SUAS competition. Subsequently, two of the newly graduated USNA Ensigns were accepted to present their UAS capstone research at the 2022 International Conference on Unmanned Aircraft Systems in Dubrovnik, Croatia.
NAVAL ARCHITECTURE & OCEAN ENGINEERING The Naval Architecture and Ocean Engineering Department used private funding to support numerous capstone projects, highlighted by the following: •
USNA’s Concrete Canoe Team created a concrete canoe that was entered in the 2022 ASCE Concrete Canoe Competition at Louisiana Tech University. The team provided an oral presentation to a panel of highly qualified ASCE civil engineers and more than held their own in fierce competition on the water.
•
Midshipmen made capstone site visits to support two Ocean Engineering capstone projects •
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One team visited the National Estuarine Research Reserve on Waquoit Bay, MA
2021–2022 IMPACT REPORT
COMPUTER SCIENCE
where they conducted a site survey of beach topography and bathymetry, collected sediment samples and met with the reserve managers. The team will use this data as the foundation for their design to improve the resilience of the reserve to flooding and erosion. •
The Computer Science Department utilized donor funding to purchase 4 laptops with identical, high-performance processors and Bluetooth audio capability for Trident experiments on encrypted audio—one serving as a software development machine and the others to connect
The second team completed site assessments at a proposed living shoreline site in Havre de Grace, Maryland and at an established living shoreline in Crownsville, Maryland. At the proposed site in Havre de Grace, students met with the project client to identify opportunities for incorporating resilience in shore protection designs.
encrypted audio between four simultaneous users. A Lenovo server was procured to provide a virtualization environment for student robotic control code development in the SI475 course. Finally, a batch of Galaxy 9 Mobile Phones that were purchased using private funding allows students to download and test android apps on an actual device rather than simply working on virtual phones.
CYBER SCIENCE
CHEMISTRY
The Cyber Science Department has been using private
The Chemistry Department utilized private funding to
funding to create computer environments where USNA
acquire a total organic carbon analyzer with autosampler
midshipmen can test their classroom educations on real
and total nitrogen module, capable of handling high salt
networks and computers. The 2021–2022 purchases
and total suspended solid samples for a wide array of
supported the creation of a Digital Forensics course and
aquatic and marine water analyses. This instrumentation
laboratory. A Netgate pfFsense router serves to isolate
reinforces concepts in analysis techniques from other
the lab environment from the mission network with a
courses (such as analytical chemistry and integrated labs)
KVM interface providing further security. Commercial
and allows midshipmen to directly measure environmental
labs from cybersecurity vendors Forensics Store and Teel
samples rather than having to send samples out and only
Technologies represent passive devices on the network for
analyze the data. Allowing far more hands-on incorporation
midshipmen labs.
of project-based learning in research/capstone experiences, the instrument has been installed and will be used with the SERDP Greenland project in the next year.
IMPACT QUOTE: “The opportunity to do engage in multiple years of research was the highlight of my Naval Academy career. Project based research at USNA helped me create a mental framework for how I could apply my years of strong academic foundation to contribute towards solving real local, regional and global problems, which was really inspiring as an undergraduate. It forever changed my perspective on academia and opened my eyes to a world of new future professional pursuits I never knew existed.” – PIPPIN ROBISON ‘22 Trident Scholar under Asst. Prof. Jennifer Guerard of Chemistry
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PROJECT-BASED LEARNIN
OCEANOGRAPHY
PHYSICS
Within the Oceanography Department, private funding
Thanks to generous donor funding, the Physics
was used in support of several initiatives that facilitate
Department acquired a low-light level ultra-low
project-based learning, including the procurement of:
noise charged couple device (CCD Camera) for the
•
spectroscopic suite in the photonics and quantum
•
•
A new environmental sensor payload for the EcoMapper autonomous underwater vehicle, calibration equipment and water sampling equipment from Fisher Scientific that facilitated multiple Capstone Research projects this semester.
systems laboratory. The USNA Photonics Laboratory is conducting scientific research and technical training on solid-state electronic magnetometer systems for future naval weapons and navigation applications. The current spectroscopic system used to characterize, detect and
A HOBO water level sensor used in two Capstone Research projects this past semester.
measure single quantum systems includes an integrated spectrometer, optical sources and a deep-cooled CCD camera but the camera was ten years old and not taking
Sensors, hardware and calibration materials that supported the Severn River Watershed Observatory (SRWO), which is part of the larger Oceanography Department applied data science initiative and the Environmental Data, Monitoring and Prediction System (EDMAPS). EDMAPS and SRWO are used in nearly all core classes within the oceanography department and facilitate real-world data exploration (both locally collected and from external institutions) in project-based learning lab settings.
full advantage of the system capabilities. Midshipmen 1/C (now ENS) Troy Dewitt installed and calibrated the system in the Photonics Laboratory spectroscopy suite. He achieved “first light” and was able to image the photoluminescent spectrum of atomic-scale defects engineered in a semiconductor device with applications in ultra-sensitive magnetometry. The work was done in conjunction with researchers at Navy Research Laboratory’s new Quantum Sensing Branch.
THANK YOU Thank you for your support for project-based learning at the Naval Academy. Thanks to external collaborators and the generous support of donors, project-based learning continues to create exceptional learning opportunities and professional development experiences for midshipmen.
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