Barrett, The Honors College Thesis/Creative Project Collection
Barrett, The Honors College at Arizona State University proudly showcases the work of undergraduate honors students by sharing this collection exclusively with the ASU community.
Barrett accepts high performing, academically engaged undergraduate students and works with them in collaboration with all of the other academic units at Arizona State University. All Barrett students complete a thesis or creative project which is an opportunity to explore an intellectual interest and produce an original piece of scholarly research. The thesis or creative project is supervised and defended in front of a faculty committee. Students are able to engage with professors who are nationally recognized in their fields and committed to working with honors students. Completing a Barrett thesis or creative project is an opportunity for undergraduate honors students to contribute to the ASU academic community in a meaningful way.
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Description
The main objective of this project was to continue research and development of a building integrated solar thermoelectric generator (BISTEG). BISTEG is a promising renewable energy technology that is capable of generating electrical energy from the heat of concentrated sunlight. In order to perform R&D, the performance of different TEG cells and TEG setups were tested and analyzed, proof-of-concepts and prototypes were built. and the performance of the proof-of-concepts and prototypes were tested and analyzed as well. In order to test different TEG cells and TEG setups, a TEG testing apparatus was designed and fabricated. The apparatus is capable of comparing the performance of TEGs with temperature differentials up to 200 degrees C. Along with a TEG testing apparatus, several proof-of-concepts and prototypes were completed. All of these were tested in order to determine the feasibility of the design. All three proof-of-concepts were only capable of producing a voltage output less than 300mV. The prototype, however, was capable of producing a max output voltage of 17 volts. Although the prototype outperformed all of the proof-of-concepts, optimizations to the design can continue to improve the output voltage. In order to do so, stacked TEG tests were performed. After performing the stacked TEG tests, it was determined that the use of stacked TEGs depended on the Fresnel lens chosen. If BISTEG were to use a point focused Fresnel lens, using a stack of TEGs could increase the power density. If BISTEG were to utilize a linear focused Fresnel lens, however, the TEGs should not be stacked. It would be more efficient to lay them out side by side. They can be stacked, however, if the energy density needs to be increased and the costs of the additional TEGs are not an issue.
ContributorsPark, Andrew (Author) / Seager, Thomas (Thesis director) / Margaret, Hinrichs (Committee member) / Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Program (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
The Barrett creative project in residential structural design serves as the culmination of my most meaningful undergraduate experiences and interests. I previously interned for D.R. Horton, a home builder, and spent a significant amount of time on the development sites and in the engineering management office. This experience sparked a curiosity in the design of wood frames for homes and the residential industry as a whole. Since then, I have also had the opportunity to intern for Felten Group, an architecture, engineering, and forensics firm specializing in residential work. A residential roof structure is designed following the American Society of Civil Engineer's Minimum Design Loads for Buildings and Other Structures design code, in addition to the National Design Standards for Wood Construction manual. Although the sub discipline of wooden structural design can often be disregarded as the simplest type of analysis, I believe that it is a key component of an education in structural engineering. Like all aspects of civil engineering, the design of a house is composed of many interconnected systems, which include the balance of structural integrity and cost, functionality and aesthetics, and light and space. For my creative project, I took these ideas into account when designing both the floor plan and roof structure of the house using Revit and RISA, respectively. Well-rounded engineers are not only technically competent, but they also understand the social dimensions of a problem and how all the systems work together. The project focuses on creating a cohesive representation of a structure as a whole and how the individual frames, trusses, and beams interact with one another using RISA, a structural analysis program. With RISA's 3D interface, I have a better understanding of how more complex structures behave, which I have not gained from my 2D perspective in classes. RISA is used to calculate support reactions and the deflections of the trusses, which are checked against the bearing capacities of the supports and deflection design criteria to ensure a safe design. Concepts such as tributary area, truss connections, and the behavior of girder systems are also explored through the process.
ContributorsVitz, Kahla Jordan (Author) / Ward, Kristen (Thesis director) / Morgan, John (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Division of Educational Leadership and Innovation (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
Fueled by fear in the post-9/11 United States, American intelligence agencies conduct dragnet data collection on global communication. Despite the intention of surveillance as preventative counter-terrorism action, the default search and seizure of global communication poses a threat to our constitutional rights and individual autonomy. This is the case especially for people who may be thought of as in opposition to our current political climate, such as immigrants, people of color, women, people practicing non-western religions, people living outside of the United States, activists, persons engaging in political dissent, and people with intersecting identities. Throughout the Fall and Spring semesters, I have done research, conducted visual experiments and designed exploratory projects in order to more thoroughly identify the issue and explore the ways in which visual communication design can aid in the conversation surrounding global surveillance. It was the intention of my fourth year social issue projects to explore the role of visual communication design in the dialogue surrounding surveillance, principally focusing on the responsibility visual communication design has in spreading ideas about how to globally subvert surveillance until governments disclose information about their unconstitutional actions or until whistleblowers do it for them. My final project, the fourth year social issue exhibit, focuses on how improving our personal password habits can help us gain agency in digital spaces. Using the randomness of rolling a dice to generate entropy can help us generate stronger passwords in order to secure sensitive information online. Using design as a method of communication, my fourth year social issue exhibit shared information about how encrypted passwords can act as the first line of defense in protecting ourselves from invasive data collection and malicious internet activity.
ContributorsBailey, Lauren Nicole (Author) / Sanft, Alfred (Thesis director) / Heywood, William (Committee member) / The Design School (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor) / School of Art (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
Description
Last Hymn was created by the team of Tyler Pinho, Jefferson Le, and Curtis Spence with the desire to create an eccentric Role Playing Game focused on the exploration of a strange, dying world. Battles in the game are based off of rhythm games like Dance Dance Revolution using a procedural generation algorithm that makes every encounter unique. This is then complemented with the path system where each enemy has unique rhythm patterns to give them different types of combat opportunities. In Last Hymn, the player arrives on a train at the World's End Train Station where they are greeted by a mysterious figure and guided to the Forest where they witness the end of the world and find themselves back at the train station before they left for the Forest. With only a limited amount of time per cycle of the world, the player must constantly weigh the opportunity cost of each decision, and only with careful thought, conviction, and tenacity will the player find a conclusion from the never ending cycle of rebirth. Blending both Shinto architecture and modern elements, Last Hymn used a "fantasy-chic" aesthetic in order to provide memorable locations and dissonant imagery. As the player explores they will struggle against puzzles and dynamic, rhythm based combat while trying to unravel the mystery of the world's looping time. Last Hymn was designed to develop innovative and dynamic new solutions for combat, exploration, and mapping. From this project all three team members were able to grow their software development and game design skills, achieving goals like improved level design, improved asset pipelines while simultaneously aiming to craft an experience that will be unforgettable for players everywhere.
ContributorsPinho, Tyler (Co-author) / Le, Jefferson (Co-author) / Spence, Curtis (Co-author) / Nelson, Brian (Thesis director) / Walker, Erin (Committee member) / Kobayashi, Yoshihiro (Committee member) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Computing and Informatics Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12
Description
The purpose of this thesis was to develop a tool to provide information and data for design teams to use throughout the mobile application design process. Ideally, this would enable teams to see patterns in iterative design, and ultimately use data-driven analysis to make their own decisions. The initial problem was a lack of available information offered by mobile application design teams—the initial goal being to work closely with design teams to learn their decision-making methodology. However, every team that was reached out to responded with rejection, presenting a new problem: a lack of access to quality information regarding the decision-making process for mobile applications. This problem was addressed by the development of an ethical hacking script that retrieves reviews in bulk from the Google Play Store using Python. The project was a success—by feeding an application’s unique Play Store ID, the script retrieves a user-specified amount of reviews (up to millions) for that mobile application and the 4 “recommended” applications from the Play Store. Ultimately, this thesis proved that protected reviews on the Play Store can be ethically retrieved and used for data-driven decision making and identifying patterns in an application’s iterative design. This script provides an automated tool for teams to “put a finger on the pulse” of their target applications.
ContributorsDyer, Mitchell Patrick (Author) / Lin, Elva (Thesis director) / Giles, Charles (Committee member) / Department of Information Systems (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-12