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.
Filtering by
- All Subjects: engineering
The objective of this thesis is to conduct a case study into the Bell X-2, an early supersonic research aircraft utilizing a modern perspective and computational tools. The Bell X-2 was the second in a series of supersonic research aircraft created by Bell Aviation Corporation, designed to help engineers to explore this new region of flight. The goal of the X-2 was to gather data on high Mach Number and high-altitude flight as well as aerodynamic heating. The X-2 had poor lateral stability resulting in it being unstable at high Mach Numbers and moderate angles of attack. The program was full of new and unforeseen technical challenges resulting in many delays and tragedies. The program ended when stability problems resulted in a fatal crash destroying the aircraft and killing the test pilot. This case study addresses the historical background of the program, human influence, the stability problems encountered and conducting a stability analysis of the aircraft. To conduct the stability analysis, the potential flow solver, VORLAX, was used to gather aerodynamic coefficient data of the X-2 and determine if these stability problems could be determined from the data obtained. By comparing the results from VORLAX to a wind tunnel study, I determined that the poor lateral directional stability and control coupling issues were foreseeable in the initial design.
In this paper, we discuss the methods and requirements to simulate a soft bodied beam using traditional rigid body kinematics to produce motion inspired by eels. Eels produce a form of undulatory locomotion called anguilliform locomotion that propagates waves throughout the entire body. The system that we are analyzing is a flexible 3D printed beam being actively driven by a servo motor. Using the simulation, we also analyze different parameters for these spines to maximize the linear speed of the system.
Following a study conducted in 1991 supporting that kinesthetic information affects visual processing information when moving an arm in extrapersonal space, this research aims to suggest utilizing virtual-reality (VR) technology will lead to more accurate and faster data acquisition (Helms Tillery, et al.) [1]. The previous methods for conducting such research used ultrasonic systems of ultrasound emitters and microphones to track distance from the speed of sound. This method made the experimentation process long and spatial data difficult to synthesize. The purpose of this paper is to show the progress I have made in the efforts to capture spatial data using VR technology to enhance the previous research that has been done in the field of neuroscience. The experimental setup was completed using the Oculus Quest 2 VR headset and included hand controllers. The experiment simulation was created using Unity game engine to build a 3D VR world which can be used interactively with the Oculus. The result of this simulation allows the user to interact with a ball in the VR environment without seeing the body of the user. The VR simulation is able to be used in combination with real-time motion capture cameras to capture live spatial data of the user during trials, though spatial data from the VR environment has not been able to be collected.
STEAMtank is a project beneath that falls under the umbrella of InnovationSpace, an initiative of the Design School at Arizona State University. STEAMtank is the product of the product of the honors thesis of Abigail Peters, who envisioned a K-8 STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and math) museum that was hosted on campus at ASU and was free to the community to promote STEAM education for underrepresented communities. STEAMtank is now in its second iteration, with six teams creating six attractions for the museum. Alongside these projects, presented here is a concept design for a museum exhibit focused entirely around chemistry, a particular branch of science that is lacking from all K-8 focused STEAM exhibits in Phoenix.
Spatial audio can be especially useful for directing human attention. However, delivering spatial audio through speakers, rather than headphones that deliver audio directly to the ears, produces the issue of crosstalk, where sounds from each of the two speakers reach the opposite ear, inhibiting the spatialized effect. A research team at Meteor Studio has developed an algorithm called Xblock that solves this issue using a crosstalk cancellation technique. This thesis project expands upon the existing Xblock IoT system by providing a way to test the accuracy of the directionality of sounds generated with spatial audio. More specifically, the objective is to determine whether the usage of Xblock with smart speakers can provide generalized audio localization, which refers to the ability to detect a general direction of where a sound might be coming from. This project also expands upon the existing Xblock technique to integrate voice commands, where users can verbalize the name of a lost item using the phrase, “Find [item]”, and the IoT system will use spatial audio to guide them to it.
Spatial audio can be especially useful for directing human attention. However, delivering spatial audio through speakers, rather than headphones that deliver audio directly to the ears, produces the issue of crosstalk, where sounds from each of the two speakers reach the opposite ear, inhibiting the spatialized effect. A research team at Meteor Studio has developed an algorithm called Xblock that solves this issue using a crosstalk cancellation technique. This thesis project expands upon the existing Xblock IoT system by providing a way to test the accuracy of the directionality of sounds generated with spatial audio. More specifically, the objective is to determine whether the usage of Xblock with smart speakers can provide generalized audio localization, which refers to the ability to detect a general direction of where a sound might be coming from. This project also expands upon the existing Xblock technique to integrate voice commands, where users can verbalize the name of a lost item using the phrase, “Find [item]”, and the IoT system will use spatial audio to guide them to it.