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.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 43
Description
The inception of the human-powered water pump began during my trip to Maasailand in Kenya over the Summer of 2017. Being one of the few Broadening the Reach of Engineering through Community Engagement (BRECE) Scholars at Arizona State University, I was given the opportunity to join Prescott College (PC) on their annual trip to the Maasai Education, Research, and Conservation (MERC) Institute in rural Kenya. The ASU BRECE scholars that choose to travel were asked to collaborate with the local Maasai community to help develop functional and sustainable engineering solutions to problems identified alongside community members using rudimentary technology and tools that were available in this resource-constrained setting. This initiative evolved into multiple projects from the installation of GravityLights (a local invention that powers LEDs with falling sandbags), the construction/installation of smokeless stoves, and development of a much-needed solution to move water from the rainwater collection tanks around camp to other locations. This last project listed was prototyped once in camp, and this report details subsequent iterations of this human-powered pump.
ContributorsMiller, Miles Edward (Author) / Henderson, Mark (Thesis director) / Abbas, James (Committee member) / Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Billions of people around the world deal with the struggles of poverty every day. Consequently, a number of others have committed themselves to help alleviate poverty. Many various methods are used, and a current consensus on the best method to alleviate poverty is lacking. Generally the methods used or researched exist somewhere on the spectrum between top-down and bottom-up approaches to fighting poverty. This paper analyzes a specific method proposed by C.K. Prahalad known as the Bottom of the Pyramid solution. The premise of the method is that large multinational corporations should utilize the large conglomerate of money that exists amongst poor people \u2014 created due to the sheer number of poor people \u2014 for business ventures. Concurrently, the poor people can benefit from the company's entrance. This method has received acclaim theoretically, but still needs empirical evidence to prove its practicality. This paper compares this approach with other approaches, considers international development data trends, and analyzes case studies of actual attempts that provide insight into the approach's potential for success. The market of poor people at the bottom of the pyramid is extremely segmented which makes it very difficult for large companies to financially prosper. It is even harder to establish mutual benefit between the large corporation and the poor. It has been found that although aspects of the bottom of the pyramid method hold merit, higher potential for alleviating poverty exists when small companies venture into this space rather than large multinational corporations. Small companies can conform to a single community and niche economy to prosper \u2014 a flexibility that large companies lack. Moving forward, analyzing the actual attempts provides the best and only empirical insights; hence, it will be important to consider more approaches into developing economies as they materialize.
ContributorsSanchez, Derek Javier (Author) / Henderson, Mark (Thesis director) / Shunk, Dan (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems (Contributor) / Economics Program in CLAS (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
In recent history, the world has been inspired to respond to the challenges faced by communities with ‘help’. This help has been administered with moderate success through community engagement strategies traditionally centered on social services provided through non-profit agencies. Social entrepreneurship has emerged in response to the lack of progress made in solving local and global issues with new innovations that have the potential to change the status quo and eliminate the problems for future generations. In social entrepreneurship, concerned individuals saw an opportunity to truly change the world. Higher education leaders have embraced social entrepreneurship, positioning university students as a driving force behind ideating creative and innovative solutions that can be implemented in communities to overcome a vast array of challenges from poverty to environmental sustainability. Despite the efforts of university staff and faculty, many student changemakers struggle to successfully implement their ideas and measure their impact. Factors such as how well the student understands the issue and community in addition to the extent to which the student is experienced in ideation, creative-problem solving, and implementation of projects contribute to the success or failure of a student social effort. Inspired by their experiences serving as director of Changemaker Central, the authors sought to understand the process of preparing students to be agents of change in the community. Having observed the variance in success among aspiring changemakers at Arizona State University (ASU), the researchers studied how to best support students in preparation for a high-impact career. The research analyzed students’ experiences in two of ASU’s social change programs, Changemaker Challenge (CC) and University Service-Learning (USL) and found a need for more cohesion between two programs and their represented methodologies in addition to a need for in-depth analysis on the student journey.
ContributorsMicevic, Vid (Co-author) / Fitzgerald, Kaitlyn (Co-author) / Henderson, Mark (Thesis director) / Smith, Jacqueline (Committee member) / Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering Programs (Contributor) / School of International Letters and Cultures (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
"Seventy five percent of the world's poor live in rural areas of developing countries, where most people's livelihoods rely directly on agriculture." (USAid, 2014) Reduced levels of crop production and the accompanying problems of malnourishment exist all over the world. In rural Peru, for example, 11 percent of the population is malnourished. (Global Healthfacts.org, 2012) Since the success in agriculture relies importantly on the fertility of the soil, it is imperative that any efforts at reversing this trend be primarily directed at improving the existing soils. This, in turn, will increase crop yields, and if done properly, will also conserve natural resources and maximize profits for farmers. In order to improve the lives of those at the bottom of the pyramid through agriculture, certain tools and knowledge must be provided in order to empower such persons to help themselves. An ancient method of soil improvement, known as Terra Preta do Indio (Indian dark earth), was discovered by Anthropologists in the 1800's. These dark, carbon-rich, soils are notable for their high fertility, high amounts of plant available nutrients, and their high moisture retention rates. The key to their long-lasting fertility and durability is the presence of high levels of biochar, a highly stable organic carbon \u2014 produced when organic matter (crop residues, food waste, manure, etc.) is burned at low temperatures in the absence of oxygen. Research has shown that when charcoal (biochar) and fertilizers are combined, it can yield as much as 880 percent more than when fertilizers are used by themselves. (Steiner, University of Bayreuth, 2004)
ContributorsStefanik, Kathleen Ann (Author) / Henderson, Mark (Thesis director) / Johnson, Nathan (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Human Systems Engineering (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
I. Executive Summary Projectors are used in more and more live and corporate events and theatrical productions. In these environments, they are subject to a myriad of conditions. These can include extreme temperatures, atmospheric effects and contaminates, shipping and rough handling, and power issues. The goal is to find ways to extend the reliable and economical lifespan of these machines increasing companies ROI and decreasing environmental damage from more frequent production, repair and disposal. The first area studied was the effect removing the covers has on the projector performance. This is important knowledge for both the research protocols followed in this research and in normal use during maintenance and repair. Testing demonstrated that the removal of covers on small consumer projectors has a profound impact on internal temperatures and can even cause overheating due to the covers being used as air ducting. The main focus of this project was finding effective pre-filters for use around haze, fog and other airborne contaminates. This was successful with two material being demonstrated to be cost effective, filter far superior to factory filters alone, and produce acceptable impacts on projector cooling in several models and types of projector. These filters cost typically less than $1 per filter and reduce the ingress of contaminates by 60-80%. Additionally the effects of improper shutdown versus the manufacturers specified shutdown process were tested. It was determined that the projectors where power was unplugged or turned off had components exceed both operating temperatures and temperatures during the normal shutdown. This shows that following the correct shutdown process keeps components cooler leading to a longer component life and therefore longer projector life and decreased repairs.
ContributorsBooth, Kelsey (Author) / Henderson, Mark (Thesis director) / Pinholster, Jacob (Committee member) / Gaddy, Davin (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
As technology's influence pushes every industry to change, healthcare professionals must move to a more connected model. The nearly ubiquitous presence of smartphones presents a unique opportunity for physicians to collect and process data from their patients more frequently. The Mayo Clinic, in partnership with the Barrett Honors College, has designed and developed a prototype smartphone application targeting palliative care patients. The application collects symptom data from the patients and presents it to the doctors. This development project serves as a proof-of-concept for the application, and shows how such an application might look and function. Additionally, the project has revealed significant possibilities for the future of the application.
ContributorsGaney, David Howard (Author) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Thesis director) / Lipinski, Christopher (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
We created an Android application, Impromp2, which allows users to search for and save events of interest to them in the Phoenix area. The backend, built on the Parse platform, gathers events daily using Web services and stores them in a database. Impromp2 was designed to improve upon similarly-purposed apps available for Android devices in several key ways, especially in user interface design and data interaction capability. This is a full-stack software project that explores databases and their performance considerations, Web services, user interface design, and the challenges of app development for a mobile platform.
ContributorsNorth, Joseph Robert (Author) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Thesis director) / Nakamura, Mutsumi (Committee member) / Faucon, Philippe (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
MeetPoint is a project derived from Computer Science with a focus upon applications to mobile. The application is created to provide users with the ability to meet up with certain individuals to accomplish a specific task, in this case studying. The project idea came from the creator wanting to meet up with a friend in order to converse about an upcoming exam. The creator knew where the person lived, but could not easily come up with a location for the two to meet that would be a reasonable distance from both of them. Hence came the idea for a mobile application to complete those actions for the user. The project focuses upon implementation in a school setting in which the meetings would actually take place. For means of this project, the locations were fixed to on campus at Arizona State University. The committee felt that this would scope the project correctly for its two-semester creation while still demonstrating how to fulfill the task at hand. Android is the operating system of choice for the mobile application due to it being Java, which was the most familiar language to the student. MeetPoint provides users with an easy to navigate and familiar front-end while harnessing the power of a database in the back-end. The application hides the intricacies of the back-end from the user in order to better provide a comfortable user experience. A lot of the project was designed around providing a comfortable user experience by keeping the application familiar to the user in that it maintains similarities with other popular mobile applications.
ContributorsWallace, Tyler L (Author) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Thesis director) / Faucon, Christophe (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
When planning a road trip today, there are solutions that let the user know what comes along their route, but the user is often presented with too much information, which can overwhelm the user. They are provided suggestions all along the route, not just at those times when they would be needed. RoutePlanner simply takes all that information and only presents that data to the user, that they would need at a particular time. Gas station suggestions would show when the gas tank range is going to be hit soon, and restaurant suggestions would only be shown around lunch time. The iOS app takes in the users origin and destination and provides the user the route as given by GoogleMaps, and then various stop suggestions at their given time. Each route that is obtained, is broken down into a number of steps, which are basically a connection of coordinate points. These coordinate point collections are used to point to a location at a certain distance or duration away from the origin. Given a coordinate, we query the APIs for places of interest and move to the next stop, until the end of the route.
ContributorsDamania, Harsh Abhay (Author) / Balasooriya, Janaka (Thesis director) / Faucon, Christophe (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor)
Created2014-12
Description
This Honors thesis is analyzing the Jaipur Prosthetic Foot; we are using a foot from Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti (BMVSS) to test the durability of the foot and where the critical fatigue points are located. Our testing design will be based off of computer simulation to point out the critical points that the test machinery should accentuate. The machine will be set to sample and save data at interval times throughout the accentuated walking cycle in order to record the point where the foot begins to show wear.
ContributorsChaisson, Nathaniel (Co-author) / Jacobs, Ian (Co-author) / Radda, Nicholas (Co-author) / Henderson, Mark (Thesis director) / Sodemann, Angela (Committee member) / Carberry, Adam (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2015-05