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 74
Description
Heron Lodge is the hybrid product of sciences, (pre) medicine, and the humanities throughout four years of an undergraduate degree in Medical Studies.
ContributorsLu, Emilie Joy (Author) / Dombrowski, Rosemarie (Thesis director) / Viren, Sarah (Committee member) / College of Health Solutions (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2021-05
Description
My thesis is a creative project in which I designed, developed, marketed, and sold a mobile application on the iOS (iPhone) platform. In addition to developing a mobile application, I also formed a Limited Liability Company, Flem LLC, which I will own, manage, and operate for the duration of this project and beyond the thesis project. Flem LLC allows me to create a unique brand for my company, separate from myself, as well as providing legal protection for my personal assets. My initial application is titled "Derpy Calc". It is a basic calculator for iPhone capable of adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing, and taking the square root of positive, negative, and decimal numbers. Derpy Calc is unique because before it will output an answer, Derpy, the calculator's personality, will make a remark or ask a question that is factual, random, or silly. This application is targeted at teenagers and young adults and the outputs Derpy gives will be targeted those demographic. The purpose of this application is to provide humor and spontaneity to the process of doing math and is currently the only iOS application with that focus. Derpy debuted on the Apple App store on March 1st 2013. As of March 27th, it is on Version 1.2, has had 457 advertisement views on 328 downloads. It has earned Flem LLC a total of $0.75 in advertising revenues.
ContributorsFleming, William Patrick (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Nemanich, Louise (Committee member) / Faucon, Christophe (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor) / School of Accountancy (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
In Mistvon, everyone is happy. The people there go about their daily duties with wistful smiles, and unburdened hearts, their worldly cares both trivial and meaningless. Jobs have been abolished, people are financially set, and everywhere the gleaming city of Mistvon burns brightly, a beacon of mankind. And yet, from the shadows, the Gentlemen lurk. They rule the citizens of Mistvon with an iron thumb that few even realize exists, destroying their creativity and robbing them of their free will; a result of the mysterious Avatos. Because of this, Gaven Vos, a citizen who has seen the truth, and is under the employ of the enigmatic Creator, must free Mistvon from the clutches of the evil Gentlemen. But, is the Creator truly what he says he is? And is their journey truly righteous? Through this, a story of political discourse, betrayals, and ambiguous morality, these questions are answered. But, the ultimate question may not be; do the ends justify the means?
ContributorsCawthon, William Marshall (Co-author) / Fleck, Tyler (Co-author) / Facinelli, Diane (Thesis director) / Stewart, Karen (Committee member) / Holman, Christine (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / School of Politics and Global Studies (Contributor) / School of Social Transformation (Contributor)
Created2013-05
Description
As part of the InnovationSpace program, interdisciplinary teams of five undergraduate students from the areas of business, engineering, graphic design, industrial design, and sustainability are responsible for creating a product idea that addresses a societal need. My team, Flo, was tasked with finding a product/service solution that will increase collaboration or creativity in a workplace environment. After deciding as a group how to define collaboration—working with others to achieve a common goal—and creativity—getting to an end goal in a different way than is expected—we spent the fall 2014 semester researching pain points and areas of interest for potential customers and users. We learned that one of the barriers to productivity for our target users in startups and mature corporations is that they often lack the right mix of private and collaborative spaces. From this insight, we created a product system called Trenz.
There are benefits and drawbacks to both collaboration and individual work. Trenz sits at the intersection of both work styles, thus aiming to negate the downsides of both and harness their benefits based on real-time user needs. Holistically, the corporate workplace furniture industry is stagnant, despite several trends that pave the way for future innovation. Even though studies are consistently released on the benefits of natural light, flexibility, and activity in the workplace, the furniture industry has not yet responded with a solution that successfully solves all three while keeping the user in mind. As such, Trenz is a product-service system with the potential to create a new segment in the market because of its user-centric design, the support of individual/group work dynamics, and its feature set that can accommodate a diverse group of users.
There are benefits and drawbacks to both collaboration and individual work. Trenz sits at the intersection of both work styles, thus aiming to negate the downsides of both and harness their benefits based on real-time user needs. Holistically, the corporate workplace furniture industry is stagnant, despite several trends that pave the way for future innovation. Even though studies are consistently released on the benefits of natural light, flexibility, and activity in the workplace, the furniture industry has not yet responded with a solution that successfully solves all three while keeping the user in mind. As such, Trenz is a product-service system with the potential to create a new segment in the market because of its user-centric design, the support of individual/group work dynamics, and its feature set that can accommodate a diverse group of users.
ContributorsDicicco, Ryan Paul (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Smith, Jacqueline (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Increasing collaboration among employees is a top priority for many organizations today. How can we help companies and employees collaborate better? Through Innovation Space, our team Kioro has an opportunity to design and develop alternative solutions that will help achieve the idea. This paper discusses the fields of the five disciplines including from Graphic Design, Industrial Design, Engineering, Sustainability, and Business. The scope and content is aimed at focusing on each role, his/her basic responsibility and some of the highlights of his/her work over the whole semester. The very interactive and engaging environment at Innovation Space has driven me to think about teamwork, interpersonal relationship, and self-evaluation. By observations of my team members, this paper covers a reflection with a list of solutions to improve my life. Innovation Space not only teaches me about new product development, but also has a significant impact behind and lead me to think about life.
ContributorsTao, Wing Yi (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Boradkar, Prasad (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Finance (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
As the shift to more innovative and open workspaces continues gaining popularity, millennial-heavy trends are now influencing businesses to create a more "Google-ly" and open atmosphere that caters to the needs of different personalities in a quirky, fun and innovative fashion. Millennials are becoming even more central as they begin to dominate the work force and replace more than 75 million older workers who are nearing, or are currently at, retirement age (Twenge et al., 2010). These Millennials have high expectations of their employers and will quickly leave their job if these needs are not being adequately met . One of those expectations is a push for creating spaces that optimize creativity and collaboration among employees. Team n o o d l e aims to address this problem by tackling the issue of underutilized conference rooms that dominate traditional business environments. Team n o o d l e is introducing a product that aims to eliminate the inefficiencies of traditional brainstorming sessions, such as time spent prepping, sticky-note usage and clean up. Otlet is a multi-functional conference table that doubles as a recreational gaming center. Otlet combines work and play by creating an open and engaging environment for sharing ideas. It serves to enhance creativity and collaboration among workers, and in the process may be a catalyst to transform the culture of that workplace. Academic research has begun to validate the importance of fun in the workplace. A number of studies have demonstrated that fun relates to employee attitudes and affective states, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, engagement, positive mood, and positive emotions . (Fluegge, 2008; Karl and Peluchette, 2006a, b; Karl et al., 2007, 2008; McDowell, 2004). Today, a business's online presence is everything. A 2013 poll by AT&T revealed that 67% of businesses are using their website to market to customers . Additionally, 66% of small businesses are maintaining or increasing their spend on digital marketing . The rise in popularity of digital marketing and the Internet is, for the first time, empowering small businesses to compete with businesses of all sizes. The ability to reach audiences across the world has evened out the playing field and leveraged small businesses to compete on a national and global level. Otlet's success will be dependent on an effective and innovative digital marketing strategy. With that being said, I recommend that team n o o d l e implement an initial digital marketing strategy for Otlet that includes a website, paid ad campaigns, a search engine optimization strategy, landing page development, and content marketing.
ContributorsLynch, Ryan Anthony (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Boradkar, Prasad (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Thesis Abstract: Cygnal The healthcare market plays a vital role in how our team worked with innovation space to design a product that fit user needs and could be a sustainable business. Whatever product we design is going to be dictated based off of how the insurance market will pay for it and how much we can charge for our product and services. In fact, the healthcare market is so incredibly unclear with outdated regulations that all of these fraud schemes and inflammatory prices are bound to happen. Stronger government involvement in this instance, I believe would help the issue. In reality, there are so many people taking advantage of the system that you cannot put the blame on anyone exploiting the system. What is clear though, is that they are taking advantage of a system that looks like it was set up to allow them to do so, and in that sense, Medicare is responsible for allowing this market to become warped. The healthcare industry played a vital role in our team for Innovation Space is completing our project. If we do not have a firm understanding on how the insurance market works, how much wheelchair companies are pricing chair components for, and how easily customers can see a financial benefit in switching to our product, it will not survive in the market place. That is why I as the business student am dedicating a lot of time in the final months of our project to make sure that our pricing is accurate, and feasible. The health insurance market, even if it is dysfunctional, will be ultimately paying for our product, and in business if you do not truly know your customer, you are bound to lose him. This paper uncovers why this market is warped and how to do business within it.
ContributorsMefford, Michael James (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Boradkar, Prasad (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Economics (Contributor) / Department of Supply Chain Management (Contributor) / W. P. Carey School of Business (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Luxury is a sector of all global industry that has been proven sustainable, having flourished during global economic successes and withstood hardships across numerous decades. Consumers are drawn to luxury, both the physical and perceived value that luxury products offer. Luxury champagne tastes better, luxury vehicles are higher performing and luxury fashion reflects the highest quality designs. The belief in superior product is what keeps luxury relevant. However, it is the brand identity created on behalf of the firm behind a luxury brand that remains the vital component to develop and maintain its top-tier status. Luxury fashion firms are synonymous with their brand, the persona and user experience created driving all facets of creative and business execution. While product name and perceived value are contributors to global success, the evolution and maintenance of such status relies upon the consistency of brand identity. To begin, I will identify a criterion that differentiates luxury fashion (mega-brands) from mass-market and commercial fashion, as well as outline the components that comprise a luxury brand identity. After a clear understanding of the meaning of luxury is established, I will layout the process of how a brand identity is consistently communicated through the business cycle, from the initial creation and design process to the end point of the final sale stage. To further enrich the learning established, I will apply the developed concepts in a dissection of the top five luxury fashion firms, Chanel, Dior, Louis Vuitton, Prada and Gucci. Analyzing each mega-brand, I will evaluate how the company's brand identity has evolved over the course of the firm's heritage and analyze the current brand creative direction (brand identity, ethics and aesthetics). Understanding the brand's persona and image, I will highlight the physical representation through brand codes and symbols to support the firm's positioning as a thriving luxury empire. Lastly, I will interpret the company's latest advertising campaign, deconstructing the application of brand identity as well as the contribution the campaign provides to supporting firm success. Ultimately, after gaining sufficient understanding of what a successful luxury firm is comprised of, I will identify the shortcomings identified within the last firm evaluated, Gucci. I will examine the branding failures of the current state of Gucci, analyzing what contributed to its fall from top luxury brand status. Additionally, I will provide details regarding what measures are currently being taken to regain its superior status as well as provide my own recommendation to the firm. In summation, through the process of understanding successful luxury branding practices, I hope to have enriched not only my understanding of brand identity but have gained the ability to develop my own point of view, to suggest a branding path and measures to be taken to steer Gucci back on a track.
ContributorsGil, Alexandria Southwick (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Ostrom, Amy (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Management (Contributor) / Department of Marketing (Contributor)
Created2015-05
Description
Entreprenurshift: An Era of Transition asks the questions: what is an entrepreneur? Has the definition changed? Or is the landscape changing around the individuals? The thesis surveys the entrepreneurial landscape, starting with early inventors in the 19th century to today's top minds in technical fields, finding common characteristics all entrepreneurs share. Then, the analysis focuses on how the entrepreneurial landscape has shifted, specifically looking at the change in technological advances, avenues for fundraising capital, and the concept of virality, which ultimately create an entirely new playing field. In the end, although the process of being an entrepreneur is the very different, the landscape attracts the same type of people, all who are willing to risk everything in order to see success. In short, the entrepreneurial landscape is changing drastically, but the individuals successful in entrepreneurship today seem to attain the same characteristics as all the successful entrepreneurs who came before them all.
ContributorsUnderseth, Kyle Philip (Author) / Peck, Sidnee (Thesis director) / Sebold, Brent (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of English (Contributor) / School of Sustainability (Contributor)
Created2014-05
Description
Anorexia Nervosa is an increasing problem in today's day and age. With the overbearing messages of what the media portrays to be beautiful, some people are responding by engaging in unhealthy eating habits. By taking embodied cognition into consideration, there may be a method to help treat people with Anorexia Nervosa that has not been attempted yet. According to embodied cognition, the body influences the way a person thinks (Glenberg, 2010). If people with Anorexia Nervosa are thinking in unhealthy ways in terms of their body, providing relief from these unhealthy forms of thinking may come in the form of using a surrogate body: a virtual avatar in a video game. Through explanation and integration of the Embodied Social Presence Theory, the use of a virtual avatar as a surrogate body for victims of Anorexia Nervosa becomes a probable and viable method of ushering treatment. The avatars are not an explicit treatment of Anorexia Nervosa, but rather a way to allow actual treatment and therapy to be more successful.
ContributorsBrazones, Katelyn Suzette (Author) / Facinelli, Diane (Thesis director) / Glenberg, Arthur (Committee member) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor) / Department of Psychology (Contributor)
Created2014-05