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- Creators: Brahms, Johannes, 1833-1897
ContributorsBrahms, Johannes, 1833-1897 (Composer)
ContributorsBrahms, Johannes, 1833-1897 (Composer)
ContributorsBrahms, Johannes, 1833-1897 (Composer)
ContributorsBrahms, Johannes, 1833-1897 (Composer)
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
The field of robotics is rapidly expanding, and with it, the methods of teaching and introducing students must also advance alongside new technologies. There is a challenge in robotics education, especially at high school levels, to expose them to more modern and practical robots. One way to bridge this gap is human-robot interaction for a more hands-on and impactful experience that will leave students more interested in pursuing the field. Our project is a Robotic Head Kit that can be used in an educational setting to teach about its electrical, mechanical, programming, and psychological concepts. We took an existing robot head prototype and further advanced it so it can be easily assembled while still maintaining human complexity. Our research for this project dove into the electronics, mechanics, software, and even psychological barriers present in order to advance the already existing head design. The kit we have developed combines the field of robotics with psychology to create and add more life-like features and functionality to the robot, nicknamed "James Junior." The goal of our Honors Thesis was to initially fix electrical, mechanical, and software problems present. We were then tasked to run tests with high school students to validate our assembly instructions while gathering their observations and feedback about the robot's programmed reactions and emotions. The electrical problems were solved with custom PCBs designed to power and program the existing servo motors on the head. A new set of assembly instructions were written and modifications to the 3D printed parts were made for the kit. In software, existing code was improved to implement a user interface via keypad and joystick to give students control of the robot head they construct themselves. The results of our tests showed that we were not only successful in creating an intuitive robot head kit that could be easily assembled by high school students, but we were also successful in programming human-like expressions that could be emotionally perceived by the students.
ContributorsRathke, Benjamin (Co-author) / Rivera, Gerardo (Co-author) / Sodemann, Angela (Thesis director) / Itagi, Manjunath (Committee member) / Engineering Programs (Contributor, Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
37,461 automobile accident fatalities occured in the United States in 2016 ("Quick Facts 2016", 2017). Improving the safety of roads has traditionally been approached by governmental agencies including the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and State Departments of Transporation. In past literature, automobile crash data is analyzed using time-series prediction technicques to identify road segments and/or intersections likely to experience future crashes (Lord & Mannering, 2010). After dangerous zones have been identified road modifications can be implemented improving public safety. This project introduces a historical safety metric for evaluating the relative danger of roads in a road network. The historical safety metric can be used to update routing choices of individual drivers improving public safety by avoiding historically more dangerous routes. The metric is constructed using crash frequency, severity, location and traffic information. An analysis of publically-available crash and traffic data in Allgeheny County, Pennsylvania is used to generate the historical safety metric for a specific road network. Methods for evaluating routes based on the presented historical safety metric are included using the Mann Whitney U Test to evaluate the significance of routing decisions. The evaluation method presented requires routes have at least 20 crashes to be compared with significance testing. The safety of the road network is visualized using a heatmap to present distribution of the metric throughout Allgeheny County.
ContributorsGupta, Ariel Meron (Author) / Bansal, Ajay (Thesis director) / Sodemann, Angela (Committee member) / Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-12
Description
This thesis proposes the concept of soft robotic supernumerary limbs to assist the wearer in the execution of tasks, whether it be to share loads or replace an assistant. These controllable extra arms are made using soft robotics to reduce the weight and cost of the device, and are not limited in size and location to the user's arm as with exoskeletal devices. Soft robotics differ from traditional robotics in that they are made using soft materials such as silicone elastomers rather than hard materials such as metals or plastics. This thesis presents the design, fabrication, and testing of the arm, including the joints and the actuators to move them, as well as the design and fabrication of the human-body interface to unite man and machine. This prototype utilizes two types of pneumatically-driven actuators, pneumatic artificial muscles and fiber-reinforced actuators, to actuate the elbow and shoulder joints, respectively. The robotic limb is mounted at the waist on a backpack frame to avoid interfering with the wearer's biological arm. Through testing and evaluation, this prototype device proves the feasibility of soft supernumerary limbs, and opens up opportunities for further development into the field.
ContributorsOlson, Weston Roscoe (Author) / Polygerinos, Panagiotis (Thesis director) / Zhang, Wenlong (Committee member) / Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2016-05
Description
As robotics technology advances, robots are being created for use in situations where they collaborate with humans on complex tasks. For this to be safe and successful, it is important to understand what causes humans to trust robots more or less during a collaborative task. This research project aims to investigate human-robot trust through a collaborative game of logic that can be played with a human and a robot together. This thesis details the development of a game of logic that could be used for this purpose. The game of logic is based upon a popular game in AI research called ‘Wumpus World’. The original Wumpus World game was a low-interactivity game to be played by humans alone. In this project, the Wumpus World game is modified for a high degree of interactivity with a human player, while also allowing the game to be played simultaneously by an AI algorithm.
ContributorsBoateng, Andrew Owusu (Author) / Sodemann, Angela (Thesis director) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Engineering Programs (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05