Matching Items (31)
Description
In this project, the use of deep neural networks for the process of selecting actions to execute within an environment to achieve a goal is explored. Scenarios like this are common in crafting based games such as Terraria or Minecraft. Goals in these environments have recursive sub-goal dependencies which form a dependency tree. An agent operating within these environments have access to low amounts of data about the environment before interacting with it, so it is crucial that this agent is able to effectively utilize a tree of dependencies and its environmental surroundings to make judgements about which sub-goals are most efficient to pursue at any point in time. A successful agent aims to minimizes cost when completing a given goal. A deep neural network in combination with Q-learning techniques was employed to act as the agent in this environment. This agent consistently performed better than agents using alternate models (models that used dependency tree heuristics or human-like approaches to make sub-goal oriented choices), with an average performance advantage of 33.86% (with a standard deviation of 14.69%) over the best alternate agent. This shows that machine learning techniques can be consistently employed to make goal-oriented choices within an environment with recursive sub-goal dependencies and low amounts of pre-known information.
ContributorsKoleber, Derek (Author) / Acuna, Ruben (Thesis director) / Bansal, Ajay (Committee member) / W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Young adults do not know basic emergency preparedness skills. Although there are materials out there such as printed and online materials form Center for Disease Control, it is unlikely that college-age people will take the time to read them. Some individuals have addressed the issue of young adults not wanting to read materials by creating a fun interactive game in the San Francisco area, but since the game must be played in person, a solution like that can only reach so far. Studies suggest that virtual worlds are effective in teaching people new skills, so I have created a virtual world that will teach people basic emergency preparedness skills in a way that is memorable and appealing to a college-age audience. The logic used to teach players the concepts of emergency preparedness is case-based reasoning. Case-based reasoning is the process of solving new problems by remembering similar solutions in the past. By creating a simulation emergency situation in a virtual world, young adults are more likely to know what to do in the case of an actual emergency.
ContributorsTeplik, Julie Rachel (Author) / Craig, Scotty (Thesis director) / Amresh, Ashish (Committee member) / WPC Graduate Programs (Contributor) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2017-05
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
Description
Effective communication and engineering are not a natural pairing. The incongruence is because engineering students are focused on making, designing and analyzing. Since these are the core functions of the field there is not a direct focus on developing communication skills. This honors thesis explores the role and expectations for student engineers within the undergraduate engineering education experience to present and communicate ideas. The researchers interviewed faculty about their perspective on students' abilities with respect to their presentation skills to inform the design of a workshop series of interventions intended to make engineering students better communicators.
ContributorsAlbin, Joshua Alexander (Co-author) / Brancati, Sara (Co-author) / Lande, Micah (Thesis director) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / Industrial, Systems and Operations Engineering Program (Contributor) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Optical Communications are at a high point of interest by the space engineering community. After successful projects like the Lunar Laser Communications Demonstration (LLCD), NASA has become interested in augmenting their current Deep Space Network (DSN) with optical communication links. One such link is Deep Space Optical Communications (DSOC) which will be launching with the Psyche mission. To gain a full understanding of the advantages of this network, this thesis will go over the history and benefits of optical communications both on Earth and in space. This thesis will then go in depth on NASAs DSOC project through an algorithmic implementation of the communications channel.
ContributorsHorton, Paul Alexander (Author) / Mauskopf, Philip (Thesis director) / Sandy, Douglas (Committee member) / Martin, Thomas (Committee member) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / College of Integrative Sciences and Arts (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
Class instructors at Arizona State University monitor students’ attendance for classes in which attendance is either mandatory or encouraged. Class monitoring can be done using traditional systems such as sign sheets and roll calls. From my initial observations while attending a class which utilized a sign sheet for class attendance monitoring, I thought the process took long and was inefficient. As a result, I created an automated system that would replace the traditional systems and improve the class monitoring process. Thus, this study aims to determine whether the automated system reduced the time it takes to monitor class attendance, and whether it was efficient.
To examine the above question, the automated system was deployed to 2 classes at Arizona State University. Additionally, surveys were distributed to 2 instructors and 33 students and they were asked to respond to questions relating to class attendance and the monitoring systems which were being used alternatively with the newly-created automated system. Analysis of the responses demonstrated that use of an automated system reduced the time it takes students to mark their presence, and thus increase the time used for other class activities. The results also indicate that the design of the automated system affects the overall time it takes to monitor attendance. On this basis, it is recommended that instructors utilize an automated system to monitor class attendance. Further research is needed to study the time it takes instructors to set up different monitoring systems in order to ascertain that an automated system reduces the overall time it takes to monitor attendance compared to other traditionally used systems.
ContributorsCyubahiro, Tresor (Author) / Heinrichs, Robert (Thesis director) / Mehlhase, Alexandra (Committee member) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2019-05
Description
The spread of fake news (rumors) has been a growing problem on the internet in the past few years due to the increase of social media services. People share fake news articles on social media sometimes without knowing that those articles contain false information. Not knowing whether an article is fake or real is a problem because it causes social media news to lose credibility. Prior research on fake news has focused on how to detect fake news, but efforts towards controlling fake news articles on the internet are still facing challenges. Some of these challenges include; it is hard to collect large sets of fake news data, it is hard to collect locations of people who are spreading fake news, and it is difficult to study the geographic distribution of fake news. To address these challenges, I am examining how fake news spreads in the United States (US) by developing a geographic visualization system for misinformation. I am collecting a set of fake news articles from a website called snopes.com. After collecting these articles I am extracting the keywords from each article and storing them in a file. I then use the stored keywords to search on Twitter in order to find out the locations of users who spread the rumors. Finally, I mark those locations on a map in order to show the geographic distribution of fake news. Having access to large sets of fake news data, knowing the locations of people who are spreading fake news, and being able to understand the geographic distribution of fake news will help in the efforts towards addressing the fake news problem on the internet by providing target areas.
ContributorsNgweta, Lilian Mathias (Author) / Liu, Huan (Thesis director) / Wu, Liang (Committee member) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Computer Science and Engineering Program (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
As our relationship with technology continues to encourage people to spend more time engaged online, traditional means of journalism must adapt in order to communicate with audiences. While many news organizations default to social media outlets, the goal of this project is to allow users a more direct experience with reporters, photographers and editors. It will allow The State Press, the official, student-run news organization covering ASU, to create content within Slack, an internal messaging platform commonly used in newsrooms. Secondly, it will provide a means for viewers to conveniently ingest their news as it unfolds, with updates, media, and analysis appearing in front of them without having to refresh the page.
ContributorsQuigley, James Alan (Author) / Gary, Kevin (Thesis director) / Squire, Susan (Committee member) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / W.P. Carey School of Business (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The functional programming paradigm is able to provide clean and concise solutions to many common programming problems, as well as promote safer, more testable code by encouraging an isolation of state-modifying behavior. Functional programming is finding its way into traditionally object-oriented and imperative languages, most notably with the introduction of Java 8 and in LINQ for C#. However, no functional programming language has achieved widespread adoption, meaning that students without a formal computer science background who learn technology on-demand for personal projects or for business may not come across functional programming in a significant way. Programmers need a reason to spend time learning these concepts to not miss out on the subtle but profound benefits they provide. I propose the use of a video game as an environment in which learning functional programming is the player's goal. In this carefully constructed video game, learning functional programming is the key to progression. Players will be motivated to learn and will be given an immediate chance to test and demonstrate their understanding. The game, named Lambda Starship (stylized as (lambda () starship)), is a 3D first-person video game. It takes place in a spaceship that, due to extreme magnetic interference, has lost all on-board software while leaving the hardware completely intact. The player is tasked to write software using functional programming paradigms to replace the old software and bring the spaceship back to a working state. Throughout the process, the player is guided by an in-game manual and other descriptive resources. The game is implemented in Unity and scripted using C#. The game's educational and entertainment value was evaluated with a study case. 24 undergraduate students at Arizona State University (ASU) played the game and were surveyed detailing their experience. During play, user statistics were recorded automatically, providing a data-driven way to analyze where players struggled with the concepts introduced in the game. Reception was neutral or positive in both the entertainment and educational sides of the game. A few players expressed concerns about the manual in its form factor and engagement value.
ContributorsCompton, Tyler Alexander (Author) / Gonzalez-Sanchez, Javier (Thesis director) / Bansal, Srividya (Committee member) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-05
Description
The purpose of this paper is to develop an understanding of Navajo students' perspectives on how engineering can be used to improve life in their own communities on the Navajo reservation. Branching off an existing study that aims to develop a culturally-contextualized engineering design curriculum for middle schools in the Navajo Nation, this research focuses on a curriculum module entitled, "Future Chapter Presidents". This module is inspired by the Future City Competition where middle school students are tasked with imagining a better future. To make "Future Chapter Presidents" more culturally-relevant, students are instead tasked with proposing solutions that will improve life on the reservation. This module emphasizes engineering design alongside teaching Navajo Nation government standards by having students in the class run for a position in their local government. Students are prompted with creating a campaign poster that showcases their proposed solutions directed at their own communities. In order to analyze students' perspectives and understanding of how engineering can be used to improve life on the reservation, thematic analysis is used to study each individual poster. Meanwhile, because the researchers conducting this study are not Navajo, Tribal Critical Race Theory (Brayboy, 2006) was applied to ensure that the content of the posters are interpreted from an Indigenous lens. The results of this study can be used to inform future curriculum development for engineering design modules in the Navajo Nation and expand upon existing literature that provides understanding of how Navajo students experience and understand engineering in the context of their culture.
ContributorsPangan, Tyrine Jamella Duenas (Author) / Jordan, Shawn (Thesis director) / Foster, Christina (Committee member) / Software Engineering (Contributor) / Barrett, The Honors College (Contributor)
Created2018-12