CSU Students Create Autonomous Nursery Cart

Here is a success story that was passed along to us about a group of students who were supported by CSU's Undergraduate Summer Research Program in 2022, along with a video of their work.

"This project started as a term project in EEC 318 Signals and Systems in Fall 2021, by Ken, who designed and built a remote-controlled cart for a local nursery while in high school. It turned into a summer research project in 2022 with this team of three EE students (Ken, Russell and Shereen). Their EEC 318 and SD instructor (Zhiqiang Gao) tried hard, but failed, to find a CS major join the team, so the team has to climb a steep learning curve to learn everything on their own, guided by two CS faculty members: Dr. Qin Lin and Dr. Hongkai Yu in the summer.

The project officially became a senior design project in the Fall of 2022, supervised by Dr. Qin Lin. It is a truly multidisciplinary project, encompassing key design principles in mechanical engineering, electrical and computer engineering, robotics, and computer perception and vision processing, navigation, etc. And it built the foundation for future senior projects in autonomous driving for years to come. We, the faculty members, couldn't be more proud of what the team has accomplished and, more importantly, of how much each of the team members has grown professionally over the course to the last 12 months."

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Undergraduate Summer Research Awards: Best Poster Prizes Awarded

Undergraduate research students presented their work at the 2022 Undergraduate Research Poster Session on September 22. Students, faculty, and staff presented research that was funded by the Undergraduate Summer Research Award (USRA) Program and the McNair Scholars Program.

Based on faculty votes, the first place prize was awarded to James Iler (pictured right) for his poster titled “Protecting Information with Linearized Polynomials.” With mentoring from Department of Mathematics and Statistics faculty members Dr. Hiram López and Dr. Ivan Soprunov and graduate student Kyle Traum, James developed an error-correcting code to protect messages from eavesdropping when transmitted over insecure channels.

Additional posters receiving awards were:

• George Tomaras (advisors Chandra Kothapalli and Petru Fodor) “Development of Micromixing Strategies Using Elements of Elongational Flow”
• Olivia Russo (advisors Grace Huang and Eddie Lam) “A Mixed Method Approach to Examine Resettled Refugees’ Parenting Practices”
• Kara Timinski (advisor Mekki Bayachou) “Modified Silver Nanoparticles Coated with Alginate Hydrogels as a Drug Delivery Platform to Modulate Biological Function”
• Marko Krieger (advisor Metin Uz) “Flexible Electronic Device For On-Demand Ocular Drug Delivery”
• Dawud Sharieff (advisor Antonie van den Bogert) “Simulation-based estimation of muscle forces from wearable sensors”

The Office of Research congratulates all of the students and their mentors, and encourages undergraduate and graduate students to continue to actively engage in research.

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PhD Student Cory Orahoske to Present at Conference in Japan

PhD student Cory Orahoske, has been selected to give a platform presentation at "The Annual Congress of International Drug Discovery Science and Technology" to be held in Tokyo, Japan May 10-12, 2023. He will present “Lead Identification via High throughput screen leads to molecular identification of Flagellum attachment zone 1 (FAZ1) filament as a binding partner of 6,7-dimethoxyquanizolone in Trypanosoma brucei" at the conference.

Mr. Orahoske is mentored by Dr. Bin Su, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and a member of the Center for Gene Regulation in Health and Disease (GRHD). The project is a collaboration between Dr. Su’s lab and Dr. Bibo Li’s lab.

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Civil and Environmental Engineering Doctoral Student Receives National Recognition

Doctoral student Yashovardhan Sharma has been awarded the 2021 Slag Cement in Sustainable Concrete Project of the Year research award. His project, titled “Effect of replacement of cement with ground granulated blast furnace slag on mechanical and durable properties of UHPC,” received the award from the Slag Cement Association and will be formally recognized at the American Concrete Institute (ACI) convention in Orlando, FL in March.

Mr. Sharma is advised by Dr. Srinivas Allena, an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmenal Engineering (CEE), whose research efforts include ultra-high performance concrete (UHPC).