EWU STEM

Geek Out! CSTEM Students Demo Senior Projects

06/03/2016 by Nick Thomas Leave a Comment

Its like a Maker Fair gone wild. A giant wood wind turbine takes up the south wall. A Gesture-Controlled Vehicle zooms around the floor between peoples legs. David Covillo explains how his team’s wireless Smart Sprinkler Head (which team member Andrew Decker 3-D printed) wastes far less water than conventional sprinklers. As opposed to just spraying everywhere in a circle, overlapping other sprinklers, or pointlessly spraying the sides of buildings, its range and path can be fine-tuned via Google Earth. Using a laptop and their user-interface, simply draw over a Google Earth view of your lawn; that data is transmitted to the sprinkler head.

Walking into the atrium was like a Maker Fair gone wild. A giant wood wind turbine takes up the south wall. A Gesture-Controlled Vehicle zooms around the floor between peoples legs. David Covillo explains how their 3-D printed (3D modeling and printing by senior Mechanical Engineer Andrew Decker), wireless, battery powered Smart Sprinkler head wastes less water than conventional sprinklers. Its nozzle can be fine-tuned for range and ultra-precise Google-Earth-mapped spray path as opposed to just spraying everywhere in a circle, overlapping other sprinklers, or pointlessly spraying the sides of buildings. Using a laptop and a user-interface, you simply draw a path over a Google Earth view of your lawn, and that data is transmitted to the sprinkler head via Bluetooth. The other benefit is their sprinkler head is hot-swappable, meaning you can easily adapt an old system without digging the lines up. Just replace traditional head with their model, everything else is controlled remotely, (though a sustainable power system is still in the works). Outside on the lawn an autonomous, auto-charging quadcopter is humming and lifting off the ground, (though tethered today for safety purposes.) Puneet Janda and Rudolph Hulse designed the MC charging station, which allows the drone to sense when it is running low on power and automatically return, dock and recharge, and then take off again. Janda says her biggest challenge was coding, and she taught herself a lot on the internet, and from her classmates, too. Suzanne Rieseberg, senior Electrical Engineer, designed the GPS features. She explained the purpose of their camera equipped quadcopter is to examine replace helicopters and pilots used to inspect rural power lines. She formerly worked as a Navy aviation technician on H60 helicopters before coming to EWU to study engineering. She describes her experience at Eastern as overwhelmingly positive, and praised the professors. Rieseberg has already secured a job at Garmin. The Rocket team conducted a test burn of a small rocket, and wisely advised the spectators to cover their ears (see video). In two weeks they will be returning with the EWU Rocket Team to Utah to compete at IREC for their second time. They placed third last year, just behind MIT and Brazil. They are bringing down their biggest rocket ever, hoping to double their altitude over last year. This year the group has fabricated and test-fired half a dozen hand-mixed propellant motors, and have settled on five daisy-chained proprietary motors to hopefully reach 22,000 feet. — Self Charging Autonomous Quadcopter and the proud engineering team

A dozen other projects too large to fit inside are out on the lawn: an autonomous, auto-charging quadcopter is hovering (though tethered today for safety purposes.)

Quadcopter team-members Puneet Janda and Rudolph Hulse designed the MC charging station, which allows the drone to sense when its running low on power, automatically dock and recharge, then take off again.

Puneet Janda with the MC charge station she engineered.

Suzanne Rieseberg, senior Electrical Engineer, designed the GPS features. She explained the purpose of their HD camera equipped quadcopter is to replace expensive helicopters used to inspect rural power lines. Rieseberg formerly worked as a Navy aviation technician on H60 helicopters before coming to EWU to study engineering. She describes her experience at Eastern as overwhelmingly positive, and praised the professors. She has already secured a job at Garmin, and will start just two weeks after graduation.

Rocket Team's display their smaller rocket housings — Rocket Team’s display their small-scale rocket housings, with the propellant “motor” at far left.

The EWU Rocket Team conducted a test burn of a small rocket, and wisely advised the spectators to cover their ears (see video). In two weeks they will be returning with the EWU Rocket Team to Utah to compete at IREC for their second time. Last year they placed third out of over 30 teams, just behind MIT and Brazil. This year they are and beat the most prestigious engineering school in the US. The team has fabricated and test-fired a number of custom propellant motors, and have settled on five proprietary motors to launch their rocket above 20,000 feet, this would effectively double their altitude from 2015.

Electric Motorcycle Team (with stunt doubles)

Other Senior Capstone team projects included 100% custom-built Li-Ion electric go-kart; an electric motorcycle; Smart Outlets; Automated Hydraulic Pressure Brake; Silica Dust Pressure Sensing System; a rocket launch tower; and a full scale support frame for a tear-drop style camper, among many others. It was an impressive display of the many talents of EWU’s Science and Engineering Majors.

A "Homestead Wind-Turbine" Capstone project — A “Homestead Wind-Turbine” Capstone project

Brain (not) at Rest: Olin Anderson’s Circuitous Path to EWU Computer Science

05/27/2016 by Nick Thomas Leave a Comment

Ten years after starting college as a running start student, Olin Anderson, 28, is ready to graduate with his Masters in Computer Science. He recently took a break from his thesis to share his story, one filled with a passion for knowledge, for challenges, and picking up new skill sets.
Growing up in the wheat fields of Spangle, just 15 miles from EWU, led Anderson to enroll in running start classes at EWU his senior year of high school. He continued at EWU, earning a Bachelor of Science in Chemistry in 2011. He decided to take a year off from books and work full time on the family farm where he did a lot of maintenance, stuff like painting and construction. After a year of manual labor he found himself back at EWU, this time studying Pre-Med.

Anderson taking a break from his thesis on the EWU campus (Nick Thomas photo) — Anderson taking a break from his thesis on EWU Cheney campus (Nick Thomas photo)

Anderson wanted to mix in some other classes, “for fun,” he says, and to balance out the tedium of Biology classes, so he started taking a programming class on top of the Biology series. He had dabbled in computer programming since high school, and taught himself PicBasic Pro, the industry standard BASIC programming language to control microchips.
“I took a quarter of Python, then two quarters of Java.” The next fall he enrolled in an advanced programming class with Prof. Stu Steiner. “One day he asked me why I was majoring in Pre-Med if I was taking his programming courses. He suggested that I consider switching to a Masters in Computer Science.” So he thought about it, and then he decided to make the leap. But he didn’t abandon biology entirely; instead he has combined his fascination with brain science and computer science.
Anderson’s Masters thesis project uses off-the-shelf EEG headset to determine relaxed brain state. “Determining relaxed brain activity is usually done through analyzing recorded data,” he says. “But the advantage of this headset is that we are getting real-time data with the Emotiv Epoc, a $400 dollar off-the-shelf EEG headset.”

If Anderson put on the EEG Headset it would surely detect a brain never at rest, always on the lookout for the next challenge.
“This was new to me,” he says, referring to EEG signal processing. His thesis challenged him to learn yet more skill sets. But Anderson is not complaining. “My EWU professors are very approachable,” he says. “I never had to feel bad about asking questions. They would stay and explain concepts to me until I really understood them.”
Friendly, knowledgeable professors, and reliable student partners are essential to any student’s success, but ultimately, personal drive is most important. It is clear that challenges are what Anderson lives for. In fact, his first full-time programming job will have him stationed on projects all over the world. He landed the position after applying for it at the Spokane regional Computer and Engineering job fair.
“The Computer Science department is really good about encouraging us to go to job fairs,” he says. “At the first one I was just checking it out. But at the next fair I handed out resumes,” he says, “and I got a call back.”
He will be working as a database programmer for Fast Enterprises, will potentially take him all over the world. “One of the job requirements was that you have to be able to periodically relocate.” In fact, Anderson says, “They won’t even tell me where I’m going until June.”
Most would scoff at such a job offer, but after staying close to home his whole life, after nearly a decade of hitting the books, and two science degrees from EWU, Anderson finds the lure of world travel impossible to resist.

19th Annual Creative Works Symposium Shows what EWU can do for You

05/20/2016 by Nick Thomas Leave a Comment

EWU undergrads and grad students show off their final projects and give presentations at the 2016 EWU Research and Creative Symposium. It is the culmination of countless hours of research, and critical thinking, data analysis, and presentation design. The event encompasses all majors, from STEM to the Humanities. For a complete list of the more than 500 presentations, check out the PDF here.

The Hargreaves Hall reading room was packed with undergrads and grad students showing off their research and colorful poster presentations, everything from green infrastructure, to geological research, biology and robotics.
Not only college students presented: High School students from North Central High School in Spokane presented their own scientific research, too.
Chris Golden, an incoming EWU Freshman, and his classmates David Song, and Oliver Miller, discussed their findings after sampling for the presence of metal reducing bacteria Geobacter sulfurreductens’s in Spokane regions contaminated with metals from industries like mining and smelting. The hope is a certain bacteria when released into the polluted water will actually eat the heavy metals.

NC HS Students Chris, David and Oliver — NC High School students Chris, David and Oliver (Nick Thomas:photo)

They took their samples back to the lab and successfully incubated them in low-oxygen petri dishes filled with iron oxide and salt, the bacteria’s preferred environment. They pointed out that more information is needed to make sure that releasing the bacteria in the environment will not backfire and get out of control in the environment.
Zoe Zywiak and Nadina Mrkaljevic, both from North Central High School, presented their findings confirming a fish called the Montana Big Hole River Arctic Grayling, found in Montana streams and rivers and suffering from genetic mutations and health problems is originally from Asia, and that the current species is too genetically isolated causing it to inbreed, with the hypothesis that a low genetic variance of ATP-6 loci would be detected.

NC high school students Zoe and Nadina explain research on isolated Arctic fish species found in the northwest — NC high school students Nadina and Zoe explain their research on genetically isolated fish species (Nick Thomas:photo)

Current efforts to boost the dying population by simply reproducing the local species in hatcheries are not working, they said. “Compare it to what would happen if people were only marrying their cousins,” they said. The Arctic Graylings need a wider genetic pool to draw from.
Miranda Street, also a North Central HS senior, tested fish guts, specifically sturgeon guts. More specifically, she tested their frozen fecal matter for the presence of certain bacteria to confirm whether hatchery sturgeon lack the correct gut flora to flourish when released in the wild.

North Central High School senior Miranda Street presents research at EWU (Nick Thomas: photo) — North Central High School senior Miranda Street presents research on fish gut flora (Nick Thomas: photo)

While research is still ongoing, the death rate of hatchery sturgeon is alarming, and Miranda is proud to help biologists in their quest to solve this problem.
EWU freshman Jessica Blackwood presented on geology research conducted as part of the “Cataclysms of the Columbia,” taught by professors of Geology, History and English. Students in the First Year Experience (FYE) pilot-course tested basalt formations at dramatic Rock Lake, located south of EWU.

EWU Freshman Jessica Blackwood explains her classes geology research — EWU Freshman Jessica Blackwood explains her Rock Lake geology research (nick thomas: photo)

They used a Brucker Tracer 3 portable X-ray fluorescence gun to confirm boundaries of basalt flows, and examine regional basalt layers eroded by waterfalls, such as above spectacular Palouse Falls. The 2 credit introductory class led by Prof. Chad Pritchard combined English and History with Science. She found that studying with Eco-Poet Prof. Paul Lindholdt helped inspire her passion for a broad range of learning.

EWU Admissions intern Afaria McKinney spoke with Beanca Thai about her presentation “Not Going to write you a love song.” Beanca found that multicultural relationships are viewed as comedic relief, whereas white couples are seen as either serious, dramatic, or comedic, meaning that some cultures are not allowed the privilege of emotions in media.

Pinball Hackers

04/12/2016 by Nick Thomas Leave a Comment

EWU Computer Science students hack vintage pinball machine, win bonus points.

Each Fall quarter, energetic Computer Science professor Paul Schimpf shares his love for old pinball games in a course entitled “Embedded Real-Time Control,” aka “Pinball Class.”

Using a colorful “early digital” pinball machine called Mata Hara ( from 1978!), STEM students learn the basics of programming software and build skills in hacking retro games, “real-time control,” skills they can extend to other projects and products.

Prof. Paul Schimpf reveals CPU of EWU retro pinball machine — Prof. Schimpf explains EWU students’ modified retro pinball machine (Nick Thomas photo)

Students plug in laptops to update the CPU with their custom code. When the ball rolls around, switches are thrown; they figure out how the machine works on their own. They use the coin and credit buttons to scroll the playfield lamps, then create digital maps of how the game responds.

“The ‘80’s pinball games actually present the biggest challenges,” he says. “They have limited capabilities. For instance, it puts out only 190 volts, which is only enough to light up one digit at a time. Students write code that makes the numbers light up so fast it tricks the eye into thinking its seeing a full display.”if you take a photo, you will only see one digit.”

They also control game logic like scoring and Bonus Points. They trigger updated sound and music via the SD card slot and ATTiny microcontroller. Schimpf also upgraded the CPU. “I took out the original CPU and put in an Arduino Mega 2560,” which he says is easier to modify.

Pinball Class presents challenges they aren’t used to with modern computer games. The many software tasks, from the solenoid-fired bumpers to controlling the lights, make Pinball Class a popular class at EWU Computer Science. Schimpf hopes to increase the number of machines they use.

The professor has a bigger idea he’s toying with: he hopes to collaborate with the VCD Students (Visual Communication Design) to create an EWU branded game. “EWU Football,” he says, his eyes growing wide with excitement. “We could have the red-turf field.” They could sell the game to alumni and fund more student-made games like the pinball machine.

Click here to explore STEM programs and careers.

EWU Rocketry Club Aims for the Stars

01/12/2016 by Nick Thomas Leave a Comment

It's Friday morning and the mechanical engineering workshop is a hive of activity. The high, square workbenches are filled with students intently focused on their tasks.

There's good reason for their excitement: they're hand-building two high powered rockets which reach heights of 10,600 feet which will deploy custom-designed glider technology.

Rocketry Club lifts EagleOne launch pad into place (Photo courtesy Spencer Scott)

The Rocketry Club workshop is packed with tools: ovens for baking carbon fiber and fiberglass molds, and the magic KitchenAid where they mix rocket fuel. Next door is a fully stocked machine shop. A band saw winds up and for a second drowns out the other noises.

All this productivity is strangely comforting, kind of like Santa’s workshop, if Santa were delivering payloads to the International Space Station.

In a corner sits Eagle One, the group’s sleek red and white rocket. Their pride for it is obvious as Spencer Scott enthusiastically details the many challenges of hand-building the carbon fiber body, birch fins coated in fiber glass and tipped with carbon. The cone houses the communication electronics and is made from fiberglass. While carbon is much stronger – “as strong as steel” – it blocks radio signals.

All their ingenuity and hard work was put to the test last June when two dozen students from EWU and Riverpoint Academy (whose STEM students designed and built the deployable glider) traveled to Green River, Utah, to launch the rocket in the Intercollegiate Rocket Engineering Competition (IREC). They competed against 50 teams from around the world. The on-the-ground challenges were many, including electronics overheating due to the 110 degree Utah heat.

When other groups had to drop out, they perspired and persevered.

IREC large group shot — Rocketry Club in the autoclave at corporate sponsor AGC AeroComposites in Hayden, ID (Photo courtesy of Spencer Scott)

Though 2015 was their very first time at IREC, they placed third overall, trailing teams from MIT and Brazil, proving both the talent and tenacity of the students EWU is proud to have.

Not to be outdone, for the 2016 IREC they are designing not one, but two rockets; one for the basic category and one for advanced. Never one to take the easy route of buying pre-made motors, the club is once again building everything from scratch, including the motor, which other clubs often buy ready-made, even the big schools like MIT. This level of control allows them to experiment with catalysts like cobalt and aluminum and use software like BurnSim to find the ideal mixture for their custom rocket.

Isaiah Irish cuts Kevlar heat shields that protect parachutes (Photo:Nick Thomas)

Unsurprisingly, this kind of custom manufacturing on top of academic studies is a time consuming labor of love.

Mechanical engineering major Isaiah Irish is laboriously hand cutting squares of tough yellow Kevlar from a sheet that looks like a sail.

“This stuff is hard to cut,” he mutters as he leans into the fabric and squeezes his shears with an iron fist. The Kevlar is wrapped around the parachute and keeps it from melting during launch. He confesses he hadn’t planned on doing club this year, his senior year, and added that he spent many weekends in the workshop over the past four years. But here he is, back at it again.

Rocketry Club welcomes all students, no matter your major.

Learn more about EWU Rocketry Club and watch a sweet video here!