Senior projects are on the rise, according to the National Survey of Student Engagement, a survey that measures the participation of students with regards to learning.
According to the survey, 64 percent of graduating seniors were found to have completed a senior project or thesis.
In comparison, in 2000 when the survey began, only 55 percent of graduating seniors reported completing such a project.
Senior engineering students had the opportunity to showcase their senior projects at the 2nd Annual Engineering Project Showcase last Friday.
The event featured more than 25 students representing various different fields of engineering, including aerospace, civil, mechanical, industrial and manufacturing, chemical and materials, electrical and computer, and engineering technology.
In the electrical and computer engineering showcase, the team consisting of Milagros Contreras, Fernando Rangel, Christopher Osuala and Lawerence Esturas, presented an iPhone application that they created called “Flo Battle Rap,” an application that allows users to challenge others to rap battles and then share them with the world.
In addition to creating the application, the team, consisting of electrical and computer engineering seniors, also handled the marketing and testing for the application.
“We targeted ages 13 to 30, young adults, basically, and aspiring rap musicians,” said senior electrical and computer engineering student Christopher Osuala. “We came up with a Facebook group, we came up with two commercials, and we also went to different blog forum sites where people could talk about Flo and we would post different things that will let people go to Flobattle.com.”
Other projects focused on working together with a company and coming up with a way to optimize resources or reduce costs by adapting a new strategy.
In the Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering Showcase, senior Jared Quan worked with the company Sperian Respiratory Protection with the goal of optimizing the manufacturing of self contained breathing apparatuses.
“Because of poor communication and lack of documentation, there are a lot of reject and reworked parts,” said Quan. “This leads to a lot of overtime hours, a lot of extra production hours, as well as weakened and missed deadlines.”
Through the plan mapped out in Quan’s project, he claimed that Sperian would be able to increase production capability, reduce the production hours, reduce the production lead time, reduce the total production space utilized, increase the space efficiency, and reduce the distance to the assembly line, thereby saving the company time and money.
Engineering students are not the only Cal Poly students that must complete a senior project before they graduate.
Kateri Lirio, a fourthyear music production student, helped develop and manage an up-and-coming rapper for her senior project, entitled “The Prototype.”
“I actually didn’t intend for it to be my senior project. It was just something I was working on as an up and coming industry professional,” Lirio said.
The goal of Lirio’s project was to eventually get fellow student and musician William Bissic, also known as MC Prototype, on to a hip-hop show called “Paid Dues.”
In order to get on to the show, Lirio had to put on a marketing campaign, produce an album and use social networking sites to get the type of local attention needed.
“We launched this online campaign called the ‘Free Speech Tour,’ which is this viral video blog series that we wanted to get super viral on Youtube,” Lirio said.
Though the senior project is an immense investment of both time and effort, Lirio walked away from the experience with a very positive outlook.
“Overall, I had a lot of fun working with a team to make this happen, but it’s also a challenge,” Lirio said. “For me it was really fun to do something like that and be proud of it.”
Reach Mitchell Saltzman at: news@thepolypost.com
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