I grew up with stories about the end of the world heavy on my mind, and that fear still has some hold on me. The 2000’s were the era of the post-apocalyptic dystopia for children’s literature, and I loved the genre. I like to make things, understand how they work, and thinking about the tools and other objects in these stories of survival in the wake of societal destruction have always fascinated me. As a child I learned to sew, knit, weave, and spin yarn among other artistic pursuits. I also started to worry about the world around me. About what would happen if we couldn’t go to the grocery store, if there were no more stores.

This collection of stories was created for my arts, humanities, and social science capstone at Olin College of Engineering. The goal of my project was to explore the relationship between fiction and my reality in pieces that intentionally blur the lines between the two. I hoped to use these pieces to share stark glimpses into both my life and my characters’ lives, and leave it to the reader’s interpretation to untangle and decipher these stories as they see fit. I was inspired by semi autobiographical storytelling, such as the Little House on the Prairie series, the book To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, the webtoon The Kiss Bet by Ingrid Ochoa, and Taylor Swift’s recent album folklore. I was also inspired by how works set in realms that feel so distant from us, like The Hunger Games trilogy, can be so rooted and inspired by the actual current social situations and events.

The first three sources all played with retelling their experiences while blending in fictitious or exaggerated components and characters. Little House on the Prairie presents itself as the closest to the “truth”, but still reveals bits about the author’s life in addition to weaving a fictional narrative. While The Kiss Bet presents itself as fiction, the author has admitted that those close to her can immediately name the individuals and situations that inspired characters and plotlines. Taylor Swift’s folklore was a massive inspiration in regards to the structure and creating a myriad of pieces, as the album contains songs completely about Swift’s life, songs completely about fictional characters, and songs that combine the two seamlessly. I grew up believing that storytelling was the most compelling and versatile tool in the world. In these pieces, you will read about the plight of an aging nymph, someone who recognizes their role in their own stagnation, and the stories that can be mapped onto one’s hands. But you will also read the confessions of a twenty two year old who is still searching for connection and a sense of belonging.

Artist Origin I’m Rascal a rapper and producer from Nashville Tennessee living in Massachusetts. I’ve loved hip hop music since I was five years old listening to Black Eyed Peas’ album Elephunk. I was never was too plugged into mainstream hip hop growing up but listened to groups like Blue Scholars and Doomtree. Their work influences how I make and interact with music today. Blue Scholars’ music has a deep focus on staying informed and being policy engage. Doomtree As a group focuses on challenging ideas of society with socialism and anarchy.

Artist Statement I want to make music to express how I feel about life and how I feel about society. I want to celebrate the highs and lows of life and express vulnerability as a strength. I want to stand up to the structure in society that forces us to be something we are not.

Album Summary This is my first Album focusing on my upbringing and who I am now. It’s a retrospective of where life has taken me. This album’s main message is that Rascal lived life from moment to moment holding onto whatever he could. To the end of the album to ideal changes to see what he can get out of life.

Link to album: https://soundcloud.com/rascal-tunez/sets/lanes

Halide perovskites are promising materials for tandem solar cell applications due to their easily tunable bandgap through cation and halide variations. However, photo-induced halide segregation in iodide-bromide perovskite chemistries often results in iodine-rich and bromine rich domains that limits the efficiency of tandem solar cells. One approach to mitigate such segregations reported in the literature is the addition of chlorine to the usual iodide-bromide perovskite compositions. With Gaussian process regression and other computational tools, we efficiently explore the cesium-formamidinium triple halide perovskite composition space and optimize for perovskite optical property and stability at the same time.

Research Advisor: Rebecca Belisle, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Physics, Wellesley College Research Co-Advisor: Zachary del Rosario, Ph.D., Visiting Professor of Engineering, Olin College of Engineering Academic Advisor: Mark Somerville, Ph.D, Provost, Dean of Faculty, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Physics, Olin College of Engineering

We see a misalignment between the engineering field’s constitutive-interests rooted in the reductionist sciences and the needs of the 21st century in the socio-political, environmental, and spiritual realms. Following Habermas’s critical theory, the knowledge-constitutive interest of the natural and reductionist sciences lie primarily in the manipulation of the physical world for the purpose of predictable and quantifiable outcomes by reducing the studied system to its smallest components. Such interests are unfit to understand and intervene in our world; a living world of dynamic complexity. We argue that a renewed science of holism will create the conditions for a critical engineering education that can mimic the properties of living systems to recreate a thriving existence for all living beings on this planet. In this thesis, we identify six loose web-nodes to draw a picture of a science for the whole:

(1) Natural phenomena such as emergence, self-organization, or autopoiesis acquaint us with the nature of nature. (2) The study of our world brings us closer to our cosmos’s mysteries, which naturally introduces spirituality to the holistic web. (3) Dynamically complex systems theory attempts to understand the relationships between parts of the system to make assumptions about future behavior or opportunities for intervention. Practices that are commensurate with the nature of reality are crucial for an effective engagement with living systems. Such practices include (4) methods for a co-creation of the future and (5) research and learning methodologies that embrace unpredictable emergence of insights and emancipate us from hidden oppressive power structures. (6) Lastly, a holistic science includes the reductionist sciences to analyze, predict, and control non-living, simple systems. Our hope is that a holistic science will re-shape engineers’ understanding to learn and interact with our world to recreate the nature of nature in our systems: a thriving existence for all.

Readers are invited to comment on the online version of the thesis: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C3SCRvH27EgcddZZr0pTxEqCUb41ksqJ/view

| Advisors: Linda Vanasupa, Benjamin Linder, Jonathan Stolk

The most significant part of my experience at Olin has been the people I have met and the friendships I have made. I wanted to do an AHS Capstone project that really represented the importance that these people have had in the past four years of my life. Doing this project with embroidery offers a unique way to accomplish this. The process of creating each portrait gave me time to focus on each subject; while creating the portraits, I can think about each subject as a person and about my relationship to each of them. I created a series of 10 embroidered portraits and an artist’s statement about the project. At the end of the semester, all of the portraits were displayed together in Milas Hall and at Expo before being sent off to each subject.

For my AHS Capstone Project I was working in the scholarly field of painting. I enjoy painting as an art and I want to get better at it. I found after taking a painting course that I especially enjoyed painting landscapes. I also have found that when I’m at college there are places, especially from home, that I miss and have a deep emotional connection with. These are usually the most fun and enjoyable paintings to work on. With this project I am hoping to further develop my skills as an artist while having a fun and relaxing activity during this semester. Going into the project my plan was to go through the photographs that I had from home and my recent road trip across the country and select a handful of photos that I would be interested in painting. Then I went on to explore composition with sketches and draft paints. When I settled on two drafts I was happy with I started my final. My final paintings were inspired by places in Hawaii and Yellowstone National Park.

This paper discusses some of the fundamental approaches to environmental ethics. In particular it discusses some of the differences between anthropocentrism and ecocentrism and some of the advantages of each approach. In addition, it details some of the environmental perspectives of students at Olin.

An open-ended journey to understand how cities are formed through the forces of urban design and daily life. Work includes digital sketching, animation and image collage.

Electromyography can be used as a human machine interface in which a person could control a computer or device with the electrical signals that cause muscle movement. This research used EMG data from the SEEDS data base to explore what features should be used by machine learning algorithms to accurately classify EMG data into which motion a subject is preforming. We extracted features from the EMG data and then ran three different feature selection algorithms to find which features were the most useful in classification. In the end, we found eight features that our various selection algorithms selected the most and concluded that those features would be good starting place when trying to classify EMG data.

The discussion of inclusivity and accessibility is often something that happens in a closed system, where able bodied people discuss how to make things easier for people who have a disability. When written out on paper, it seems silly, like not inviting someone to their own party, but in reality it happens constantly. In order to most effectively meet the needs of people with all abilities it is necessary to include them at the discussion and to recognize their ideas and solutions as more valid than those created by people who do not actively live with the disability they may be designing for. When teams, companies and projects fail to include people with disabilities in the create of solutions that will supposedly make their lives easier, not only does society lose the possible contributions of an entire community of people, but the solutions that are created are often not the most direct way to solve the problem. Inclusivity means not just including the ideas and words of people with disabilities but also recognizing the contributions of disabled designers and engineers themselves. During the summer of 2015, I worked on a research team led by Sara Hendren, with two other students from Olin College, Toni Saylor and William Lu. The research team worked on multiple projects in the accessibility and inclusivity design space, including conducting background research for a book proposal that Professor Hendren was starting and working to document and share the work done by a woman named Cindy, who had created a variety of innovative solutions to modify her environment to suit her needs as a person with multiple disabilities.

Prior research has shown piezoelectric vibration sensors can detect sail luffing, the acceleration of a flexible sail out of its normal wing state caused by a momentary reversal of the air pressure gradient over the sail. Luffing decreases boat performance by reducing the lift generated by the sail. Yet detecting sail luffing in flexible sails for robotic sailboats is still challenging. This paper presents three methods of sensing characteristics of a luff – air pressure differential which causes the luff, the acceleration of the sail as the luff occurs, and the influence of motion and acceleration of a luffing sail on members placed on the sail. We assess three different sensor types based on cost, ease of use, complexity of electrical interface, power consumption, accuracy of the sensor and amount of noise in sensor readings. To classify the most effective sensor for a given set of constraints, a multifaceted analysis has been performed with a piezoelectric vibration sensor, an acceleration sensor, and a gas pressure sensor. The accuracy and precision of each sensor at sensing sail luffing is evaluated by comparing the sensor output with a plot of the position of a single point on the sail through time generated with computer vision.

In late 2018, the City of Providence began allowing scooter share companies to operate within their city and to provide alternative forms of transportation to their population. These scooter share companies are required to uphold certain distribution requirements within the five geographical regions of the city: downtown, east side, south side, north west, and west. The system has definitely changed over time. From August 2018 to October 2019, Bird and Lime were the primary scooter providers to the city. They were later replaced by Spin and Veoride. In general, all providers increased their scooter deployments over time and saw an increase ridership as a result. It is clear, however, that each provider expanded their services to meet the needs of each region quite differently. This is evident in how fleet size differs across each region over time. In this paper, we discuss our study of the equity of access to scooter share services in Providence. We work with the City to investigate how ridership, coverage, and service vary across the region to identify underserved communities. Further, we analyze sociodemographic factors from 2018 census data to put these patterns into context.

Aquaculture has the potential to become the world's most important and sustainable option for protein production, but many of those involved in the industry currently lack the tools, resources, and education to make that happen. The purpose of this paper is to explore the feasibility of creating a robust but low-cost fluorometer that can detect chlorophyll levels and provide offshore aquaculture operations with immediate feedback on how their day-to-day operations impact the nutrient levels in the surrounding waters. The experimental setup involves an LED that emits light at 430 nm, focusing optics, and a photodiode placed perpendicular to the LED that is capable of detecting any light emitted from an algae sample. Preliminary results are promising as they demonstrate that such a setup is sensitive enough to detect the difference between samples containing different concentrations of chlorophyll. Further testing is required to optimize the fluorometer, and more research needs to be done into how to package the sensor and make it suitable for in situ trials.

I went into this with a plan, and came out of it without one. What I wanted to do was give a glimpse into what the city of Boston— and some of the surrounding neighborhoods—looked like to the detached eye. These photos are vignettes of a sort, in that they capture a real moment of a real story in time. Take a look, and try to figure out the place, time, or story in the photos. They may not be perfect, complete, or beautiful, but they are alive. These photos were purposely unlabeled and untitled within the show so that the viewer is forced to think more about what and where they represent and come from. In doing this, details become more pronounced and important. I want people to be inside the scene, rather than be outside looking in. I hope you enjoy the show!

Cerebral palsy patients currently face a significant treatment gap, which in part has to do with the high cost of traditional treatment methods. Research has shown that cerebral palsy affects 1 in 323 children in the United States (CDC, 2018), 42% of which aren’t receiving the care that they need. The medical expenses needed for children with cerebral palsy are 16 times higher than other children, which could account for this high percentage. The summer research team aims to look into and develop low-cost technology alternatives that could supplement these children’s physical therapy from home. Building upon existing work on controllable gloves with fabric actuators, my peer researchers and I looked into efficient design changes that accomplish our goal (Polygerinos, 2013).

Based on a review of research papers, existing strategies for glove position control (Yap, Kamaldin, Kim, Nasrallah, Goh, Yeow, 2015), were paired with sensors that could be integrated into a low-cost version. Two different sensor types were chosen to be evaluated for their feasibility for our project: a commercially available glove controller based on a conductive-ink bend sensor, and a novel conductive textile. Analysis of the data demonstrated that the glove controller sensors worked well, better than the conductive textiles, as expected. The results indicate that the glove sensors worked best when bending them along a radius rather than at a joint since the signal is strongest when the sensors are bent consistently along the length rather than at a single point. Further research is needed to characterize the accuracy of the sensors, but they are ready to be integrated and tested with the other control aspects.

With augmented reality technology that can accurately track a smartphone’s motion through 3D space becoming more prevalent, assistive technology researchers saw the opportunity to utilize it for navigation purposes. For the past few years, Paul Ruvolo and his team have been developing Clew, a free iPhone app that helps blind and visually impaired individuals navigate recorded routes indoors. This summer, my work has centered around the addition of rerouting and pausing capabilities for the Clew app. This report will conclude with the discussion of future opportunities and limitations of the app.

Given the detrimental environmental impacts from the fast fashion clothing industry, this research project delves into the recycling of textiles for thermal insulation and energy conservation. The present work includes analyzing recycled fabric samples with varying methods of construction in order to maximize the volume of air—since air resists heat conduction—while keeping the air pockets small enough to minimize thermal radiation and convection. Thermal modeling using resistance networks was done to validate the measurement method and increase the accuracy and replicability of thermal conductivity measurements. Multiple quilt samples were sewn and measured with a thermal conductivity apparatus, with the goal to reduce thermal conductivity as much as possible. Quilt samples varied by the density of top-stitching, where indentations caused by stitching could create air pockets. Preliminary findings show that quilt samples with higher stitch density have a lower thermal conductivity than samples with a lower stitch density.

During a research period of June-August 2020, a team of students from the Laboratory for Adaptation, Inclusion, and Robotics developed fabric-based pneumatic actuators for use in at-home physical therapy for children with spastic cerebral palsy. This paper focuses on the mechanical components of the device–specifically, what materials and productions methods are most effective in creating a useful, affordable actuator. It details the development of several working prototypes and what methods were used to test them, as well as what research remains to be done on this subject in the future.

Most modern games treat gameplay and stories as distinct and opposing forces. They feature primarily linear narratives that fail to change substantially in response to player interaction. Frustrated with this restrictive approach to interaction and storytelling, I spent a semester exploring alternate game designs. My research culminated in an online interactive game design document for a unique game without the shortcomings in these games. Time Mansion: Take Back the Future is a concept for a pointandclick puzzle adventure game that allows players to influence a dynamic story inspired by Agatha Christie mystery fiction. Players travel back in time to influence the interactions between computercontrolled characters.

Anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) rupture is one of the most common sports injuries in the United States with over 100,000 cases per year.. In order to return functionality to the knee, ACL reconstruction surgery is performed using grafts such as hamstring tendon, patellar tendon, and allograft tissue grafts. Due to a high post-surgical failure rate of 10-15%, there is a need for alternatives to existing surgical tools and practices. The DePuy Mitek-Olin SCOPE team was tasked with designing and developing such alternatives. The goals of this project were to understand the surgical processes of ACL reconstruction, identify areas of opportunity, delineate critical product requirements, and prototype a functionalproduct concept. Using a surgeon-oriented design process, the team built and demonstrated the use of a fully functional prototype of a new surgical tool for ACLR.

The Parietal Systems-Olin SCOPE team developed a shared, location-based, to-do list application for iOS which uses "The Reality Miners" platform as a service. The idea was selected from over 800 location-based app ideas generated through the innovation tournament process. While developing the app, the team evaluated and provided feedback on Parietal's Geo Toolkit, which provides a database for developers that stores location data associated with specific users.

This SCOPE team was tasked with building a lawnmower which would sense the state of the mower and its surroundings, allow the driver to have an informed view of the surroundings, record driving dynamics for future analysis and increase safety and driving performance. They implemented sensors to detect a variety of mower dynamics for research as well as a slope limiting mechanism and a drive-by-wire system for improved safety.

The Hutchinson/Barry Controls-Olin SCOPE team worked to develop an active vibration control system for hand-held construction equipment. Workers who use this equipment for extended periods of time are in danger of developing hand-arm vibration syndrome, a condition that can result in severe nerve damage. Decreasing construction equipment vibration will not only protect workers’ health but also save companies time, cost, and resources. Every current active vibration control system Barry Controls creates is highly specialized and time-consuming to develop and install. Barry Controls would like to move toward developing solutions that are more widely applicable, and therefore challenged the SCOPE team to create an active control system that is less specialized and more efficient to implement than previous Barry Controls systems. During the fall semester, the team identified market areas that could benefit from simple active control systems. After deciding to focus on construction equipment, the team devoted the spring semester to designing, prototyping, and testing their active control system on an electric breaker.