The faculty and students of Cal State LA’s College of ECST are pleased to present the August 2024 - May 2025 cohort Capstone Senior Design Expo on Friday, May 2, 2025.
Capstone Presentations
ECST Capstone Senior Design Program 2024-2025 projects and descriptions from the Computer Science (CS), Electrical and Computer Engineering (EE), Engineering Technology (ETECH), and Mechanical Engineering (ME) programs are listed below.
Event Overview
Project presentations will be held on the 3rd floor of the University Student Union (U-SU). A 20-minute team presentation and project demonstration, followed by a 10-minute QA session. Specific project presentation rooms, agendas, and schedules will be available soon!
- CS program: 8:30 am - 12:00 pm
- EE, ETEC, and ME programs: 1:00 pm - 5:30 pm
COMPUTER SCIENCE
For details on the Access Computer Science program, including assessments and project history, visit the Department of Computer Science's cloud server at https://ascent.cysun.org/project/project.
AI Powered Sentiment Analysis and KPI Dashboard
Client: QTC
Liaisons: Julian Gutierrez, Francisco Guzman, Edmundo Guzman-Meza, Denise Tabilas
Faculty Advisor: Huiping Guo
Students: Jorge Arias, Kenneth Castro, Darrin Du, Javier Gonzalez, Harshaun Khehra, Brandon Lopez, Walter Najera, Andres Quezada, Joshua Soteras, Johny Vu
QTC Leidos, officially known as Leidos QTC Health Services, is a U.S.-based healthcare organization specializing in medical examination and diagnostic services, primarily for government agencies. With a wide range of clients, gathering feedback through surveys is essential to maintaining top-tier performance and continuously improving service quality. These surveys provide valuable insights into client experiences, enabling QTC Leidos to identify areas of excellence, address concerns proactively, and implement data-driven improvements that enhance overall operational efficiency and patient satisfaction.
The project's goal is to develop a Quality Manage System that analyzes survey responses related to examinee and staff appointments. A key feature is Sentiment Analysis-the process of evaluating textual responses to determine the respondent's attitude. In this context, the system classifies each client’s experience as positive, negative, or neutral. An LLM (Language Learning Model) Roberta utilized to analyze comments that contain sarcasm or mixed opinions, offering a more effective solution compared to traditional rule-based approaches. The analyzed data will be used to generate data visualizations and key performance indicators (KPIs), providing actionable insights to support continuous improvement and decision-making.
View Poster: Project QTC
Box.com Discovery Bates Namer: Cloud Integration
Client: Santa Barbara Public Defender's Office
Liaisons: Deepak Budwani, Luis Ramirez, Alexander Voisan
Faculty Advisor: Jungsoo (Soo) Lim
Students: Jesus Antonio Alcocer, Justin Bradshaw, Santiago Del Rio Obando, Anthony Diaz, Anthony Gonzalez, Yongkang Liu, Alexander Mendez, Gilbert Perez-Sanchez, Jian Verdad
As the Office of the Public Defender continues its transition to a fully paperless case management system, we have adopted Box.com as our secure, CJIS- and HIPAA-compliant cloud content management solution. This platform allows for efficient digital file storage, internal collaboration, workflow automation, and integration with external systems like our case management software, eDefender.
With data ingestion exceeding 5–6 terabytes of electronically stored information (ESI) each month, automating file organization and metadata handling has become critical. One key project this term focuses on automating the discovery file workflow—specifically, parsing uploaded PDFs for Bates stamps, renaming those files, and transferring them to the appropriate locations in Box based on their case number.
In a prior phase of this project, a standalone desktop application was developed to assist with Bates parsing and file renaming. However, the manual workflow—downloading files, running the tool locally, and re-uploading renamed documents into Box—was inefficient and time-consuming. To address this, our team migrated the solution into a fully serverless cloud environment using AWS Lambda.
Now, when users upload discovery materials into a designated folder in Box, the system is triggered via webhook. AWS Lambda functions validate the input, extract Bates stamp ranges from the file content, rename the files accordingly, and move them to the appropriate destination folders. The system handles errors gracefully, distinguishing between soft and critical failures, and notifies the uploader via email if any issues occur.
View Poster: Project Box.com
Cedars Sinai Project
Client: Cedars Sinai
Faculty Advisor: Yuqing Zhu
Liaison: Jack Han, Yimeng He, Xiuzhen Huang
Students: Amadeus Patrick Araiza, Fangshuo Cao, Emmanuel Gonzalez, Matthew Gutierrez, Saad Irfan, Rahmat Muhammad, Bryam David Ochoa, Mason Price, Javier Solorio, Kyle Vo
This project focuses on the development and evaluation of a deep learning model for segmenting brain MRI images, with a primary goal of accurately identifying tumor regions in patients with lower-grade glioma (LGG). It combines foundational CNN concepts with advanced biomedical image segmentation techniques using the U-Net architecture.
The project begins with environment setup and basic CNN training on the CIFAR-10 dataset to establish a solid understanding of convolutional networks. It then progresses to transfer learning using ResNet18 before transitioning into the core task of biomedical image segmentation.
The U-Net model is implemented and trained on a publicly available LGG MRI dataset from Kaggle. Key evaluation metrics such as Intersection over Union (IOU) and Dice coefficient are used to assess model performance. Additional experiments include data augmentation, learning rate scheduling, and loss function comparison (e.g., Binary Cross-Entropy vs. Focal Loss).
View Poster: Project Brain MRI, Cedars Sinai
Email Gatewaying Across Delay Tolerant Networks
Client: JPL
Liaison: Jordan Leigh Torgerson
Faculty Advisor: Manveen Kaur
Students: Lance Batac, Brian Contreras, Adrian Flores Aquino, Jiahao Li, Sophia Liwag, Nathan Luu, Nicholas Martin, Antonio Ortega Guererro Jr, Anderson Godo Pena Reyes, Ryan Torrez, Jilei Zou
This project involves developing software to implement the method for delivering SMTP messages over Bundle Protocol described in Scott Johnson’s Internet-Draft [I-D.johnson-dtn-interplanetary-smtp].
View Poster: Project Talking to Moon, Delay Tolerant
LA City Sidewalk Assessment Project
Client: LA City Department of Public Works, Bureau of Engineering
Liaisons: Ted Allen, Alisa Blake, Jonathan De Leon, Miguel Grajeda, Bertram (Bert) Mokelebust, Irvin Nguyen, Chris Tsangaris
Faculty Advisor: Jungsoo (Soo) Lim
Students: Ernesto Cabrera, Arturo Gonzalez, Tiffany Hung, Johnathan Hwang, Zhiwen Liu, Brian Mojica, Jose Portillo Valencia, Amelia Santamaria Zapata, Fernando Serrano Perez, Carlos Villa Rodela
The City of Los Angeles maintains over 11,000 miles of sidewalks. When a sidewalk segment does not settle evenly or has been raised by tree root growth, the sidewalk becomes uneven. This can create pedestrian hazards. In addition, the city is obligated to ensure that its sidewalks conform to Federal ADA standards, which limit the extent to which a sidewalk may slope.
This is the seventh term of a multi-year project. In the last term, a rover has been successfully fabricated. Now, the rover is capable of 1) moving with remote control, 2) measuring crossing slopes and running slopes, 3) collecting GPS data, and 4) taking photo images. In this term, we will develop a module to measure vertical and horizontal displacement by partnering with the Mechanical Department. In addition, we will continue developing various software by focusing on the following tasks:
Task 1 – Work with the Mechanical Engineering (ME) Department to continue improving the module collecting vertical displacement on the sidewalk – The faculty advisor shall recruit students from the Mechanical Engineering Department to continue to improve the module developed by the previous team to collect vertical displacement.
Task 2 – Implement collision avoidance function on the rover. – The students shall implement a collision avoidance function on the rover. Also, the students shall improve the existing application web-site
Task 3 – Perform field tests, including field tests at Echo Park, to assess the system and collect sidewalk data. The students shall perform extensive field tests to prepare the system for deployment, including field tests at Echo Park field.
View Poster: Project BOE LA City Sidewalk
LACPD Data Visualization Dashboard
Client: LA County Public Defender's Office
Liaisons: Mohammed Al Rawi, Gratia Dsouza, Mario Bonifacio
Faculty Advisor: Mark Baldwin
Students: Alec Bennardo, Elijah De Vera, Cesar Gomez, Daniel Herrera, Lynn Lee, George Melendrez, Alex Pena, Joseph Sandoval, Ratul Uddin
The Los Angeles County Public Defender's Office (LACPD) is the largest public defender's office in the country, with over 1,200 employees that include attorneys, paralegals, investigators, administrators, and support staff. The office supports approximately 9.3 million residents of Los Angeles County in criminal defense, juvenile cases, mental health placement and treatment, and racial and social justice cases.
LACPD currently uses Microsoft's Power BI software to generate reports to help them keep track of workloads, case-loads, and district information. Microsoft Power BI is a powerful business analysis tool that allows users to generate dynamic reports with live data, creating real-time data visualizations. However, the office faces challenges with report generation, as it can be cumbersome for the IT department due to the higher level of technical knowledge required. Our goal is to create a user-friendly dashboard that allows users to generate reports using easy-to-use queries. We are working closely with the LACPD liaisons to gather information, schedule and conduct interviews, and to gather user feedback for the project.
View Poster: Project LACPD Data Visualization
LACPD AWS Project
Client: LA County Public Defender's Office
Liaisons: Mohammed Al Rawi
Faculty Advisor: Armando Beltran Verdugo
Students: Averii Bell, Dominick Daito, David Garza, Daniel Hernandez, Viyoka Lim, Steven Partida, Luis Rosas, Matthew Sanchez, Tuan Tran, Niyusha Zarnegar
The LAPD1 Transcript Analysis System is a collaborative initiative between a team of computer science students and the Los Angeles County Public Defender’s Office (LACPD), leveraging Amazon Web Services (AWS) and advanced AI tools to enhance legal workflows.
The system focuses on analyzing court transcripts related to police misconduct by using Natural Language Processing (NLP) technologies, including Jen AI tools. Uploaded transcripts are indexed, tokenized, and vectorized, preparing them for in-depth analysis.
Through this innovative solution, the system can:
- Identify Key Entities: Extract details like officer names, badge numbers, and other relevant entities.
- Flag Inconsistencies: Detect contradictions and patterns of misconduct across transcripts.
This flagged information assists defense attorneys and support teams in preparing stronger legal cases by automating the analysis of large volumes of textual data. The LAPD1 system exemplifies the potential of AI in streamlining legal processes, ensuring efficient, accurate, and actionable insights.
View Poster: Project LACPD AWS
LACPD Travel Request Power App
Client: LA County Public Defender's Office
Liaisons: Mohammed Al Rawi
Faculty Advisor: Armando Beltran Verdugo
Students: Kyla Belan, Paulo Da Costa, Jonathan Garcia, Brandon Hernandez, Andy Liang, Edgar Palomares, Francisco Sanchez, Alexis Sanchez-Rosas, Josh Torres Dominguez
The Public Defender’s Office staff currently manage travel requests, expense forms, petty cash requests, and other administrative tasks through paper-based processes, which lack an efficient tracking system. This manual approach can lead to delays, errors, and limited accountability, making it difficult to oversee and manage requests effectively. By leveraging Microsoft Power Apps, we aim to create the Office's first-ever digital business system, providing a streamlined and user-friendly application that addresses these challenges.
Our Travel Request Application will simplify the steps involved in completing a travel request—including submission, review, and approval or denial—tailored specifically for the Los Angeles Public Defender’s Office. Requests will be routed to the appropriate parties, enabling quick and accurate processing. Additionally, the application maintains a comprehensive database of all submitted requests, allowing staff to track current and past records, ultimately enhancing accuracy, accountability, and speed across the Office.
View Poster: Project LACPD Power App
Leveraging Digital Phenotyping to Support Patients with Visual Field Loss
Client: CSUPERB/DoE
Liaison: Navid Amini
Faculty Advisor: Navid Amini
Students: Emily Ayala, Luis Diego Badillo, Devin Chang, Paul El-Hosni, Lisette Gonzalez, Gilberto Lopez, Pierce Nance, Sahis Neupane, William Giovanny Reynoso Hernandez, David Tabor, Xihao Wang
Glaucoma is among the top two causes of irreversible visual impairment in the US and Worldwide. The impact of sight loss in glaucoma is complex, affecting aspects of daily functioning, mobility, and quality of life. Glaucoma cannot be cured; treatments are designed to slow or halt disease progression, necessitating lifelong hospital monitoring. There is growing difficulty for hospital eye services in effectively monitoring the glaucoma patient caseload. Indeed, people with glaucoma are losing their sight due to a lack of timely monitoring. There is a need for innovative changes in the current glaucoma patient pathway to achieve better patient outcomes and higher quality care. Smartphones are increasingly being used to collect health information. Digital phenotyping refers to using smartphone-generated data to build a picture of an individual’s lifestyle and health state. There is scope for this data to be translated into indicators of clinically symptomatic behavior. For example, these data could aid clinical decision-making as reduced mobility may indicate a decline in visual functioning and progression of glaucoma. Care providers can be alerted by these digital signals and schedule a clinical assessment and intervention, such as treatment augmentation, provision of visual aids, or counselling support. Combined with routine clinical data, digital phenotyping could emerge as a powerful tool to establish the real-world impact of glaucoma and help to prevent avoidable sight loss. This approach may ultimately facilitate a more sustainable approach to glaucoma care by measuring outcomes that are relevant and meaningful to the patients themselves.
View Poster: Project Digital Phenotyping Visual Field Loss
Lunar Rocks!
Client: JPL
Liaisons: Shan Malhotra
Faculty Advisor: David Krum
Students: Hovhannes Babayan, Steven Chen, George Ewest, Hober Granados, Jaden Lazo, Jacky Man, Barnabas Novak, Nathan Rodriguez-Lynn, Allen Tamrazian, Jordy Ye Cao
The Lunar Rocks! is sponsored by NASA JPL and is currently in its second year, originally called VIPER Rocks!. The Lunar Rocks! website serves as the public's personal connection to the scientific exploration of the moon. Citizen scientists will contribute to the scientific understanding of the lunar surface by analyzing images from lunar missions. Citizen scientists will do three tasks including:
- Scouting - Citizen scientists will count the number of rocks in an image, allowing the workload of image analysis to be divided more evenly among citizen scientists.
- Sizing - Citizen scientists will help measure rock sizes by tracing the perimeters of the rocks in each image.
- Classification - Citizen scientists will classify the shape of each rock, according to a validated scale from sharp to rounded.
View Poster: Project LunarRocks!
Pacific Clinics Project
Client: Pacific Clinics
Liaison: Scott Fairhurst
Faculty Advisor: Mark Baldwin
Students: Darius Ayvazian, Uriel Baldesco, Kyle Chau, Adam Dixon, Jose Escobar, Salvador Gonzalez, Ryan Kwan, Vincent Rodriguez, Kaelyn Taing, Cem Teker, Weston Wood
WeGoTo CalStateLA is an attempt to establish a sense of community among those in the social support circle in CalStateLA. Family members and friends of those attending CSULA are welcomed and encouraged to join WeGoToCalStateLA. The goal of this app is NOT to become another social media platform but to be a one-stop shop for all things Los Angeles.
It is a place to help foster positivity, support, and engagement in your community.
Our plan is to have one app where people can host large events like beach cleanup days, small events like hikes, or even just make sure they are keeping up with their own mental health.
View Poster: Project Pacific Clinics
Project Mirage
Client: Santa Barbara Public Defender's Office
Liaisons: Deepak Budwani, Mark Perez, Luis Ramirez
Faculty Advisor: Chengyu Sun
Students: Washika Afrozi, David Alvarado, Serly Bonyadi, Colby Dearing, Alfredo Gonzalez, Anita Hovsepian, Gabriel William Linecker, Danny Melgarejo, Evan Peraza, Michael Salter, Robert Varela
Project Mirage introduces Anya, our AI-powered virtual assistant designed to simplify and streamline daily workflows within Microsoft Teams. Anya provides a unified, conversational interface that helps users access a wide range of tools and resources more efficiently, all from one centralized platform. Built on the foundation of two existing PowerApps, PDGo and PDHelpDesk, Anya brings everything together to reduce friction and improve the user experience. With simple commands, users can submit HelpDesk tickets, request time off, retrieve contact information, and access key links or organizational updates, all without leaving Teams. Instead of navigating between multiple platforms, users just type a request, and Anya handles the rest. Anya allows users to submit HelpDesk tickets, request time off, retrieve contact information, quickly access specific links, fill in request forms, and more. Anya delivers the right resources instantly, and can assist users using different languages.
This project was born out of challenges identified at the Santa Barbara Public Defender’s Office. While PDGo and PDHelpDesk were already valuable tools, switching between them and SharePoint often created confusion. Users were not always sure where to go or how to access what they needed, which slowed down productivity and affected the overall experience. Anya solves that by serving as a centralized platform within the Microsoft Teams that connects all the dots. It eliminates guesswork and makes it easy for users, whether attorneys, technicians, or support staff, to find what they need at a glance. No more hunting through multiple apps. Everything is intuitive, quick, and focused on helping users stay on task.
By leveraging AI, Anya enables seamless switching between tasks like ticketing, resource requests, and more, creating a smoother and more productive day for every user. The result is a faster, more intuitive workflow where everything you need is just a command away.
View Poster: Project Mirage
RoboSub
Client: United States Office of Naval Research
Liaison: Mark Tufenkjian
Faculty Advisor: Richard Cross
Students: Paulux Carrillo, Christian Chun, Leopoldo Flores, Alvaro Guardado, Cesar Hernandez, Sunheng Leng, Abraham Limon, Erick Marroquin, Will May, Jianwen Tan, Jose Zamora
At Cal State LA, the RoboSub club is developing the Lanturn autonomous submarine for the 18th annual RoboSub competition, collaborating with senior design teams from Mechanical, Electrical, and Computer Science (MEEECS). The project is organized into three sub-teams—Controls, Autonomy, and Computer Vision—each tackling key areas for competition readiness.
The Controls team is researching MicroROS communication protocols, integrating microcontrollers like the RP2040 using the Arduino framework within PlatformIO, and implementing PID control loops for precise maneuvering. The Autonomy team is reviewing the updated 2024 codebase on GitHub, completing tutorials for the Groot2 behavior tree builder, and exploring MicroROS integration with the Jetson Orin Nano for onboard decision-making. The Computer Vision team is working with ROS2 Iron, training models using RoboFlow and Google Colab, and deciding whether to upgrade from YOLOv7 to YOLOv8 for better object detection accuracy.
Additionally, the team is addressing challenges in localization and mapping due to the limited camera field of view, aiming to improve spatial awareness and navigation in the pool environment during competition.
View Poster: Project RoboSub
Satellite Visualizer
Client: The Aerospace Corporation
Liaison: Pablo Settecase
Faculty Advisor: Zilong Ye
Students: Curtis Batters, Joseph Corona, Eben Fuentes, Angel Gutierrez Sanjuan, Zhuowen Li, Dennis Martinez, Kevin Austin Ortez, Sripranav Pinjala, Rosa Saldivar, Sanskar Thapa
Satellite Visualizer is a web-based application developed in collaboration with the Aerospace Corporation and Cal State LA. It visualizes a GPS metric called Dilution of Precision (DOP), which reflects the accuracy of GPS satellite coverage across the globe. The app displays this data on an interactive world map using a color scale to indicate precision levels.
The website generates and displays DOP data based on user-selected timestamps, using satellite almanac data from NAVCEN, custom DOP computations, and a FastAPI + InfluxDB backend. The front end was built with Vue.js and Leaflet.js and provides an interactive map for exploring GPS DOP performance across different timestamps.
View Poster: Project Satellite Visualizer
Unbox3D
Client: Army Research Lab
Liaison: Paul Fedele
Faculty Advisor: David Krum
Students: Anthony Chieng, Mark Familara, Anthony Grande, Brandon Kobayashi, Alberto Lemuz, Paolo Marchi, Levy Ocampo Rivera, Juan Romero, Derek Tan, Chandara Young
UnBox3D is a software tool that converts 3D models into simplified geometric representations and generates corresponding 2D layouts for fabrication. By reducing complex structures into basic shapes and flattening them into printable patterns, the tool bridges the gap between digital modeling and physical assembly. UnBox3D aims to streamline prototyping and fabrication for engineers and defense applications.
View Poster: Project Unbox 3D
Want2Remember
Client: We2Link
Liaisons: Michael Malone, Ricardo Marroquin
Faculty Advisor: Huiping Guo
Students: Bryan Bee, Jose-Luis Cortes, Ricardo Galvan Orduna, Joseph Hudson Hart, Arber Keqi, Henry Li Li, Josue Martinez, Carlo Navata, Marco Padilla, Edgar Sanchez, Duy To
We2Link will work with the Cal State LA interns to continue last year's work in developing the Want2Remember Web app to provide easier access to the Want2Remember mobile app content through large format offered by computer web browsers. The students will continue to develop the custom template creator that was started last year. Teams will be divided into mobile development and Web App development. The teams will conduct refactoring tasks to improve both apps based upon beta tester feedback and develop and improve their knowledge and use of tools such as Jira and Git Hub. They will conduct quality control reviews of their teammates’ work. They will develop an understanding of Google Cloud functions and Google Firebase functions and use these to enable the cloud capabilities for both the mobile and web apps. The teams will extend the usability and functionality of the caregiver portion of the app. Lastly, if time permits, the teams will work on developing a workflow-based medication compliance tool to support the proper consumption of prescription medications for those with cognitive impairments.
View Poster: Project Want2Remember
ENGINEERING
Projects from the Electrical and Computer Engineering, Engineering Technology, and Mechanical Engineering programs.
Project 101: COSMIC Capstone Challenge
Client: Aerospace Corporation
Industry Liaison: Horace Lee, Antonella Pinola, Jacob Rome
Faculty Advisor: Michael Thorburn
Students Team A: Adrien Alvarez, RJ Denley, Florencio Dominguez, Francisco Prieto-Queriapa, Indeyo Shaw
Students Team B: Nicolas Adams, Zeke Blanco, Raul Gutierrez, Brandon Peffer, Oscar Rodriguez
The challenge is to design a payload, to be hosted about the BCT X-Sat Venus Class bus, that will demonstrate a chain of three or more operations that provide an on-orbit, autonomous ISAM capability. The goal is to engage in the early design work necessary for a complex ISAM mission that could be ready for launch by the end of the decade. It is explicitly a Conceptual Design challenge, distinguishing it from competitions that focus on building a product for demonstration or creating detailed design work sufficient to begin manufacturing. These concepts are the starting point for ambitious satellite missions. Some of these concepts may be continued post-competition, either by the entrants themselves or other entities (academic, industrial, or government) to fund further development. Mentors, judges, speakers, and other COSMIC members will provide guidance on how to further extend their work.
Background: The 2024-25 challenge was developed in response to the national ISAM strategy calling for development orbital manufacturing capabilities across the country and promoting workforce development. Engineers have worked to identify and advance technologies important for orbital manufacturing. Many technologies have been demonstrated terrestrially and on-orbit, with more in the works. These technology advances pave the way for larger, more complex payloads which are in the early stages of development as follow-on work. Conceptually designing those payloads is the 2024-25 C3 topic. This project does not stand alone. The hope is that some of these projects develop into funded missions, and the successful missions help pave the way for the future of manufacturing in space.
Aerospace has developed a 10-year roadmap to deploy an autonomous, persistent orbital satellite factory. There are many milestones along the way, including complex demonstration missions we have targeted for 2028 and 2029. The ISAM Design Challenge is aimed squarely at those demonstrations; we want the students to design small sats that can perform a series of manufacturing operations in orbit.
Project 102: Free Flyer Grapple System Development
Client: Aerospace Corporation
Industry Advisor: Edgar Herrera, Jacob Rome
Faculty Advisor: Patrick Hartunian
Students: Antonio Gutierrez, Bryan Hernandez, Brooklyn Jarvis, Michael Mireles, Hanneef Myvett, Jordan Socop, Apryl Sperling
Objective: Develop a conceptual design for a free-flyer grapple capture system. In-Space Servicing, Assembly, and Manufacturing (ISAM) operations in the near future will require grappling systems to allow servicing spacecraft to capture client spacecraft. Capture is the initial contact between free flying (separated) servicing spacecraft and client spacecraft which brings the two vehicles together into a combined stack. One means of free-flyer capture is grappling. Grappling involves the use of a robot arm with a specialize end effector on the servicing spacecraft to mate with a corresponding fixture attached to the client spacecraft. Since the vehicles are initially free-flying, there will exists residual position error, velocity error, and angular rate error, which the grapple system must adapt to and attenuate. The team will conduct a literature search on existing grapple systems, brainstorm new grapple system concepts, select the best concept based on design criteria, and create a proof-of-concept prototype.
ViewPoster: 02 101B -Space Bender.pdf
Project 103: RoboSub Competition
Client: Cal State LA RoboSub Group
Competition: Robotics - Autonomous Underwater Vehicle (AUV)
Faculty Advisor: Salvador Rojas, Ph.D.
Students: Andrew Gill, Cosme Lavalle, Dervin Lopez Alonzo, Amy Morales, Ruben Rodriguez, Alynne Wong
Students involved will design and build extended and robust systems for an AUV for a competitive edge at the Robonation Robosub Competition held annually in the summer.
Background: The Robosub Group at Cal State LA looks to build a highly competitive AUV this upcoming year after placing 14th out of 41 international universities and the best out of California universities. In the competition, the AUV will be required to complete a series of tasks that may include detecting and passing through a gate, touching buoys, dropping markers, manipulating, deploying objects, and surfacing at desired locations.
The project is highly interdisciplinary and involves many technologies including the design, analysis, integration, and testing of the robot's mechanical and electrical systems and its many software functions. The senior design team works with experienced students from the club and the Nature-inspired and Autonomous Robotics Lab with designated lab space and equipment. The AUVs include structures, propulsion, communications, power, telemetry, command and control, computer vision, navigation, and many task-specific payloads.
Project 104: CSU Uncrewed Aerial Systems Competition
Competition: Intercollegiate CSU Unmanned Aerial Systems Competition at Mojave Air & Space Port (C-UASC)
Faculty Advisor: Bob Dempster, Salvador Rojas, PhD
Student Team A: Matthew Flores, Carlos Lopez, Anthony Rojas, Charlie Sanches, Joaquin Vargas
Student Team B: Guadalupe Guevara, Daniel Mckeon, Anthony Paz, Joshua Pinsky, Jason Vasquez-Lopez
The objective is to build, a drone to compete in the California Uncrewed Aerial Systems Competition at Mojave Air & Space Port at Rutan Field. The tasks include aerodynamic structure design, telemetry, command and control system design, autonomous flight control, computer vision, design of a package carry and dispense system, power and thermal systems.
Background This is the 2nd C-UASC Competition. The 1st competition was held in 2024, organized by Cal State LA and the Mojave Air & Space Port at Rutan Field (MASP). Drones use is growing dramatically and MASP is the home to many companies on the forefront of experimental aviation. The competition will require that the drone navigate way points, deliver a package to a target and identify, classify and localize objects while in flight.
Visit /ecst/uav-competitions.
View Poster: Project 104
Project 105: 3D-Printed Fixed-Wing Aircraft Competition (C-3DPAC)
Competition: CSU 3D-Printed Fixed-Wing Aircraft Competition
Faculty Advisors: Everardo Hernandez, Sangbum Choi, Ankit Gupta
Student Team A: Mieko Arambulo, Yifan Chen, Andrew Lopez, Carlos Santos
Student Team B: Curtis Bonam, Miles Patron, Brian Thinsuwan, Alejandro Villarreal
Student Team C: Alejandro Cervantes Batres, Gael Chavez, Manuel Delgado, Alan Montenegro, Guillermo Vazquez
Student Team D: Brandy Aguilar, Jose Calderon, Jamie Ho, Bryan Miranda-Cortes
The objective is to design and fabricate airplanes, using 3D printing technology, airplanes. The planes will need to be lightweight; the designs will need to maximize performance given manufacturing and material constraints. Student teams leverage modern digital manufacturing technologies. The airplanes can be any size but will need to satisfy strict manufacturing conditions. All airframe components including all aerodynamic surfaces and control surfaces, must be printed using a purely (not hybrid) 3D printing technology. (Propellers will be commercial off-the-shelf technology.)
Background: Cal State LA has hosted the CSU 3D-Printed Fixed-Wing Aircraft Competition. The competitions were also held in both 2023 and 2024. For the competition, two categories will be evaluated: Longest Duration and Most Innovative Design.
Visit /ecst/uav-competitions.
View Poster: Project 105
Project 106: AcroBot – Robotic Trapeze Artist
Exploring the Physics of Acrobatics with a “Stickman” Robot
Faculty Advisor: Kurt Sawitskas
Team A: Jose Arroyo, Joseph Chavez, Luis Coyoy, Rudy Melo, Sandy Shaker
Team B: Joel Estrada Santos, Marco Lucas, Juan Ornelas, Javier Romero, Sophia Sherzai
Team C: Anthony Arias, Robert Armienta, Diego Flores, Eruben Garcia Alcala, Jafet Jurado
AcroBots are autonomous robots designed to perform specific acrobatic feats. Student teams will define, design and produce a working AcroBot to perform a trapeze act. Students will master an understanding of the physics involved and develop a robotic control system with sensors and actuators to perform an acrobatic trapeze stunt.
Students use integrated design and simulation tools (Onshape, Solidworks, Matlab, Simulink Multi-body) to explore, optimize, and define their robot’s performance before actual construction and testing. Acrobots may perform tricks such as a Back-Flip or a Jackknife.
View Poster: Project 106
Project 107: Electric Car Battery Development
Model and test battery package for electric vehicles
Faculty Advisor: Masood Shahverdi, Ph.D.
Students: Leonard Espinosa, William Pasillas, Jacob Rangel, Cesar Resendiz Arredondo, Weijian Xie
The project is a student competition at Cal State LA aimed to design, build, test, and integrate an advanced EV battery pack into a production vehicle. Kicking off in Fall 2023, the three-year competition will provide an immersive hands-on learning experience for students to gain valuable engineering, manufacturing, and battery testing skills that transcend the classroom environment.
Teams follow real-world industry milestones focused on battery design, simulation, controls development, testing, and vehicle integration and demonstration. Participants also learn valuable project management, communications, teamwork, and problem-solving skills that will provide them an unparalleled educational experience and preparation for future careers throughout the battery industry.
View Poster: Project 107
Project 108: Glider Launcher
Faculty Advisor: Mike Thorburn, Ph.D.
Student: Jonathan Chow
The project is to design, build, and test a glider launcher which is transportable and provides a reliable and uniform launch to a glide with a specified interface. The development of the interface, between the glider and the launcher, is a requirement of both this project and the subsequent glider projects that start in January 2025.
Background: Since the 2022-2023 school year, Cal State LA has partnered with several other campuses of the CSU to hold an annual 3D-Printed Fixed-Wing Aircraft Competition. The events have been very successful and continue to grow in terms of participants. Beginning in 2025-2026, Cal State LA envisions holding a glider competition a as well. The objective of this glider launcher project is to provide a consistent launch for the gliders in such a competition.
View Poster: Project 108
Project 109: Infrastructure Masons for a Digital Future
Client: Infrastructure Masons (iMasons)
Industry Liaisons: J. Albright, B. Kleyman, C. Popp
iMason advisors are advising two teams: 109A and 109B
Team A: Hector Diaz, Sidharth Gaur, Martin Pala, Kelly Phan, Adam Spina, Vincent Vivaldo Garcia
Team B: Kimberlyne Barrios-Zamora, Andrew Basurto, Earlee Buchanan Jr, Ugonna Ejimole, David Fajardo
This project has students work with iMasons to develop a detailed proposal and budget to build the digital infrastructure needed to meet the expected market demand in the U.S. of a new digital application. The teams determine whether the client can justify building its own infrastructure. They determine how many data centers to build, where, and when, and then design and cost one. A proposal will need to consider latency and app response time to maintain the user experience, cost and scale (for example, number of cores) of the hardware, availability of fiber connection, availability and cost of power, availability and cost of renewable energy, land cost and availability, different approaches to heat rejection/management, facilities efficiency, flexibility in the event the market forecast is inaccurate, and resilience in the face of interruptions of power, fiber connection, natural disasters, pandemic, etc.
Background: Infrastructure Masons (iMasons) is a global, nonprofit, professional association of individuals connected and empowered to build a greater digital future for all. They are engaging with Cal State LA through their Capstone Initiative. Throughout the year-long project, students work in groups with dedicated iMasons member mentors to design a nationwide digital infrastructure architecture plan to support the latency and bandwidth requirements and the projected growth of a mobile phone app. Once sites have been selected, students will design a data center on one of their selected sites.
View Poster: Project 109
Project 110: ASHRAE Setty Family Foundation Net Zero Energy Design
Client: Manchester England – Medical Office Building
Faculty Advisors: Chet Dik, Mohammad Shaiksaheb, Chris Tanakaya, Yanting Xu
Students: Sergio Arredondo, Alejandro Duran, Jose Jimenez, Gustavo Morales, Adrian Nava, Celest Rivas, Jose Sanchez, Moises Zacarias
This student competition requires multidisciplinary teams to design an energy efficient sustainable project approaching a "Zero Energy" building with minimized energy demands for HVAC and all other technical systems that could be satisfied with locally available or building-installed renewable energy sources (RES). Students will be asked to satisfy a national or local sustainability standard (LEED or the equivalent in their country), and then implement RES to approach "Zero Energy" limit.
The fundamental goal of this design competition category is to encourage students to obtain experience in the Net Zero Energy Design process. Architects and engineers should work together from the very beginning to determine building orientation, layout, materials, mechanical systems, and electrical systems that meet the client's needs and work with the surrounding environment to minimize energy consumption.
It will be to design a multi-use medical office building for a full start-to-finish in the heart of the city. The medical office building will consist of a three-story structure. The goal of the project is to provide local access to doctors and out-patient treatment locations.
Background: ASHRAE Sponsors these competitions to encourage students to become involved in a profession that is crucial to ensuring a sustainable future for our Earth – the design of energy-efficient buildings. ASHRAE will recognize the outstanding student design projects at the 2026 ASHRAE Winter Conference scheduled for February in Las Vegas, Nevada.
View Poster: Project 110
Project 111: Garden Solar Power – Off-Grid Solar System
Client: Valmonte Community Garden
Faculty Advisor: Ted Nye
Students: Adam Acosta, David Almanza, Ivan Fuentes-Ramirez, Jacqueline German, Ariel Herrera, Chandler Lopez-Galindo, Geovanni Reynoso, Jadyn Ruedas, Jack Visger
In 2017, Cal State LA Senior Design students designed and built a small, off-grid solar power system for the Valmonte Community Garden. This power system is now too small since the garden has grown and more electrical equipment is being used. The project will replace the older system by designing, building, and installing a larger, standalone system that powers the garden equipment and appliances.
Background: Over the past several years, Cal State LA has designed, built, and installed, solar power systems for elementary schools in southern Mexico and for the National Park Service on the Channel Islands. This year’s project will be more beneficial to the local community. The Valmonte Community Garden is used for special needs students, 18-22 years old, that receive gardening job training skills. Local restaurants buy the garden’s fruits and vegetables that helps the garden cover operating expenses.
View Poster: Project 111
Project 112. SAE Baja Competition
Off-road vehicle design and manufacturing
Competition: Baja Competition Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE)
Faculty Advisor: Chris Bachman, Ph.D.
Students: Antoniel De Leon, Ignacio Flores, Abraham Madrigal, Asael Marcial, Mario Melendez- De Los Santos, Braulio Roque
The Baja SAE Senior Design Team will optimize the 4WD drivetrain system. This includes integrating a 4WD to 2WD switching system and integrating an open differential into the front driveline. The Baja 4WD car currently exists but is unable to traverse the competition maneuverability track or travel at the top speeds necessary to be competitive. The senior design team will deliver a working system within the fall semester. The senior design team will optimize the system through vehicle testing with instrumentation on the drivetrain system.
Background: The Baja Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) Senior Design team, in collaboration with the current Baja SAE club, is tasked with the design and development of a four-wheel drive off-road vehicle that will compete against many teams from universities around the world. The Baja SAE competition is an event with various course challenges where teams from different schools put their engineering skills to the test and build off-road vehicles to compete with.
View Poster: Project 112
Project 113: Boeing Spot Tag Generator
Client: Boeing
Industry Liaisons: Teo El Masri and Jonathon Fish
Faculty Advisor: Kurt Sawitskas
Students: Josiah Collins, Ismael Cuevas, Fabian Frausto, Anthony James Guanzon, Mayra Molina, Vanessa Sanchez
This project was to develop a tool that can generate spot tags and photo cards for all instrumentation defined in the Boeing satellite master instrumentation list. This requires the team develop a computer program/script that takes information from our instrumentation list and creates the labels for each spot tag and photo card for all channels and create some sort of mechanism to apply Kapton tape to both sides of each spot tag (like current spot tag design shown in the slides).
Background: Spot tags and photo cards are used to identify accelerometer locations that are placed on satellite hardware. As such, they require specific orientation information and need to satisfy some spacecraft environment requirements, such as outgassing, so that they can remain in place through different test phases. Such a device has the potential for substantial efficiency improvements as presently the process is done by hand.
View Poster: Project 113
Project 114: Sidewalk Inspection System
Product Design for Public Works – Sensor Deployment Structure for Automated Sidewalk Inspection System
Client: LA City Bureau of Engineering
Faculty Advisor: Cao Tran
Students: Paul Chang, Raul Godinez, Charles Gabriel Ruiz
In this project, students designed a sensor system and platform appropriate to an automated sidewalk inspection system.
Background: The CS Department at Cal State LA has been developing an autonomous sidewalk inspection system for the LA City Bureau of Engineering for a few years. They have been focusing on the high-level algorithms and data processing. At this point they need a well-designed sensor and data collection system to be built on a mobile structure. The system needs to be reproducible, cost effective, reliable and maintainable. The system must be suitable for transportation and storage.
View Poster: Project 114
Project 115: SoCalGas Carbon Capture Project
Compressor/turbine/generator station
Client: SoCalGas
Industry Liaison: Amir Razmi
Faculty Advisor: John Williams, Ph.D.
Students: Jordy Gutierrez, Alex Kieu, Jesus Noriega Meraz, Victor Ramirez, Tianle Tan
In this project, students evaluated Carbon capture options for a SoCalGas compressor-stations, or a turbine/generator at the Campus.
The team investigated the application of carbon capture technologies that would reduce the CO2 emissions from a target system (including: Compressor Stations, Industrial Systems, Power Generation, etc.) and develop a high-level techno-economic analysis (TEA).
In this process, students considered available technologies such as amine scrubbing, water washing, cryogenic separation, etc. that would capture at least 90% of the CO¬2 emitted in the tailpipe/stacks. During the development of the project, students used process simulation software, or similar, to size the capture system and design how it could be implemented. A resulting TEA could include an assessment of the carbon market and potential carbon tax credits that are available through recently approved federal legislation. As a plus, students may investigate potential uses for the captured CO2 (identify potential CO2 off-takers) and/or other storage costs/options.
View Poster: Project 115
Parking and Campus Map
PARKING PERMIT
A complimentary parking permit is available when you register for the event with a valid email at least one week before the Expo. Parking Services will email you directly (not ECST) instructions for accessing your FREE virtual LPR (License Plate Recognition) permit.
Our campus parking system uses license plate recognition technology to minimize waste, aligning with Cal State LA's sustainability goals.
Visitors may purchase a daily parking permit online or from a permit machine located in designated campus parking lots and parking structures. Visit Parking and Transportation to purchase your one-day visitor parking permit online at https://calstatela.aimsparking.com/
PARKING LOT & CAMPUS MAP
Event parking is available at LOT C, at the top level. Additional spaces will be available at LOT 5.
- Welcome Center (#47 on the map)
- Park at LOT C, top-level. Additional spaces will be available at LOT 5
- University Student Union Rooms (#5 University Student Union U-SU on map)
Please visit the Cal State LA Parking and Transportation website for campus parking regulations and permit information. Click on the interactive campus map button below to explore our campus virtually before your visit, or download the campus map PDF file.
Visit: Parking & Transportation and Interactive Campus Map
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Get Involved
Interested in getting involved with the ECST Capstone Senior Design program? Contact Mike Thorburn, Capstone Director, at [email protected].