Engineering Student Participated in 2017 CSU Immersive Learning Summit
Edwin Tran, undergraduate EE student, was invited to the 2017 CSU Immersive Learning Summit in San Diego on October 27 to learn more about using virtual and mixed reality to enhance the class room learning experience. Over the summer, Edwin’s research project focused on developing mix reality apps for the Microsoft HoloLens. In this event all of the CSU's and the Chancellor's Office were represented, in an effort to see how VR/MR can be used to enhance academic experiences and follow inline with the CSU's Graduation 2025 Initiative. "I am very happy that Edwin was able to meet with fellow peers from SDSU and learn from their experiences with VR. Edwin will be one of the founders of a VR Club at SSU which is set to charter this month," noted Dr. Kassis, who is leading the use of immersive technology for teaching and learning in higher education at SSU.
Edwin Tran on th right
Engineering department participates in North Bay Science Discovery Day!
The Engineering students at Sonoma State University participated in the 2017 North Bay Science Discovery Day on October 28th at the Sonoma County Fairgrounds. The North Bay Science Discovery Day is designed to stimulate the excitement of learning Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) in North Bay youth during their most formative years. Several hundreds of young students, along with their parents, participated in this event. Electrical Engineering students Brandon Barron, Karla Grace Montenegro Montalvan, Randy Hania, Mayson Lager, and Mohammed Ibrahim, presented several exciting hands-on activities for the participating students. These activities included building simple electrical circuits, controlling a robot arm, and learning about sound. "Discovery Day is a fun way for kids to explore and learn about STEM! It was great to see our Engineering students interact with the attendees at Discovery Day; it is such an inspiration for the younger generations to learn from these fabulous role models." points out Dr. Sara Kassis, SWE club faculty advisor. "It was very exciting to see the kids play with our demo projects. It was equally exciting to see our students interact with the kids and their family members and telling them about their own projects. We are very happy that we were able to be a part of the event," added Dr. Sudhir Shrestha, an engineering faculty at SSU. "The need for engineering education in the North Bay area is growing and many local high-tech companies are recognizing a shortage of engineers and other high-technology employees in the area", says the Engineering department chair Dr. Farid Farahmand, "At Sonoma State University we are trying to highlight the importance of Technology and Engineering education in STEM and attract more students to the engineering fields."
SSU Engineering at Northbay Science Discovery Day
EE Students Present at IEEE GHTC 2017!
Two groups of engineering students presented their research at IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference in San Jose, CA, on October 19-22, 2017. This year over 500 scientists, engineers, students, NGO and government representatives from ten different countries participated the event to discuss research, ideas, and other considerations for the creation of effective humanitarian technologies and how to advance technology for the benefit of humanity. This cross-disciplinary annual conference provides the perfect venue for those students interested in humanitarian projects. The two papers presented by SSU EE students entitled "iSeiz: A Low-Cost Real-Time Seizure Detection System Utilizing Cloud Computing" and "A UAV-based Mobile Environmental Data Collection Network". Both works will be published in IEEE Xplore Digital Library. Please join us to congratulate the following students for their great work: Aaron Marquez, Michael Dunn, Jaime Ciriaco, Taylor Jones, Josh Papanicolas, and Abe Palmerin.
MSCES graduate Student Manthan Gajjar
MSCES Graduate Student Receives the 2017 Great Minds in STEM grant!
Please join us to congratulate Karla Grace Montenegro Montalvan for receiving NSF-Sponsored 2017 Great Minds in STEM (GMiS) travel grant to attend the 29th Annual HENAAC Conference in Pasadena, CA October 18-22, 2017. HENAAC is the premier national conference focusing on providing leadership and career development for STEM college students and professionals. Each year the conference attracts thousands of the finest minds from top executives and innovative professionals, to recruit the next generation of STEM talent. Congratulations Grace! We are so proud of you!
Karla Grace Montenegro Montalvan
Engineering Students Visit Viavi Solutions Inc. (formerly JDSU) in Santa Rosa
On August 31st, 2017 SSU Engineering students were invited to visit Viavi Solutions facility in Santa Rosa, CA. The tour was a part of Engineering Science Colloquium course arranged by Dr. Ali Kujoory. Several of students from the Engineering Club and Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Club participated in the tour. Special thanks to Dr. Robert Sargent for arranging and guiding the tour. Viavi Solutions is a leader in high performance thin film optical coatings, providing light management solutions to anti-counterfeiting, consumer electronics, automotive, defense and instrumentation markets.
From left to right: Dr. Robert Sargent, Isaac Rodriguez-Jimenez, Hassan Ali Roohian, Matt Hutchinson, Edson Hernandez Ruiz, Jimmy Cao, Javier Urbina, Nathaneal Magardie, Cassandra Abad, Rona Jergenson, Courtney Hoffman, Greg Scott and Dr. Ali Kujoory
Summer 2017
The Fifth Summer Research Program Sponsored by the Engineering Department
Over the last five years the Engineering department has been hosting a number of high school, undergraduate and graduate students from SSU and other institutions to engage in real-world and exciting funded research activities during summer. Summer research scholars are selected by faculty and receive a highly engaging mentoring experience. Participants in the program are expected to spend 10 weeks and present their results in poster, talks and presentation sessions at various conferences and even possibly peer-reviewed journals. This year's summer research program included nine engineering students. To learn more about the summer research program at the engineering department at SSU, please contact Dr. Farid Farahmand (farid.farahmand at sonoma dot edu).
From left to right: John Gonsalves, Edwin Tran, David Story, Hassan Ali Roohian, David House, Abdul Majid, Javier Urbina, Jimmy Cao, Isaac Rodriguez-Jimenez and Dr. Farid Farahmand
EE student is invited to the US Ignite Smart Cities Conference!
David House was invited to the 2017 US Ignite Smart Cities Connect Conference & Expo, in Austin on June 25-28 to assist with the workshop on "How to Design a Smart City". The workshop was sponsored by Dew Mobility. About 70 professionals and engineers participated in the workshop. The objective of this half-day workshop was to offer an overview of IoT applied while architecting smart city applications. During the workshop David gave a talk on fundamentals of IoT infrastructure and networking technologies such as IPv4, IPV6, Wi-Fi, BLE, 6LowPAN, ZigBee and Cellular concepts and assisted the participants with the hands-on activities. Congratulations David on the great work you did; we are so proud of you!
Shivakumar Mathapathi on the left and David House on the right
SSU Students are Invited to 2017 Sensors Expo
Three teams of Engineering Students from SSU were invited to participate at the Sensors Poster Contest sponsored by Sensors Expo & Conference 2017. All the participating students, Jaime Ciriaco, Aaron Marquez, Joshua Papanicolas and David Story, received complimentary Gold Conference Passes to attend conference talks and demonstrations. The event gathered more than 6,000 professionals and students from across the nation and 40+ countries to explore today's sensor technologies and find the solutions to tomorrow's sensing challenges. This year's event also hosted more than 300 industry exhibitors. "Perhaps the best thing at the expo, was meeting so many people from various companies and industries at the expo hall. It was a great opportunity to network and talk with different industry people and see them demonstrating their latest technologies. I am so glad I was able to go to this years's event and I would highly hope other students get a chance to attend the next year's Sensor Expo." commented Joshua Papanicolas.
Group picture, from left to right: Aaron Marquez, Jaime Ciriaco, Joshua Papanicolas and David Story
Nick Soleil featured in This Old House video!
Nick Soleil, our EE graduate was featured on This Old House video (How to Install Home Solar Storage). Nick is currently employed at Enphase Energy and working on Solar Storage System. Great job Nick!
SSU Student & Faculty are invited to 2017 NIWeek!
Two engineering students, Michael Vargas and Joe Nolan, along with professor Derek Decker were invited to attend the 23rd annual NIWeek conference to present their poster entitled "LabVIEW Controlled Pneumatic Robot". The poster had been accepted to the "Education" section of the conference.
NIWeek conference is sponsored by National Instruments (NI) in Austin, Texas. More than 4,000 innovators representing a spectrum of industries participated in this event. Professor Decker, Michael and Joe have been developing the Pneumatic Robot project for the past several months. "Overall, the trip was a great experience! We learned about National Instrument, how it is growing, and it's strategy going forward. During our visit we also toured the Mechatronics and Maker labs of University of Texas. Perhaps, the best part of the conference was the Exhibition, where NI and other vendors occupied hundreds of booths to discuss their technologies", Michael summarizes his first conference participation.
Professor Derek Decker on the left and Michael Vargas on the right
Spring 2017
Engineering Students Receive Awards in the Annual Sonoma State Science Symposium
Electrical Engineering students presented eleven posters representing their scholarly work and research at 2017 SSU Symposium of Research & Creativity Registration. The SSU Symposium of Research & Creativity is a campus-wide event showcasing the amazing work of SSU students from many different programs and disciplines. In this event, The Smart Waker, an inter-disciplinary project by Arturo Arcos (EE), David House (EE), Molly Kommer (kinesiology), and Cynthia Lopez (pre-business) received the Best Science & Technology Poster. In addition, two other engineering students, Nick Soleil and Kevin Suiker received the Science Symposium Big Picture Award for their Home Energy Monitoring Project.
The Smart Waker Project, from left to right: Arturo Arcos, David House, Molly Kommer (missing in this picture, Cynthia Lopez)
Home Energy Monitoring Project, Nick Soleil on the left and Kevin Suiker on the right
SSU’s Virtual Doctor Assistant Wins an Award!
Engineering graduate student, Hanan Sedaghatpisheh and Electrical Engineering student Aaron Marquez participated in one of Major League Hacking events in Fremont, CA: the Silicon Hacks. The SSU team designed a Virtual Doctor Assistant (VD-Assist) which can help doctors in treating their patients following a surgery. The program uses Speech-to-Text, machine learning, and text-to-speech technologies to access the available data about the patient and provide more accurate information to the doctors. The Virtual Doctor Assistant team won the best health and fitness award.
Hanan is the third from the left and Aaron the second from the right
Celebrating International Education at SSU
Three teams of engineering students submitted their research projects to the 2017 International Research Contest. The contest was sponsored by the Phi Beta Delta, the Honor Society for International Scholars at Sonoma State University. During the ceremony Interim Provost Dr. Echeverria presented the awards to the winner and handed each participating student an individual Certificate of Participation.
From left to right: Josh Papanicolas, Taylor Jones, Kevin Suiker, Dr. Echeverria, Nick Soleil, Aaron Marquez, Abraham Palmerin and Jaime Ciriaco
Students build their first electronic circuit!
On April 21st, several students from Rio Lindo Adventist Academy, a boarding high school in Healdsburg, CA, visited the Engineering Department. During their visit, each students built a simple blinking LED circuitry using a couple transistors. Professor Shahram Marivani led the lab activity. For many of the students this was their first electronic circuit; they were very excited about their successful accomplishment!
Shahram Marivani is leading the practical session. (Photo courtesy of Renee Brassington)
2017 Seawolf Decision Day
On Saturday April 8th the student members of the Electrical Engineering Club and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) participated in the 2017 Seawolf Decision Day open house event. This is a day where new students have a chance to attend workshops, demonstrations, lectures, meet faculty from various majors, and interact with current SSU students.
The engineering students always play an important role during the Seawolf Decision Day by reaching out to the new transfer and freshmen students and interacting with them. This year Abraham Palmerin, Michael Vargas, Taylor Jones, and Cristin Faria represented the Electrical Engineering program. They demonstrated several hands-on activities and shared their experiences as engineering students at SSU with the new prospective students.
From left to right: Michael Vargas, President Judy Sakaki, Abraham Palmerin, Taylor Jones, and Cristin Faria
Encouraging the Girls to Choose a Career in Engineering!
The students from the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) club participated in the 2017 Expanding Your Horizons Conference at Santa Rosa Junior College. Expanding Your Horizons is an event to increase the awareness of young women and their parents of the importance of adequate preparation in science, math, and Engineering. In this event SWE students Rona Jergenson, Cristin Faria, and Cassandra Abad demonstrated several hands-on activities they had developed for young girl participants. They also shared their experience as engineering students at SSU and encouraged the participating young women to explore careers in fields of Engineering.
From left to right: Cassandra Abad, Rona Jergenson and Cristin Faria
Engineering Students Visit Enphase Energy Headquarter in Petaluma!
SSU Engineering students were invited to visit Enpahse Energy facility in Petaluma, CA. The tour was a part of Engineering Science Colloquium course. Many of students from the Engineering Club and Society of Women Engineers (SWE) Club participated in the tour. Special thanks to Mark Baldasari for arranging and guiding the tour. Enphase Energy, a global energy technology company, delivers smart, easy-to-use solutions that connect solar generation, storage and management on one intelligent platform.
Picture of Attendees
EE Students Participate at the NorCal Math Conference
For the first time, three teams of Engineering students presented their research work at the Northern California Undergraduate Math Conference at Sonoma State University this Saturday, March 25th. Please join us in congratulating them:
Michael Vargas "Understanding Light Propagation in Multi-Mode Fiber Optics"
Aaron Marquez, Michael Dunn, & Jaime Ciriaco "Developing a Real-Time Statistical Algorithms to Detect Seizure"
Abraham Palmerin & Randy Hania "Analysis of a Mathematical Model for Underground Wireless Communications"
From left to right: Aaron Marquez, Jaime Ciriaco, Abraham Palmerin, Randy Hania and Michael Dunn
EE Students Presenting at the Latino Family Summit
The Engineering students participated in the Latino Family Summit event on Saturday 3/25! In this event EE students showcased their projects and explained to the participants what electrical engineers do! The Summit is a great opportunity for the community to learn more about STEM as well as meeting current STEM students. We would like to thank David Story, David House, Arturo Arcos Ramos for their help and representing the Engineering Department at the event.
Behind the table from left to right: David House, Arturo Arcos and David Story
Soldering Workshop
The Electrical Engineering (EE) Club students organized a soldering workshop on Friday, February 24. About 20 students majoring in EE and CS participated in this workshop. "The event was a big success! We did not expect this many people," noted Abraham Palmerin, the president of the EE club. In this event the participants put together a Blinking LED Christmas Tree Kit. "For many of the students this was their first soldering experience. Everyone was very excited," pointed out Taylor Jones, an EE senior student and one of the organizers of the event. Visit Skill Building Workshops page to learn more about upcoming skill building events.
Hanani Ikeh in front and from left to right in the back: Jirah Alberto, Taylor Jones, Abe Palmerin, Brandon Barron, Edwin Tran, Deahja Powell, Elizabeth Stelzer, Jose Avila, Mckenzie Maher and Cristin Faria
SSU Students Receive CSU I-Corps Student Challenge!
Three engineering students, Michael Vargas, Nader Srouji, and Jose Avila, from SSU received CSU I-Corps Special Recognition award in 2017 Challenge at the 29th CSU Annual Biotechnology Symposium, which took place on January 5-7, 2017 at the Santa Clara Marriot, CA. The team presented its innovative product prototype called SpecDetect, a low-cost device to monitor muscle activities, while working out.
Nineteen student teams from all CSU campuses, including two SSU teams, participated in the challenge. Only a handful of teams made it to the final round of the I-Corps Challenge. The second cross-disciplinary team of SSU students, Arturo Arcos (EE), David House (EE), Molly Kommer (kinesiology), and Cynthia Lopez pre-(Business), presented its novel SmartCane prototype at the challenge’s final stage.
Each participating team at the challenge was evaluated based on the amount of learning it accomplished over the course of the Challenge, clarity of its product concepts, and justification of its problem-solution through customer discovery findings.
Upon receiving the award, the SSU team is eligible to apply for the national grand NSF challenge to receive $50,000 startup money to fully develop its product. Dr. Farid Farahmand, Professor Derek Decker, and Mr. Chris Stewart, President/COO of Pocket Radar in Santa Rosa, continue assisting students as their technical and industrial advisors.
Pictures of Presentations
SWE Represents SSU the 2017 AT&T Developer Summit!
Engineering graduate student, Hanan Sedaghatpisheh, representing the Society of Women Engineers (SWE) club, participated in the 2017 AT&T Developer Summit. The summit took place as part of the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) in Las Vegas on January 3 - 4. Hanan was accompanied by Mr. Shivakumar Mathapathi, CEO of Dew Mobility, and Wendy Fong, previously Sr. Strategic Programs Manager at Carnegie Mellon Silicon Valley.
The AT&T Developer Summit focused on developers and content creators and it was packed with valuable news and information about emerging technologies, products, and services. "I really enjoyed the summit; it is one of the best opportunities to network with top industry experts. I hope next year more SWE students can participate," says Hanan.
From left to right: Shivakumar Mathapathi, Hanan Sedaghatpisheh and Wendy Fong
Off to Japan to Do Real Engineering Work!
Engineering student Omar Alvarez Tinajero received internship at Okinawa Institute for Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan. Omar will be assisting the research team at OIST to develop the first remote power management system for Microbial Fuel Cells (MFCs) systems. The MFCs can extract electrical energy from winery wastewater while bringing the effluent water to a quality sufficient for use in irrigation.
Omar on the left with two other members of the project
Engineering Students participated in the CSU Annual Biotechnology Symposium
The 29th CSU Annual Biotechnology Symposium, sponsored by CSUPERB, on January 5-7, 2017 at the Santa Clara, CA brought together hundred of faculty and student researchers from all over California. Abraham Palmerin, a senior EE student, presented his research work titled A Comparative Study of RF Wave Attenuation in Soil and Sand (Poster #: 2) at the conference. Abraham's work was very well received and he talked to many participants inquiring about his research. "This event helps bring student's research to life by giving us opportunities to present in front of our peers while receiving their feedback. We should encourage more engineering students to take advantage of these events," noted Abraham. Abraham's research work was a collaboration between the AITIS Laboratory at SSU and Dr. Erin Fong from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Engineering Division.
Abraham Palmerin on the left with Dr. Farid Farahmand on the right
Fall 2016
Engineering Demo Day, October 4, 2016
The Department of Engineering Science at Sonoma State University held its first ever Engineering Demo Day on Tuesday, October 4th in the Darwin Hall lobby. Demo Days are intended to provide outreach to the campus and bring awareness to the engineering program, which offers both a bachelors degree and a masters degree. The small class sizes offer students a more personalized approach to learning.
Students, faculty, and staff were able to interact with our demos. The engineering students presented a robotic arm controlled by a cell phone application, both created by a student. Students demonstrated using the robotic arm to create drawings on paper. The other demo was to listen to the sounds of frequencies generated by an oscilloscope and look at the waves being created. Students often create small projects for their classes, based on real scenarios, which is an added bonus as compared with other universities.
More Engineering Demo Days will be coming up in the Fall 2016 semester. Look for our table in the Darwin Hall lobby from 11 AM - 1:00 PM on Thursday October 20, Tuesday November 8, and Thursday December 8. For more information, please contact the engineering office at 707-664-2030. Hope to see you then!
The engineering students pictured from left to right: Omar Alvarez, Cristin Faria, David Story and Abraham Palmerin
Summer 2016
Resin-Based 3D printer
Guided by Visiting Professor Derek Decker, Engineering Science students Nader Srouji and Michael Vargas were able to activate a resin-based 3D printer provided by Professor Jeremy Qualls. In addition to learning many new skills (3D design in Fusion360, photochemistry, writing GCode, accurately measuring gaps less than a tenth of a millimeter, and making polydimethyl siloxane-filled resin trays) they produced a microfluidic device with millimeter-sized channels from a liquid resin that UV cures to a stretchy elastomer using a scanned laser. The students said this "was a great experience" and they "would definitely recommend this experience to anyone who would like to learn about 3D printing".
Nader Srouji on the left and Michael Vargas on the right (left image), the Sample Made on the Right Side Images
On August 12, two engineering students, Hanan Sedaghat Pisheh and Aaron Marquez, participated in Philips & Plug and Play Student Hackathon in Sunnyvale CA. Participating teams were competing to create the best software/hardware solution for a common problem using Philips Hue paersonal wireless lighting system. In this 48-hour event, Hanan and Aaron developed a super cool phone app that assist seniors with their daily activities. "Our SENTECH can remind seniors to keep track of their medicine, exercise and many other daily activities," explains Hanan, MSCES student at SSU. "It was a very educational event for us and we won a HUE Starter Kit!" added Aaron.
Hanan Sedaghat Pisheh on the left and Aaron Marquez on the right
SSU Students Participate in Shape Hackathon
On July 15, a group of engineering students from Sonoma State University competed in the AT&T Shape Hackathon in San Francisco. During this 24 hour event, Jose Antonio Avila, Omar Alvarez, Hanan Sedaghat Pisheh and Aaron Marquez prototyped a cloud-based system that can be used to determine the traffic conditions of city streets. Hackathon Projects were judged based on the best use of technologies provided by sponsors including Qualcomm, Philips, DirectTV, IBM Watson and others. "We had a great time at the hackathon", said Omar. "We learned a lot and had a chance to see and experience some of the latest technologies on display at the expo", added Hanan. The hackathon took place in AT&T Park alongside the yearly Tech Expo.
From left to right: Omar Alvarez, Jose Antonio Avila, Aaron Marquez and Hanan Sedaghat Pisheh
The Department of Engineering Sponsored its Forth Summer Research Program
Over the last four years the Engineering department has been hosting a number of high school, undergraduate and graduate students from SSU and other institutions to engage in real-world and exciting funded research activities during summer. Summer research scholars are selected by faculty and receive a highly engaging mentoring experience. Participants in the program are expected to spend 10 weeks and present their results in poster, talks and presentation sessions at various conferences and even possibly peer-reviewed journals. This year's summer research program included over twelve engineering and high school students. To learn more about the summer research program at the engineering department at SSU, please contact Dr. Farid Farahmand (farid.farahmand at sonoma dot edu).
Standing from left to right: Dr. Farid Farahmand, Feng Wang, Hanan Sedaghatpisheh, Ella Mahood (SHIP Program), Abraham Palmerin, Joe Nolan, Omar Alvarez and professor Derek Decker.
Sitting from left to right: Shahram Marivani, Aaron Marquez, Taylor Jones, Michael Vargas and Jose Antonio Avila
Not shown in the picture: David Lou (Engineering student at Berkeley) and Nader Srouji
Sensors 1st & 2nd Place Wins with Anaren-based Wearables, Uploaded on Jun 27, 2016
At last week's Sensors Expo in San Jose, two Design Challenge teams from Sonoma State University took home both first and second place wins with their unique designs of wearables for infants! Both designs were based on Anaren's AIR for WICED (Broadcom-based) and Atmosphere platforms. Go teams!!
Jason Mcguire, a MS-CES graduate student, presented his research paper at the 123rd ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition in New Orleans.
Jason’s paper is titled "Data Visualization: The Missing Piece in the Internet-of-Things Projects" and it summarizes his research over the past year and half. This year over 2000 leaders in various engineering-related fields from more than 500 university and college engineering schools, including professors, deans, instructors, and students, presented their works, exchange ideas, and interact with their colleagues and industry counterparts.
Engineering Students participated in the Bioengineering Symposium
The 17th Annual University of California (UC) Systemwide Bioengineering Symposium on June 13-15 brought together faculty and student researchers from all over California. This year’s symposium features exciting speakers from industry and academia, including invited faculty speakers and chairs from all 10 UC campuses and events with industry representatives and student poster and oral presentations. At the symposium shark tank, invited participants with bioengineering start-up ideas will pitch their concepts to a panel of faculty and corporate volunteers who challenge those concepts and award prizes to the best ones. Two engineering students, David House and Arturo Arcos Ramos, attended the conference. "The event demonstrated how innovative ideas could solve complicated problems that can have a real impact on patients and the development of further technology", explains David. I loved the talk on "Sentinel Bandage, Monitoring Skin Health" presented by David Young.He discussed how passing current through the skin can determine its health and how it can possibly at some point be used to heal the skin. Another really interesting talk was the one give by Aydogan Ozcan, "Mobile Imaging, Sensing and Diagnostics." He talked about how cameras in phones can be transformed into precise microscopes on the go. There were many more interesting and innovative ideas presented at this conference.” Added Arturo. "We should encourage more engineering students from SSU attending these kind of events," David and Arturo emphasized.
Arturo Arcos on the left and David House on the right
EE Students Receive the Grand Prize at Sensor Expo in San Jose
Engineering students, Hanan Sedaghatpisheh, Aaron Marquez, and Feng Wang received the grand prize in the Sensors Design Challenge onsite at Sensors Expo & Conference in San Jose, CA. Two other SSU engineering students, Omar Alvarez and Jose Avila, received an award in the Home Automation category of the challenge. All participants in the Sensors Design Challenge had to construct and complete a fully functional Internet-of-Things (IoT) solution from scratch in 48 hours! Design solutions were pitched to a panel of judges from different universities and high-tech industries. In addition to receiving prizes, SSU Engineering teams will be featured in next Sensors Magazine. More than fifty individuals registered for the challenge.
From left to right: Feng Wang, Hanan Sedaghatpisheh, Omar Alvarez, Aaron Marquez and Jose Avila
Students participating in Sensors Expo
SSU Students Receive CSU I-Corps micro-grants
Two interdisciplinary student teams from Sonoma State University receive CSU I-Corps micro-grants from CSUPERB to conduct the first phase of customer discovery and build working prototypes of their projects. I-Corps is funded by the National Science Foundation to help scientists and engineers to learn how to identify useful or valuable product concepts based on ideas derived from academic research. CSU I-Corps is an intense program with a relatively high workload during the fall and winter break. SSU student-led I-Corps teams will be representing their product concept at the 29th CSU Annual Biotechnology Symposium in January 2017 at the Santa Clara Marriott.
From left to right: Michael Vargas, electrical engineering, Maya Castro, business, Nader Srouji, electrical engineering and Jose Antonio Avila, electrical engineering
From left to right: Cynthia Lopez, pre-business, Arturo Arcos, electrical engineering, Molly Kommer, kinesiology and David House, electrical engineering
Engineering students present at GCTC Expo
Engineering students from Sonoma State University participated in Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) to present their project at the 2016 GCTC Expo held at the Austin Convention Center, June 13- 14, 2016. The GCTC Expo, convened by NIST and US Ignite, showcased over 80 projects related to promoting Smart Cities. Feng Wang, a MS-CES graduate student, represented SSU Action Cluster and presented the Advanced Flood Warning System and displayed the project at SSU’s Exposition space. "I am amazed how many developers and city officials form state of Texas were interested in our project, following recent floods in Texas…we received lots of good feedback to improve the system. I am very excited to be able to attend this event. It is an excellent way to learn about the latest technologies related to Smart City and Internet-of-things." explained Feng.
Spring 2016
Professor Decker concluded his second workshop on 3D Design.
In this workshop, participants gained an understanding of CAD software and 3D printing hardware technologies through examples and demonstrations. Several EE students and faculty participated in the workshop. Please contact Professor Decker (derek.decker@sonoma.edu) to learn more about upcoming 3D Design workshops.
Presentation on Microanalysis and Measurement in Keck Lab by Dr. Saeid Rahimi (2/10/2016)
This presentation by Dr. Rahimi included a general description of the Keck lab and its advanced instruments, followed by a tour of the laboratory. Dr. Hongtao Shi, the Keck lab director demonstrated the use of some instruments which included: Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM), Atomic Force Microscope (AFM), and Laser Induced Breakdown Spectrometer (LIBS).
The Engineering Club & SWE hosted Switch Vehicles
The Engineering Club and SWE students hosted the representatives of Switch Vehicles, a pioneer in designing and building electric vehicles in Sebastopol, CA. Mr. Peter Oliver, CEO of Switch Vehicles, Inc., talked about the Switch vehicle and variety of educational programs the company offers to students.
Dr. Sara Kassis receives a CSU Course Redesign with Technology (CRT) grant for 2016 - 2017.
Dr. Kassis' proposal focuses on creating a hybrid virtual lab model for ES 110, Introduction to Engineering Laboratory. This will enable freshmen and incoming transfer Electrical Engineering students to conduct introductory electronic experiments individually at home using their own measurement and test equipment, which is purchased by the Department through this grant. The goals are to enhance student performance in ES 110 which, in turn, reflects performance in the upper level courses; and ensures that the gap in knowledge between the incoming first year freshman students, with no EE background, and the incoming transfer students, with some EE background, is minimized so that all students receive a quality education.Please join us to congratulate Dr. Kassis.
Abraham Palmerin selected as a 2016 McNair Scholar!
Please join us to congratulate EE undergraduate student, Abraham Palmerin for being selected as the 2016 McNair Scholar! The McNair Scholars Program at SSU is one of the premier undergraduate research programs on campus and it combines faculty mentoring, undergraduate research, and academic support services. Over the summer, Abraham will be working with Dr. Farid Farahmand to study and characterize the communication between sensors buried underground. Abraham's research includes conducting field experiments to compare and validate existing underground communication models.
Engineering Student Teams Are Getting Ready to Participate in the First North Bay Make-A-Thon!
Four undergraduate engineering teams from Sonoma State University are getting ready for a 27-hour non-stop Make-A-Thon at Sonoma Mountain Village, Rohnert Park. The event will take place on March 5th & 6th, 2016. Make-A-Thon is a design competition that aims to pull the most passionate artists, designers and creators for a weekend full of creativity and innovative breakthrough. This year’s North Bay Make-A-Thon enables participating engineering students from SSU to transform their ideas into functioning prototypes for the chance to bring their product to market.
Reaching Out to Santa Rosa JC Students to Engaging them in Real EngineeringProjects!
For the second year, the Department of Engineering Science at Sonoma State University funds and implements its innovative Pathway to Engineering Internship for Transfer Students (PEITS) initiative! Through this program five selected students from Santa Rosa Junior College will be offered practical product development experience. The JC students will be mentored by Electrical Engineering students at SSU, while the JC students assist the senior students with their final projects. The PEITS initiative also provide opportunity for the selected JC students to apply for the Engineering Summer Research at SSU and engage in ongoing funded research projects.
Tomorrow’s Engineers Build Tomorrow’s Network!
Environmental monitoring is at the heart of the Osborn Preserve research and educational activities. A major challenge in implementing such monitoring system is constructing an off-grid solar power source. Senior Electrical Engineering students, Joe Nolan, Arturo Arcos Ramos, and Jarrett Baglietto, have taken on this challenge! Together, they are building a 75-Watt solar power system, providing electricity for the telecommunication tower and allowing environmental sensors to collect and transmit data from remote locations on the data center at Sonoma State University.
From left to right: Joe Nolan, Arturo Arcos and Jarrett Baglietto
Collaborating with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists to Build an Underground Wireless Sensor Network!
Master's Student Jason Mcguire is working with Berkeley National Laboratory Scientists to test the impact of soil composition on RF wave attenuation. This study is crucial in order to define the appropriate RF band and design of the RF antenna, as well as development of communication protocols used in underground wireless sensor networks. Jason’s abstract was recently accepted to 2016 ASEE National Conference.
Home Energy Monitoring Project, Nick Soleil on the left and Kevin Suiker on the right
Students participating in Sensors Expo
From left to right: Cynthia Lopez, pre-business, Arturo Arcos, electrical engineering, Molly Kommer, kinesiology and David House, electrical engineering
