These research projects cover a variety of subjects and provide students with an opportunity to conduct semester-long, in-depth research on a topic of their choice. NDSU professors support the students and supervise their research efforts.
Click Clack Moo
For my Senior Capstone project, I was given the opportunity to direct the Theatre for Young Audiences musical Click Clack Moo: Cows That Type.
Jacob Dybwad
Theater Arts and Women and Gender Studies
Fargo, North Dakota
It is based off the children's book of the same name. The show was seen by over 3,000 kids from area elementary schools. It's important that kids these days are exposed to art a young age. For the project, I focused on how director preparation before rehearsals start is conducive to the rehearsal process and building the world of the play.
Language Lab Research
I work with Dr. Erin Conwell in the NDSU Language Lab, where we are really interested in how children learn homophones or two words that sound the same but mean different things.
Allyson Kuznia
Psychology
Bemidji, Minnesota
One possibility is that small pronunciation differences might support the learning of both meanings of a homophone. For example, the word bat is longer when it refers to a piece of sports equipment than when it refers to an animal. This might be a cue for adults and children to which meaning of the word is being used. For my honors thesis, we investigated this question. Our adult participants learned new words (japple, leeznop, hiplex etc.) as labels for unfamiliar plush animals in a cross-situational word learning experiment. Some of the words had two animals that were associated with them. Half of these double-meaning words had two durations, so one meaning of the word was a little shorter than the other meaning of the word, and the other half of the double-meaning words had one duration, so both meanings of the word were the same length. Then we compared whether the participants learned more of the double-meaning words with two durations or more of the double-meaning words with one duration. We did not find a significant difference between participants’ learning of the double meaning words with one duration and the double meaning words with two durations, which means we do not have evidence that duration differences improve adults’ learning of homophone meanings. We are planning to do the same study with child participants to determine whether children are better than adults at using these cues for homophone learning.
Fiddle Techniques for Violin Students
Fiddle Techniques for Violin Students is a presentation that discusses how fiddle music and the techniques it employs can be an enjoyable and creative way for violin students to learn important skills for playing their instruments.
Erin Renner
Music
Fargo, North Dakota
The presentation covers such techniques as the Nashville Shuffle, the Georgia Shuffle, the Double Shuffle, and Double Stops. A demonstration is provided of how these techniques may be included in a fiddle tune and what skills they help students to learn and improve on.
Gluten-Free Cookie Research
We are working on gluten free, allergy free, and healthy choice cookies.
Blake Striebel
Food Science
Perham Minnesota
Kang Lee
Food Science
Saint Paul Minnesota
The goal of this project is to create a formula that is low in calories while providing high fiber and protein. We strive to make our product taste to meet or exceed non-gluten free cookies in today’s market.
NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge
The NASA Rover Challenge is being completed in alliance with the Mechanical Engineering Departments Senior Design courses with Dr. Ghodrat Karami.
Austin Erdman
Mechanical Engineering
Cohasset, Minnesota
Nathaniel Boisjolie-Gair
Mechanical Engineering
Shakopee, Minnesota
Michala Hackman
Mechanical Engineering
River Falls, Wisconsin
Colleen Nazzaro
Mechanical Engineering
Waconia, Minnesota
Kayla Muelhauser
Mechanical Engineering
Cambridge, Minnesota
The NASA Human Exploration Rover Challenge is an event that tasks student teams to construct a human powered rover that must be able to complete an obstacle course in 8 minutes or less. In order to complete this task, the team chose to modify 3 main components of the past teams rover. The areas of focus for this team were the wheels, seats, and driveshaft of the previous rover. The team was set to compete in the competition on April 16th and 17th in Huntsville, Alabama, but unfortunately the competition was canceled.
BTD Manufacturing Material Handling
The scope of this project was to develop a current state map of the material flow at BTD Manufacturing, analyze and develop improvements, and design a proposed future state map.
Samantha Killmer
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Sartell, Minnesota
Dustin Stedman
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
West Fargo, North Dakota
Nick Johnson
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Fergus Falls, Minnesota
The primary focus was to improve safety and efficiency by reducing forklift use to minimize time lost. Our final recommendations resulted in the reduction of 1 out of 3 forklifts, safety improvements, and cost savings of $90,000.
ComDel Innovation and Heartland Precision Material Handling
Our senior capstone project was in collaboration with ComDel Innovation and Heartland Precision. They asked us to improve their material handling process in u-bolt manufacturing.
Darby Beyer
Industrial Engineering and Management
Chokio, Minnesota
Thomas Sprengeler
Industrial Engineering and Management
Mechanical Engineering
Faribault, Minnesota
Jacob Tweten
Industrial Engineering and Management
Germantown, Wisconsin
The scope of work revolved primarily around the zinc plating line and improving the efficiency of the employees working the line. Our goals for this project were to map the current metal finishing process, identify possible improvements, make recommendations, design a new process, model both current and new processes, and perform a cost justification for all recommendations. Our design recommendations include removing the special-order parts counting from the plating area, moving the unfinished parts closer to the worker, instituting a layer system for the totes, and integrating an automated quality control system.
FAST Global Solutions
Our project objective was to design and implement a testing station for the control panels and electrical components of FAST’s GSE products.
Sam Hampton
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Blue Springs, Missouri
Chris Swedzinski
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Princeton, Minnesota
Steven Taylor
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Northfield, Minnesota
Tyler Wanzek
Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering
Bloomington, Minnesota
We narrowed our scope down to testing the dash control panel, then expanding the possibility to test multiple electrical control panels that FAST assembles in the future. Using a PLC provided by FAST we designed a testing station with commercially available parts and a few customizations that make our solution easy to use and cost effective.
Felling Trailers
Our Capstone project was sponsored by Felling Trailers, a custom trailer manufacturer located in Sauk Centre, Minnesota.
Carli Carrier
Industrial Engineering and Management
Fargo, North Dakota
Loai Alkhamis
Industrial Engineering and Management
Ahsaa, Saudi Arabia
Michael Moralez
Industrial Engineering and Management
Carlton, Minnesota
Elena Pearce
Industrial Engineering and Management
Fessende, North Dakota
After studying Felling’s processes and gathering data, we created assumptions and followed standard procedures to construct a new warehouse for the Paint and Final Assembly Building. Using software such as AutoCAD, ARENA Simulation, and Microsoft Excel, our team conducted eight different engineering analyses to provide a comprehensive view of our coursework and internship experiences. Our solutions include a detailed warehouse layout, a forklift recommendation, and a flow analysis for automated part delivery. In addition, financial and qualitative applications are discussed to outline the benefits of our recommendations. Overall, we gained valuable project and risk management experience as well as learning effective communication methods with sponsors, contractors, and other engineers.
Action Fabricating
Our group’s project was to perform two cost benefit analyses for Action Fabricating.
Alex Blake
Industrial Engineering and Management
Big Lake, Minnesota
Jacob Gerdes
Manufacturing Engineering
Farmington, Minnesota
Sean Noel
Manufacturing Engineering
Hometown: Mahtomedi, MN
Dillon Radunz
Major: Industrial Engineering and Management
Hometown: Becker, MN
The first being to explore the option of adding a tube laser to their production line to replace their current saw cutting and milling departments. Essentially, they would like to cut their two operations down to one. Second, Action asked us to find a minimum number of parts run and a suitable and justifiable option for a robotic arm that could be programmed to work with their existing Bystronic press brake.
Massman Automation Designs, LLC
For our capstone project, we partnered with Massman Automation Designs, LLC. in Villard, MN. The objective of this project was to assist the company with its current raw material process flow issues and to develop a process to increase the raw material inventory accuracy.
Brianna Connor
Industrial Engineering and Management
River Falls, Wisconsin
Mitchell Cramer
Manufacturing Engineering
Maple Grove, Minnesota
Tyler Larson
Industrial Engineering and Management
Tioga, North Dakota
Rose McNamee
Industrial Engineering and Management
Argusville, North Dakota
During the duration of the project, we researched, and process mapped the current flow of incoming raw materials through observation and interviews. We then documented the current state of this process, figuring out the causes of issues occurring within the process, and presented a future state process to solve these known problems. These solutions came in a two-step plan. The intermediate step was the implementation of excel tracking sheets for the raw material moving in and through the warehouse. This would reduce written errors and allow for all employees to view the data in real-time which currently is not happening with the raw material process. The final step was the implementation of a barcode scanning system, partnered with their current ERP system, to increase the inventory accuracy, allow for automatic ordering of raw material, and allow for all employees to use the same system.
Border States Electric Capstone Team
For the Border States Electric Capstone project, we were tasked with researching the needs of the company pertaining to routing softwares.
Group members: Joshua Larson, Ryan Larson, David Shea
Based on the information we collected, we identified possible companies and sent them questionnaires. From their responses, we compiled the data to compare and contrast the different options. We considered 3 options that we presented to BSE and that information will be used to determine what option best fits their needs in the future.
Natural Resource Sciences Capstone
The School of Natural Resource Sciences Capstone course encompasses the majors of Natural Resources Management, Range Science and Soil Science.
Karensa Short
Natural Resources Management
Fargo, North Dakota
Students in the capstone course work on projects for different natural resource agencies, this year those groups include Audubon Dakota, the Minnesota DNR, The Nature Conservancy, and Piper Consulting. Students are presented with a problem that they group wants to solve, such as how to manage the turkey population in the Fargo Moorhead area or how to restore an area to native prairie. Students then spend the semester devising a solution and writing a management plan to explain that solution and how the area should be managed in the future. The plan is complete with background, review of the scientific literature on the subject, design plans and a budget. The agency is presented the plan to help them appropriately manage their natural resources.
RiteScreen
RiteScreen is an outsourcing window and door screen manufacturing company. Over the semester we analyzed their current assembly cells and concluded their production capabilities were not meeting current expectations.
Dani Filipi
Industrial Engineering
East Grand Forks, MN
Andrew Liu
Manufacturing Engineering
Richmond, TX
Trevor Walderon
Industrial Engineering
Hastings, MN
We developed models to help pinpoint the current bottle neck, being the screening operation. This station poses ergonomic inefficiencies for employees. We designed a new screening table in hopes to increase productivity and ergonomics. Lastly, as a team provided simple recommendations to help improve the overall cells and a cost benefit analysis for our custom designed screening table.
Alfalfa: Can It Improve Your Farm’s Bottom Line?
One of the best ways to increase profitability on the farm is to diversify revenue and find different ways to make a living.
Ty Moser
Agricultural Systems Management
Pollock, South Dakota
Matthew Kittelson
Agricultural Systems Management
Enderlin, North Dakota
Mitchell Bartelt
Agricultural Systems Management
Winneconne, Wisconsin
While the corn and soybean markets struggle, alfalfa is a crop that is steadily on the rise. The incorporation of alfalfa into crop rotations has a multitude of benefits and can be marketed or processed in many ways that can fit into any farming operation. The addition of alfalfa into farmer’s crop rotations can help improve their bottom line in several ways that this project has covered.
Renewable Energy in Midwest Agriculture
Our project focuses on renewable energy in the midwest, solar, geothermal, and wind energy.
Kat Anderson
Hawley, Minnesota
Agricultural Systems Management
Mackenzie Schultz
Rapid City, SD
Agricultural Systems Management
Kim Cress
Twelve Mile, Indiana
Agricultural Systems Management
We chose this topic because we all care for the environment and have personal connections with people who have renewable energy on their farms. Our objectives were to figure out the costs and effectiveness of using these renewable energy sources while educating farmers on climate change.
Socially Responsible Fashion
We created a business plan for a socially responsible fashion retailer.
Kristin Harrington
Apparel, Retail, Merchandising, and Design
Hendrum, Minnesota
Jenna Moody
Apparel, Retail, Merchandising, and Design
Cambridge, Iowa
Casy Davis
Apparel, Retail, Merchandising, and Design
Mesa, Arizona
The brand we created is called Brave Goods and our mission is to make durable, American-made men's accessories, made of upcycled firefighter uniform materials that will be functional and support the lifestyles of our customers.
Interior Design Capstone Projects
NDSU Interior Design students completed capstone senior projects.
View them all here:
https://www.ndsu.edu/adhm/interior_design/capstone_projects/
Improving Soil Health
Our reasoning behind this study was to research how a farming operation could transition from a traditional farming system, into a conservative farming system, while increasing profitability, and providing sustainability for future generations.
Beau Schaley
General Agriculture
Niagara, North Dakota
Nathan Wrolson
Agricultural Systems Management
Farwell, Minnesota
A producer has a lot of tools at his or her disposal to help them achieve this transition. Some new technologies, and, some old practices that still have a place in today’s version of production agriculture. In this study we examined a few tools to see exactly how they can Improve soil health and profitability.
Planning and Preparation to Begin a Career in Production Agriculture
With the increasingly close margins in today’s farming sector, entering the Ag production career has become extremely difficult. Although there are many challenges, with the right methods it can still be an achievable goal.
Statler Olson
Agricultural Systems Management
Mohall, North Dakota
Sean Hertz
Agricultural Systems Management
Mott, North Dakota
Tongue tied: An analysis of linguistic code switching in three advertisements in the United States
This project is focused on linguistic interactions between the United States and Latin America.
Grant Engeman
Majors: Mechanical Engineering and Spanish
Coatings and Polymeric Materials minor
Brooklyn Park, Minnesota
It discusses the concept of code switching, or using multiple languages in the same conversation, and three selected advertisements are analyzed to unearth the marketing strategies that capitalize on the associations Spanish speakers in the US make between different Spanish and English words. The essay concludes by detailing the value of studying language and sharing my personal experience of studying abroad and falling in love with bilingualism.
Mathematics Capstone Projects
NDSU Mathematics students completed capstone senior projects.
View them all here:
https://www.ndsu.edu/pubweb/~littmann/Capstone.html
