Funding Status: Accepted

Abstract

Currently, the computer lab and other student-facing technology are aging and becoming harder to use with the increasing standards in technology. We are hoping to provide student access to computers that can run CAD and other softwares efficiently, as well as new devices for video capture and editing. Our request will be able to bridge the gap in student technology needs. This is alsoa refresh of STF funded equipment that is beyond service life.

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Abstract

We are seeking funding to improve our ability to support thousands of UW students in both virtual and in-person tutoring spaces, our new educational reality at the UW. CLUE provides free drop-in tutoring for various subjects in-person in Mary Gates Hall and online through the CLUE website. CLUE also facilitates discussion sessions in MGH and virtual exam reviews. Our student assistants use our internal website infrastructure to keep track of the 125-200 students seeking tutoring each night. Student demand for virtual tutoring and exam reviews has increased which has posed unforeseen challenges since the Queue was first developed. To ensure that we meet growing student demand, we have identified several web development projects for UAA IT staff to work on, including an instant messaging feature for our front desk team to quickly address student questions. Other projects include adding more features on the Events Calendar for our Student Assistants to efficiently input CLUE’s packed discussion sections and exam reviews schedule, enabling them to focus on other CLUE projects that more directly support students and tutors. We also hope to add various features to increase the efficiency of busy CLUE nights: additional notifications to alert tutors when students join the Queue to help with monitoring, and more transparent Subject designations for multi-subject tutors. We believe that implementing these solutions all through one platform will efficiently streamline the process for the students we serve, the vast majority of which are undergraduate students.

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Abstract

The Husky Union Building is one of the leading meeting and event spaces on the UW Seattle Campus. Being the Student Union, our primary goal is to deliver a dynamic event center in which students, staff/faculty, and the UW community can come engage in meetings and events that advance the Husky Experience. With social and physical distancing guidelines that will continue to be desired by event planners and their attendees, the HUB Meeting Spaces need to shift to meet the needs students, staff/faculty, and campus partners. Currently, there are built-in streaming capabilities in only half of our meeting rooms. Additionally, the HUB has seen an increase in demand for streaming capable equipment and technical assistance well before the COVID-19 outbreak. We would like to provide these opportunities for all students who use our rooms. This technology would allow students to either virtually bring in a presenter or attend a meeting that that would be over capacity. We simply want to meet this demand so we can continue to provide meeting and event spaces to the UW campus community. The HUB hosts a wide variety of engagement opportunities for students. We support events in which students can display research, engage with future employers or attend lectures and events pertinent to their field of study. These opportunities to exercise the skills they are learning in the classroom and further develop transferable skills via their co-curricular activities is critical to a well-rounded academic experience.

Access

they would need to reserve the space through our online reservation form - the equipment is available during all building hours.

Abstract

The computers that we use rely on bits, informational elements that can be true or false (0 or 1), which are stored in memory, and used in computations that boil down to applying simple logical gates (AND, OR, XOR, etc.) between bits. This combination of simple operations gives rise to all of the applications of computing. In the 1980s, an idea emerged to use a quantum object (such as the angular momentum of an atom) as a logical bit for computation. We refer to these quantum bits as “qubits.” It has been proven mathematically that a computer relying on qubits can solve specific practical problems in computing exponentially faster than a normal computer. Scaling such a quantum computer to the number bits employed in classical computers is a huge engineering challenge because qubits are difficult to prepare. One of the leading contenders for scaling is to develop chips that trap individual atomic ions to physically shuttle them around the chip by controlling electric fields on the chip. Such chips are a main area of development for IonQ, a quantum computing company which recently announced a $1 Billion dollar in the pacific northwest over 10 years. Our project aims to create such a device, but instead of trapping single atoms it will trap macroscopic particles (pollen grains or polystyrene beads). We plan to provide hands-on access to this apparatus through a variety of educational opportunities, in an effort to prepare UW scientists and engineers to join the quantum workforce.

Access

Students who do not access the equipment through a course can contact the QT3 director and staff at qt3lab@uw.edu as advertised on the QT3 lab website.

Abstract

Student research projects involving energetic systems often require high-speed visualization diagnostics. The time scales of events and phenomena of interest are typically measured in milliseconds and microseconds. Many student research projects and RSOs are involved in experiments where the wave dynamics and rapid structural deflections require video recording at rates of several hundred thousand frames per second. The COE students have had access to a STF-purchased high speed camera from 2014-2022. During this time frame nearly 500 students have reaped the benefits of high speed digital video for independent study, graduate research, and RSO projects. The resulting videos and subsequent imaging analysis has resulted in prize winning papers and presentations in intercollegiate technical competitions (e.g. AIAA Region VI winners 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022) and international rocket events (e.g. SARP won 1st place in high-powered division of Spaceport America Cup 2017, 2018, and then won 1st place again in their division and the overall SAC competition in 2019). Unfortunately, this camera failed during a training session for students intending to use it for their individual research projects in Spring 2022. The vendor determined the camera had just become obsolete and that they could not repair it. Thus the students in COE are seeking a replacement for this camera that will utilize the supporting macro and telescopic lenses and LED lighting systems that they have previously procured.

Access

Web-based calendar will be made available for scheduling. Email contact with the Instructional Lab Manager (Carter Beamish) and/or research faculty member (Carl Knowlen) will facilitate camera transfer and training scheduling (training often done by graduate students).

Abstract

The Kelly Ethnic Cultural Center is a home away from home and a hub for co-curricular opportunities, especially for traditionally underserved student populations. Our rooms were built with audio/visual equipment that has been vital to the engagement and support of activities within our space. This year marks our current building's 10th anniversary since opening its doors in 2013. Since reopening from the pandemic, our equipment has been of reaching their send of life, maintenance is beoming less feasible, or equipment is just outdated. Upon the completion of our space, it was unfortunate that our initial company for A/V equipment went under, forcing us to find another company to take over, and the incompatibility between the purchased equipment and the new company's programming system wasn't fully compatible. We would like to move forward with outfitting our space to fully upgrade our a/v systems in our building which includes multipurpose rooms, conference and meeting spaces, and even a cultural dance studio. We are currently struggling to provide temporary solutions to provide basic audio/visual support for rooms that are having issues or have systems that are no longer working. This also causes issues with our ability to bring in community groups during low-student usage times to bring in revenue for student programming and operational support.

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Abstract

This proposal aims to improve DawgPath (https://dawgpath.uw.edu/), a popular academic discovery and planning tool launched by UW-IT in 2022. Students face a number of challenges as they navigate their path to a degree, particularly with regard to course and major discovery. With thousands of courses and hundreds of majors across three campuses, discovering courses and majors that match their academic interests can be difficult, especially for new students and those rejected by capacity-constrained majors looking to find an alternative major leading to similar career opportunities. To address these challenges, DawgPath will provide students with recommendations, improved exploration, and new insights. This next iteration of DawgPath will: Focus students on the degrees and course options that work for them by developing a course, major, and minor recommendation engine, based on a student’s specific academic interests. Make academic exploration easier for students by implementing search across course and major descriptions by keyword, such as “climate change” or “analytics.” Launch a tri-campus major exploration feature to empower students with visibility of similar majors offered across the three campuses. Provide career insights that help students connect the dots between majors and careers by developing a feature that lists the degrees that led UW graduates to their first job. For example, a student can view the majors that led UW graduates to become Business Systems Analysts. These features will be provided via a personalized dashboard within DawgPath where students can view information and recommendations tailored to their academic and career interests.

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Abstract

Friday Harbor Laboratories (FHL) is a world-class marine research facility in the heart of the San Juan Islands. Each year, researchers from all career stages—undergraduates and graduate students, postdoctoral research associates, to senior faulty—flock to FHL to conduct field- and laboratory- based marine research. Particularly with the new Marine Biology major for undergraduates that started in 2018, there is an increased need to update research equipment and purchase new supplies to meet the growing need for students and researchers at FHL. In the few years since the start of the new major, the total number of students enrolled in FHL courses annually increased by 67% from 140 in 2018 to 206 students in 2022 (Mason Wiley, UW FHL, personal communication). This number is a vast underestimate of the total number of researchers—undergraduate research assistants, interns, graduate students, postdocs, and faculty—who visit FHL annually to conduct research. For example, in 2019, a total of 167 researchers across various career stages, including undergraduates, visited FHL to conduct research. As the number of visitors to FHL continues to swell and scientific advances necessitate new supplies and tools, there is a real need for support to purchase and update scientific equipment. Doing so will provide much-needed supplies for field and laboratory projects, enabling student scientists the unique opportunity to conduct hands-on marine research at FHL. This grant is the culmination of student feedback from the last four years; faculty and staff support this proposal.

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Abstract

What conditions do plants require in order to become established, survive, and reproduce? This question has important implications for restoration projects in general, and even more so for endangered plant species. Outplanting and seeding are two restoration methods commonly used to establish new plants in restoration sites. With endangered species, there is almost always a very limited supply of available plants and seeds for introduction efforts. Understanding what conditions seeds require to germinate and plants require to become established is important for improving the success of outplanting and seeding efforts. Equipment purchased through this grant would make it possible to experimentally quantify the conditions under which seeds germinate and young plants get established, and to compare that information to measurements of actual conditions at small spatial scales (microsites) in the field. The requested growth chambers will allow control of temperature, humidity, and light environment. The soil moisture sensors and data loggers purchased through this grant would be immediately deployed to monitor soil moisture conditions of the endangered species Wenatchee Mountains checkermallow (Sidalcea oregana var. calva; “SIORCA”). Soil moisture likely limits where SIORCA occurs. Knowing the amount and timing of soil moisture in SIORCA’s habitat is essential to conserving its existing populations and to establishing new populations. These initiatives are especially necessary given that climate change will increase the risk of population loss.

Access

Users may schedule an appointment for training and to use the equipment through a contact form that will be posted on the Bakker Lab website and circulated via email, or by contacting the Bakker Lab or Rare Care directly.