The Crimson

The only student-run newspaper at Florida Tech.

You are here: Home / Archives for Technology

Technology

Julanda Al Shukaili and his 2017 Camaro ZL1

by Leave a Comment

The Chevy Camaro has become a benchmark for performance, design and price.

Directly competing with the Ford Mustang, the Camaro has developed into much more than a straight line performance muscle car.

Chevy has proved that muscle cars can perform even on a twisty race track.

With the introduction of the 2017 Camaro ZL1 variant, it proves that Chevy has developed a muscle car that now has the performance of a supercar.

For Julanda Al Shukaili, a senior in computer engineering, it’s the ZL1’s performance and design that made him gravitate towards it.

“My favorite thing about the Camaro is that it’s a car that can do it all,” Al Shukaili said. “You can drift it, track it, drag it and get your groceries while you are at it.”

Al Shukaili said besides how it looks and the specs, there are too many Mustangs around and he wanted something different.

As for specs, Al Shukaili has kept the car relatively stock.

He has, however, swapped the stock suspension for air suspension and added custom wheels.

The ZL1 comes with Chevy’s infamous supercharged 6.2L V8 engine, making 650 horsepower and 650 pound-feet of torque, with a top speed of 198 mph.

Al Shukaili explained that being a car enthusiast is important to him.

“Cars pretty much gets my blood pumping, whether it’s going fast and straight or banging the limiter while drifting a corner,” Al Shukaili said. “It’s one of the most fun things I could do and it never gets old.”

Panthers solve real-world problems

by Leave a Comment

Malia Ashmead, Jamison Burch and Emanuel Rossi with the Osiris bioreactor.

Students utilized their knowledge gained through their years at Florida Tech to find solutions to real-world problems and present them at the Northrop Grumman Student Design and Research Showcase.

The event took place on April 12 at the Clemente Center.

“This was the first time that we could really put all of our knowledge to use and see everything we have learned since freshman year,” Emily Perron, an ocean engineering major, said.

Perron’s group, Reef Life, created an artificial reef that creates a perfect surf while also protecting the shoreline and promoting coral growth.

Perron said that the modular design was based off of LEGOs so the reef could be configured in any shape.

“It feels really great to have won Best in Show for Ocean Engineering and to know that someone really appreciated our hard work,” Perron said. “I’m very grateful.”

Reef Life placed first in their category, but success did not come without challenges.

Emily Perron and Stephen Hammond with their artificial reef, Reel Life.

“Originally we tried 3D printing our blocks, and they took 20 hours each to make and kept failing,” Perron said. “We had to make 100 of these blocks, so we had to find a different method of designing.”

Reef Life opted to use molds instead of printing to speed up their manufacturing process.

Dev Patel, an aerospace engineering major, presented the Perching Unmanned Monitoring Aircraft or PUMA.

PUMA can act as both a rotorcraft and a fixed wing aircraft, giving it increased speed and maneuverability.

The aircraft has a claw-like landing gear, which allows it to perch like a bird.

“It’s designed to act as a mobile services platform for emergency service providers,” Patel said.

Computer engineering major, Ahmed Okasha and his team designed an on-board diagnostic tool for the formula electric team.

“Once they build the car, the engineers would basically just walk up and plug in the device to the car and be able to get all the readings that they need,” Okasha said.

The device would give battery voltage, temperature and charging state readings.

Okasha said that in the future, a radio can be added to the device so that it can stay on the car permanently and send info back to the engineers while it’s racing.

“It [completing senior design] feels satisfying, but there’s always that one part of you that feels as if you could have done more,” Okasha said.

Cooper Mitchell, an ocean engineering student, and his team built the foundation vessel SWATH. SWATH is a Small Waterplane Area Twin Hole vessel was built to bridge the gap between large vessels and smaller vessels with not much over complications.

Mitchell’s project reached outside of ocean engineering and recruited the help of aerospace, electrical and computer engineers.

“It’s a great culmination of my ocean engineering degree,” Mitchell said. “We did coastal process, naval architecture, instrumentation, material science and ship design and construction. It showed me to have a full range of experience to take with me into the job market.”

A discrete upgrade to Florida Tech’s surveillance system

by Leave a Comment

Behind the scenes look at security camera live feed. Photo by Christian Martinez.

Residents of Roberts Hall recently noticed a brand-new security camera outside the dorm where there wasn’t one previously.

This was one of the few noticed around campus, as it stuck out on the back entrance of Roberts Hall and pointing towards the bike rack.

There is no visible camera by the front entrance of the building.

Carlos Cepeda, a first-year computer science major and lab support services worker, said, “My bosses installed the cameras. This is their job. They call lab support to do stuff like this.”

Cepeda appreciates the new camera outside of Roberts since he is a resident there, but would like to keep the cameras outside the building.

Barry Cobb, assistant director of security, said, “Most of these cameras that were put in were replacements for cameras we’ve had all along.”

Cobb explained that the hardware of the cameras degrades over time, requiring replacements of the cameras themselves every five or six years.

The IT department overhauled the system by replacing “about 35 to 40 cameras” with models from 2018 and 2019 that are all digital with no moving parts.

The computers in the security office were also upgraded to monitor the livestreams.

Cobb mentioned that the cameras are all over the place: in elevators, various floors in some of the dorms, watching bike racks and in parking lots.

“They are there,” Cobb said, “If you walk around, you’ll see them.” Cobb said there were no security incidents that pushed for the camera replacements, just a system that reached the end of its life-cycle.

A camera on the side of Roberts Hall. Picture by Christian Martinez.

Thomas Couperthwaite, manager of lab support service information technology, said the installations were mainly done this past November.

“That’s when we started the first few in the parking garage at Panther Dining,” Couperthwaite said.

Couperthwaite said that some cameras were installed as recently as two weeks ago and that there are a few weeks until all of the camera installations are complete.

Some installations were as recent as a few days ago, such as the cameras installed to the roof of Evans Library on April 5.

Couperthwaite said that the cameras vary in quality depending on where they are intended to be installed.

Lower hanging cameras have a smaller resolution compared to rooftop cameras that are up high.

Replacement cameras were easy to swap out with old ones, while new cameras had to have a new data feed set up so they could stream to the security office.

“It’s an ongoing thing,” Couperthwaite said. “Every year we are maintaining and adding more cameras.”

A Casual Review – Grim Dawn: The Perfect Game for ARPG Fans

by Leave a Comment

With the confirmed release of Diablo Immortal later this year, I figured it would be a good time to talk about Grim Dawn, a game that is closer to the classic actionRPG experience.

Official game poster by Crate Entertainment.

Before I get into the gameplay, I think it is a good idea to look at some data and make some comparisons so that I can explain why I think it is “a good ARPG game.”

Developed and published by a rather small independent developer named Crate Entertainment, Grim Dawn is an ARPG game that focuses on loot gathering and character building.

Grim Dawn is often described as a “spiritual successor” of Diablo 2 by many members of its community and critics, which says a lot about the game.

Diablo 3 is a sequel to Diablo 2 developed by Blizzard Entertainment, the company that is known for making highly praised games such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft.

The development of Diablo 3 took the company around 11 years to finish, and only one major and one minor expansion pack have been released ever since it’s initial launch.

The last expansion pack of Diablo 3 was released five years after the initial release, and it bearly had any content.

Crate Entertainment, on the other hand, announced the development of Grim Dawn in 2010 and later revealed that there were only two full-time employees in the company on their kickstart page.

Grim Dawn was eventually released in 2016.

Crate Entertainment has released two major and one minor expansion packs for the game in just three years.

While Diablo 3 is not necessarily a bad game, it is hard to think of a reason why a small company with 13 employees and mostly crowdfunded budget can spend almost half as much time to make a similar, if not better, game than a multi-million dollar company with a huge amount of resources.

There is definitely more information that needs to be looked at when it comes to comparing two similar things.

With that out of the way, let’s look at the gameplay.

Grim Dawn has its own unique style of world design and choice of music.

Like the title suggests, the visuals and soundtracks of the game are grim and often gives the player a sense of dread.

The world is falling apart and people are turning against each other, but there are still exotic locations to visit and cool gears to find.

While elements such as storytelling and character designs are important to a game, I think what makes this type of ARPG fun is the character and class customizations, and Grim Dawn is a very good example of this.

From a gunslinging necromancer to a greatswordwielding mage, Grim Dawn offers its players a huge variety of choices.

In Grim Dawn, the player gets to choose from one of the six bases plus three DLC classes once they reach to level two.

Each class has many different skills for a player to choose from, and the play style within a single class can even vary from the player’s choice.

In addition, the player will get to choose a second class specialization once they reach level 10, and the chosen class will be combined with the first class to become a completely new class.

This means that there are a total of 72 classes for the players to discover and experiment with.

On top of that, when the player get their first devotion point, they will meet the devotion menu, a passive skill system that allows the player to gain additional modifiers and abilities to further customize their character.

It is also worth mentioning that Grim Dawn features replayable content such as endless dungeons, harder difficulties and online co-op up to four players.

To conclude, Grim Dawn is an ARPG game with classic gameplay of the genre and a huge variety of customizations, and it is frequently being updated by the developers.

The game is currently available on PC and Xbox One.

A Horrible Review – Fourth Life considered greatest game in human history

by Leave a Comment

After seven years of development and crowdfunding, Best Games Studios has finally fulfilled its promise of “creating the game that everyone dreamed of.”

Fourth Life is a massive multiplayer online first-person role-playing action survival sandbox simulation sports shooter real-time strategy battle royale game that has the most innovative game-play mechanics the world has ever seen.

Unlike other game developers, the people at Best Games Studios understand and know what the gaming community wants for their games.

Instead of choosing inferior and obsolete gaming platforms such as PCs and consoles, the developers of Fourth Life wanted everyone to enjoy the game and have made the decision to release exclusively on mobile because “everyone has a phone.”

The processing power and the state of the art hardware of smartphones are capable of handling the otherwise impossible engine that the game runs on for around 30-45 minutes, depending on the player’s preferred phone of choice.

If the player decides to get the Ultimate Deluxe Collector’s edition of Fourth Life for $300, the game will also come with a compact-portable power bank which will extend the possible play time.

Now let us talk about what makes Fourth Life so special: the game-play.

In Fourth Life, the player gets to choose to be whatever they want to be.

The forward-thinking developers of the game have added over 500 gender and sexual orientations for the players to choose from, such as Attack Helicopters, Goats, Pizza and Chairs.

The players are even allowed to customize the look of their character pixel by pixel, which is the true character building that everyone wanted.

After choosing what or who they want to be, the players are thrown into the immersive world of Fourthland, a place where magic and technology coexist and the world is open for the players to explore.

At the very start of the game, the players have to find a purpose for themselves as the game heavily emphasizes on making your own choice, which means that there are no set objectives and no real NPCs to interact with the players.

However, with a small fee of $30 per month, the player is able to access additional features of the game such as crafting and learning magic.

On top of the monthly subscriptions, the players can also purchase in-game currency to participate in what is probably the most exciting and addictive game mode of all time: Loot Roulette.

Unlike the questionable loot boxes that some other game companies have been implementing, the Loot Roulette is a perfectly fair and balanced mode that allows the players to acquire loot by playing the in-game roulette.

Although the win rate and chances of Loot Roulette were not posted by the developers of the game, Best Games Studios has assured players that the roulette is perfectly balanced because it functions just like a real-world roulette.

Aside from the breath-taking Loot Roulette game mode, the game also has a very competitive and advanced battle royale mode.

Unlike most popular battle royal games before the launch of Fourth Life, the battle royale mode of the game has completely removed the element of luck, as this would make the game unfair and not fun to play.

Instead, the players can use the in-game currency they’ve purchased to choose accurately where they’ll be dropping and what kind of loot they will acquire, a truly fair and open battle royale indeed.

Fourth Life is a completely perfect and functional game that will just keep improving by itself.

Even the developers at Best Games Studios have claimed to stop any further development and maintenance of the game shortly after its release because of how perfect it is.

To conclude, I’ll give Fourth Life the highest score and recommendation: 10/10; it’s all right and the only entertainment you will ever need.

Distress in the Air: Florida Tech’s take on the Boeing 737

by Leave a Comment

Within the past five months, Boeing has had two 737 Air Max 8’s crash.

Most recently, the Ethiopian airline crash that killed all 157 members on board caused a worldwide grounding of the Boeing model.

Carlos Obregon, a junior majoring in aeronautical science with flight, has been discussing the components of flight failure in the classroom and relating them to the crashes of the Boeing 737’s and how they are relevant to his field of study.

“In my advanced aircraft systems class we talked about how flight systems and controls can cause malfunctions and enroute flight problems,” Obregon said. “We debated on how the software stalling function and overriding features on the model and learned that this could have been the potential reasoning for the planes to crash.”

Pat Spangler, a junior in aeronautical science with an associates degree in air traffic control, was concerned about the safety dilemma that these crashes have drawn attention to and how aviation management is handling it.

In Spangler’s opinion, the Federal Aviation Administration and President Trump could have handled the situation better, but the aviation industry is still the safest mode of transportation and he stands by it.

“Safety is obviously one of the top priorities in the aviation industry, as it should be,” Spangler said. “One protocol put into place by the FAA that I think is essential to the job is a computer test every air traffic controller is required to take on a recurring two-month basis to remain updated on safety and eligible for the job.”

The FAA is responsible for regulating aviation and promoting safety.

However, in recent light of the situation the administration has been criticized by many as the United States was one of the last nations to decide not to fly the 737’s.

Aviation safety regulators in the European Union, China, Australia and the U.K. made the call to not fly the planes ahead of the U.S.

According to prior reports from The New York Times, the delay in the call for Trump to ground the Boeing models was deemed as “a bit too late” by many passengers and pilots.

It’s not just current aviation students that are especially affected by the grounding of the 737’s but also alumni that have entered the industry.

Jared Goodlaw graduated from Florida Tech in 2017 with a degree in aviation management with flight.

He has worked for a regional airliner in the past but is currently flying private jetliners.

Goodlaw stated that the FAA has released no private statements or reports to any licensed pilots in regards to how the situation is being handled nor any other investigative details.

Goodlaw had expectations of announcements directly to all private and commercial licensed pilots from Boeing or the FAA in wake of both incidents.

However, both organizations have failed to communicate if there are any plans underway requiring pilots to complete more training and/or simulations before anymore 737’s are cleared to take off again.

The consensus amongst Spangler, Obregon and Goodlaw is that they all feel their training and studies regarding flight emergencies and preparation is well documented in the Florida Tech aviation curriculum.

All three stated that they still feel safe to work in the industry as it is a very reactive field.

Incidents like this are thoroughly investigated, responsibility is held accountable for and updates and corrections are made as soon as possible.

Pilots are not the only people concerned about the Boeing 737’s.

CBS News reported that approximately 8,600 flights use the Boeing 737 Max 8 in a typical week of travel.

Furthermore, Boeing released an announcement saying that models will be grounded for at least three months.

Travelers may experience more travel and flight difficulties than they expected.

Charles Bryant, a business professor and the manager in charge of Florida Tech’s study abroad program to Spain, is one example of these worried travelers.

“With the Boeing 737’s being grounded, myself and those participating in the Spain study abroad program are having to look at different airport destinations within Spain,” Bryant said. “For example, instead of flying out of a smaller airport in the country like Malaga as we had originally planned, we are looking at other options that have more flight availability in bigger airports like Barcelona. Yet, this adds more planning and financial stress as the travel date in early June arrives closer and closer.”

Bryant draws attention to another issue: If he is having troubles finding flights for a group of roughly 20 or so people, it will likely be hard for the immense number of international students on campus to find flights home at the end of the semester in early May.

The Boeing 737 investigations are still underway and officials have stated they are doing their best to remain honest with the general public as they are well aware of the pressing matters and concerns at hand.

Local robotics team to compete in Houston

by Leave a Comment

Voltage team during a repair in the middle of an event. Photo // Will Davies.

For the second time in three years, local Melbourne robotics team “Voltage” will be attending the FIRST Championship Houston competition in Texas.

The robotics season officially began in January and after their six-week building period, the robots competed with other Florida teams at the UCF stadium to start the year.

The teams are hosted at high schools around the area, and the closest one to campus is the Voltage team.

Florida Tech has its own Vex robotics team, which differs from FCH in size and other aspects.

Ripley Smith, a current Florida Tech student, and Will Davies, a Florida Tech alumni, both mentor the local high school team and have been in robotics for a long time.

“There are a literally thousands of schools across America that participate in FCH and Vex, but I prefer FCH because there is more you can do and bigger scale parts that use industry systems in the real world,” Davies said.

The robotics high school program allows mentors from any background that have helpful engineering knowledge and have no age restrictions.

Davies has been doing robotics since 2006 and he mentored the Voltage team during his entire time enrolled at Florida Tech and afterward staying in Melbourne.

“Robotics has programs such as FTC, First Tech Challenge, and FLL, First Lego League, that potentially could have somebody doing robotics from grade school past college,” Davies said.

Smith discovered Voltage while still living in Georgia competing for robotics during high school, and she has been involved since 2005.

Smith said, “Robotics is definitely a big part of my life since I’ve been doing it so long, and finding Voltage persuaded me to come to Florida Tech.”

Smith is currently president of the First Robotics Club here at Florida Tech.

While the club currently consists of only a couple members, Smith said emails are being exchanged with more students that are interested.

Florida Tech also has a FIRST scholarship for inspiring and recognition in science and technology, which Smith won through her robotics team in Atlanta.

Smith is working to bring FCH robotics to Florida Tech.

“It is also a great opportunity for collaboration and integrating communities,” Smith said. “There were some schools in Orlando that needed help finishing their robot in time, which we gladly provided.”

Davies said, “I’m excited. This year we upgraded with brush-less motors that are faster and stronger and lidar sensors for better visual processing.”

The first 15 seconds of competition are automated. Then, the remaining two minutes are spent controlling the robot on the course to collect as many points as possible by completing tasks.

Kevben Belastegui, a junior in mechanical engineering, competes on a team called Moose 1065.

“I could have went and joined Voltage, but in my opinion, I think Moose is handled and driven more by their mentors rather than helping the students and letting them run the team,” Belastegui said. “So it is more fun for me on Moose.”

FCH has programs available for mentors and students in schools’ extracurricular programs globally.

The season goes until May when they have their finals in Houston and about 5,000 students of teams from all over the world will be displaying their robots for the final point tally.

At each region, there are around 60 teams, which is about the number of teams that were at UCF.

Florida is a regional state as opposed to a district state such as Georgia and countries like Australia.

For district states, winning a district will earn a ticket to Championship Houston but for regional states, it is a bit more difficult as they typically have fewer number teams attending and have other contests to win to make it to Championship Houston, more than just point total.

According to Smith, the Chairman’s award is the most prestigious. “The award goes to the team that impacts robotics the most outside of the competition, so one year the team that won it hosted a drone competition that was set up for their community”.

Smith hopes to integrate the robotics community with Florida Tech further in the future and Alumni such as Will Davies and Daniel Kemp successfully represent the Florida Tech with their help mentoring the team, and mentoring a team is as easy as being passionate for robotics.

“People such as Lonnie Johnson, who owns the patents for nerf guns and super soakers, and Dean Kamen, who owns patent for the segway, attend worlds consistently and appear at competitions all the time,” said Smith.

“Our success is well celebrated and we’re all happy to go to [Championship Houston], but there was a lot of success in our whole area which we work with, so there is a lot to be glad about,” said Davis.

Geneva show highlights electric vehicles

by Leave a Comment

The Geneva International Motor Show is one of the world’s most important auto shows in the first half of every year.

This year’s event, which began March 7, kicked off with an arrangement of new model launches and the latest concept cars.

The 2019 GIMS theme seemed to be electric, hybrid and high horsepower automobiles.

The event debuted some of the world’s most powerful and expensive production vehicles.

Beyond the outrageous cars for the ultra-affluent, the show also displayed mainstream cars aimed the global market, although many of the cars may not make their way to North America anytime soon.

Boasting the world’s most expensive production car is the The Bugatti Voiture Noire, for which the buyer paid $18.5 million.

It’s a one-off luxury touring car with an 8-liter quad turbo W16 engine with 1,600 hp (100 hp more than the $3 million Bugatti Chiron).

That should be good for driving it well past the Chiron’s 261 mph (420 km/h) top speed.

Bentley also represented well, regaining the title of World’s Fastest SUV, according to a Bentley press release.

After achieving this with the 2016 Bentayga reaching a top speed of 187 MPH the Lamborghini Urus then achieved a top speed of 189.5 MPH.

The British automaker says its new all-wheel-drive Bentayga Speed SUV can reach a top speed of 190 miles per hour, which just barely edges out the Lamborghini Urus.

Both SUV’s start around $200,000. Mazda has revealed the CX-30 SUV. Sizewise, it fits midway between the CX-3 and the CX-5 that, on their own, were 50 percent of Mazda’s 2018 US sales.

The CX-30 could reach the US in late 2019 or 2020.

The Honda Urban EV has now been revealed under the new name “E Prototype.”

The new Honda Urban EV, named as E Prototype for 2019.

The E Prototype sits on a new, dedicated platform for electric vehicles.

Honda claims the car will be capable of 120 miles on a single charge but hasn’t confirmed the size of the on-board battery.

A single electric motor on the rear axle drives the car, but Honda has yet to issue any performance figures.

Project leader Kohei Hitomi indicated the E Prototype will not be a budget vehicle.

In an interview with AutoExpress, he said, “Cost is an important factor. Look at the iPhone: They are not cheap products but still everybody wants them.”

“The high cost has a justification,” Hitomi said. “It is full of practicality and performance – we believe the same of our electric vehicle. We do not want to provide a low-cost product.”

With the majority of the world’s premier automotive manufacturers representing themselves with many new releases, there were a few manufactures missing from the line up: Ford, Jaguar-Land Rover and Volvo were a few of the absent.

A Ford spokesperson explained to Autocar that they “looked at all the things we had to do in 2019, and we’ve got a lot of stuff coming.” The spokesperson said the Geneva showcase timing didn’t “meet their requirements.” “

Rather than go to Geneva with relatively small news, we would rather do something later that would give us more bang for our buck,” the spokesperson said. “I don’t anticipate this will be a regular thing, though.”

As for Jaguar-Land Rover, they are going through a bit of a stagnant period due to the tariffs in China.

A spokesperson explained to Autocar, “We are implementing a turnaround plan and taking all the necessary steps to rejuvenate our business especially in China. This involves working closely with our sales network and balancing production with demand in the present market conditions to achieve healthy development for our future that is not unduly dependent on incentives.”

The 88th GIMS will continue until March 17, with auto enthusiasts anticipating a successful year for powerful electric vehicles.

New Gleason policy “aims for fairness” across campus

by Leave a Comment

A year ago, Florida Tech implemented a policy that requires all groups on campus to pay for use of the Gleason Performing Arts Center auditorium.

According to Jeffrey Richardson, the assistant manager of Gleason, the payment is used to compensate workers.

“It isn’t a charge for the building,” Richardson said. “It’s a charge for our student workers, or our workers in general, to be present to take care of the equipment and to take care of the building for whatever that may need.”

During regular Gleason operating hours, Richardson said the use of the auditorium is free.

After hours, those using the auditorium are required to pay $20 per worker per hour.

William O’Steen, the manager of Gleason, said the cost is dependent on how many workers are needed for an event.

Some events will cost groups far less than others.

For example, an event where one person is giving a speech takes fewer workers than a concert.

“Depending on the event is how many support staff we’ll have in the building at the time, which will fluctuate the cost,” O’Steen said.

Both O’Steen and Richardson began working at Gleason a little more than six months ago.

William “Billy” O’Steen and Jeffery Richardson are the managers of the Gleason Performing Arts Center. Photo by Emily Walker.

The policy was implemented about six months prior to their arrival, Richardson said.

However, he said at a student-leader luncheon soon after he began working at Gleason, President McKay brought up the policy.

“The president himself stood up and said, ‘This is how it is, period,’” Richardson said.

As time has passed since the policy was put into place, Richardson said he has noticed a misconception surrounding it during his time at Gleason.

“There’s a lot of kind of gray area where people talk behind people’s backs and say, ‘Oh, we have to rent the Gleason now,’” Richardson said. “And that’s kind of a weird misnomer that isn’t true. It’s not renting the building, it’s just paying for the students’ time after hours.”

While off-campus groups or companies requesting the use of the Gleason auditorium are required to rent it, Richardson said all groups on campus simply pay for the workers’ time.

One group that uses Gleason on a regular basis is College Players, Florida Tech’s student-run performing arts group.

According to Richardson, they use Gleason multiple nights a week and are Gleason’s number-one patron.

Harris Halabi, a junior in civil engineering, was the treasurer for College Players last year.

He is still a member of the organization, as well as an audio-visual technician at Gleason.

According to Halabi, College Players heard about the policy through the Conference Services Bureau.

“We heard about it pretty quickly because we had spaced lined up, and then we got some emails about it,” Halabi said.

According to Halabi, the Conference Services Bureau told College Players they had to pay for Gleason technicians when they held events, and the technicians could not be members of College Players.

These rules, according to Halabi, are not specific to College Players.

All organizations must pay for technicians to be present during events, and the technicians working cannot be a part of the organization using the auditorium.

However, Richardson said College Players has adapted to the policy change well.

Additionally, the Gleason team has worked with them to make the change as smooth as possible.

“They were very understanding of the policy once it was explained to them what the policy was,” Richardson said. “One of the things that is so nice about College Players is they’re very self-managed, so we don’t need to support their events very much other than having a student representative here in case there are any issues.”

According to O’Steen, people have been concerned about how the policy affects College Players, but he said it aims to be fairer to every group on campus than past policies.

“It wasn’t anything against College Players,” O’Steen said. “From what we were told, we were charging every group on campus to use our space as far as support tech goes, and it just became an issue of other groups not understanding why not all groups were paying.”

As College Players has worked with the changes, Halabi said it has been a learning curve.

“It’s been tricky, but we’ve made it work,” Halabi said. “I think personally there might be more work to be done, but that’s no longer up to me.”

Shelley Mitchell, the president of College Players, declined for an interview.

She stated in an email, “We have been working with this situation for a year now and have moved past any difficulties that came with it.”

College Players isn’t the only group Gleason works with.

O’Steen said he and the other staff members at Gleason work with every group to keep costs to a minimum.

“We cut costs as much as we can,” O’Steen said. “We have an event tonight—it’s a lacrosse documentary viewing. We’re doing all our setup while we’re all still in the building on the clock so they don’t have to pay for setup later. It cuts their costs down.”

While a lot of work is done during the time a group is using the auditorium, prep is done before a group arrives, and cleanup is done after they leave.

O’Steen said the staff at Gleason does what they can to get that work done during regular operating hours to help keep costs low for groups using the auditorium.

He said their main concern is working in a way that is beneficial to clubs with limited resources and helping make events great.

Halabi said despite the challenges College Players have faced, Richardson and O’Steen have worked with them to make the process less difficult.

“They have been super supportive in not just supporting College Players, but also all organizations and all events,” Halabi said. “They really want to make Gleason a central hub on campus, which is pretty great.”

Students researching high energy particle physics

by Leave a Comment

Sarah Arends, GEM Hardware, working on a component in the Experimental Physics Hall. Photo by Hohlmann Research Group

Florida Tech physics department keeps up with the latest technology as the Muon Tomography Station is utilized for detecting particles no bigger than an electron.

The group research is conducted by Marcus Holmann, a physics professor who also works with CERN over online meetings.

CERN is the European Council for Nuclear Research – in French it translates to “Conseil Européen pour la Recherche Nucléaire” – in which the acronym was devised.

CERN is the one the world’s most renown centers of scientific research and specialize with nuclear reactions, studying the behavior of individual particles and atoms.

The organization began in 2008, the same time the studies for Holmann and Florida Tech had been approved.

The similar studies here at Florida Tech examine the nuclear behavior of muons coming from high energy activity from elements such as uranium.

A muon is an unstable subatomic particle of the same class as an electron, but with a mass around 200 times greater.

Muons make up much of the cosmic radiation reaching the earth’s surface.

The building blocks of life and quantum theory are intertwined by understanding the fundamental behavior of the elements of life at their smallest component, we can better understand and predict the world around us and help us figure out relationships between particles and essentially interpret the universe.

The building blocks are defined in what’s called: The Standard Model of Particle Physics.

The Muon tomography station can detect particles of the same size as the Standard Model defines, and can read the spin and energy of the particle to decipher where it came from.

A scatter plot with many colors is depicted and read to determine whether the muon came from the sun, or from a different source of super high energy such as a particle accelerator, or nuclear compounds.

“I’ve been a fan of CERN and their YouTube videos since I began liking physics, and I’m really excited to be working on projects that closely relate to their work.” said Tommy Walker, junior physics major.

Muons happen naturally when a cosmic ray hits the atmosphere at a high energy and muons then get showered and dispersed.

The left plate inside the MTS picks up muons at a higher rate and varies while the right stays constant.

This means that muons decay in the middle of the MTS and did not originate from a large source like the sun.

“There are different types of energy from different reactions, and the direction of the energy can be used to find the mass.” Holmann said. “These machines are used and can catch people smuggling nuclear material.”

Detecting a muon also implies figuring out the angle from which it may have been deflected on, if there was lead to shield, it can be read by the scattering patterns in the 3D imaging detector.

The lab for MTS has been mainly under Holmann’s provision since around 2008 and received funding from the Department of Homeland Security for around four years, however not anymore.

Physics major Merrick Lavinsky, junior, was a part of the research group that was building the MTS during his freshman year at Florida Tech.

Lavinsky was one of five in a group, under professor Francisco Yumiceva, dedicated to building a machine they knew was an important facet to past and future research development bigger than the scope of only Florida Tech.

“We finished most of the project during my freshman year, but with the ongoing process of what had been put in before me and what we’re going to get after the project,” said Lavinsky. “We all knew it was on a big scale of importance with how accurate everything needed to be.”

At such a small scale of detection, the accuracy is very important to the success of the readings.

Tommy Walker, junior, is a physics major who currently works with the MTS in Holmann’s research.

“I had to check and make sure Dr. Holmann was okay about us talking about this,” Walker said.

Equipment used by the research team to help aid in the detection of muon particles. Photo by Seamus Burns.

The components of this material, such as many of the aerospace companies, have confidential research and information for their services that could be considered proprietary for companies; in some cases where research is on a global scale, they may not be allowed to talk about it so openly.

The research is highly prominent in further developing quantum theory as well as understanding fundamental nuclear functionality and exactly how dangerous it can be.

With connections to CERN, the prestige given to the pool of intelligence where this research is coming and going cannot be overstated.

Walker said, “The reason I joined is to use subatomic particles that an average person hasn’t heard of, to find hidden objects.”

Almost investigative, the research group aims at identifying exactly where and how a muon came from, thus by reading its position and scattering map with the tomography detectors.

Senior physics major, Akshath Wikramanayake said, “It would be nice if everyone shared the same enthusiasm for particle physics. I actually think Dr. Holmann was the reason for Consensus coming to visit our campus.”

Particle Physics rapper Consensus had visited Florida Tech and hosted a concert at the pantherium in November of last semester.

He was mostly swayed by the incredibly up to date science and research on campus, largely due to Holmann, said Wikramanayake.

The rapper focuses on spreading the message of science and raps about quantum theory and particle physics.

The research group hopes to continue bringing awareness and interest into the program.