WSU Undergraduate Symposium Winning Projects - 2004

College of  Applied Science & Technology

Creating the Campus Compact Web Page – A Service Learning Project - Oral

John Linford and Mike Ferguson (David L. Ferro)
Department of Computer Science

Learning allows for the possibility to do meaningful and applicable research in or for the community, and for students to gain lifelike and life-fulfilling experiences as part of their university instruction.  Campus Compact is a nation-wide organization that assists in coordinating faculty, students, and community organizations for service learning projects.  The goal of this project was to do a service learning project for the Utah branch of Campus Compact – create a usable web page for Utah Campus Compact – and see how a technical product development cycle can work in a service learning arrangement.  In addition, in order to create this web page a fair amount of research needed to go into what the web page should consist of as determined by the stake holders – students, faculty, community organizations, university, and community service directors.  It was through numerous interviews with all these stake holders that the eventual design was arrived at and a preliminary implementation was created.  It is hoped that this design will actually serve as a template for Campus Compact branches.  However, the process of completely fulfilling the design requirements of the primary client – Utah Campus Compact – and essentially “handing off” the web page to the client has yet to be done.  The next stage of this project will determine – using this case – how successfully this can occur.

Across The Great Salt Lake and Beyond:  Weber State Telecommunications Administration Students Break Record for Longest Wireless Communication Link – Poster

Jennifer J. Morgan (Kenneth Cuddeback Sr.)
Department of Telecommunications & Business Education

While most people are still mystified by computers and the information superhighway, a group of students at Weber State University (WSU) took the challenge to break a world distance record for wireless communication between two computers.

The purpose of this project was to determine the possibility of breaking the current wireless distance record held by Polish Microwave Company and achieving a longer distance using off-the-shelf, slightly modified equipment.  Using specifications and guidelines from the Internet, the students formulated a project plan and established a vision and scope for the project and then set about to execute the plan to set the new record.  The team of students gathered the components, made the slight equipment modifications and then turned their attentions to identifying appropriate locations that would meet their requirements.  After three months of intense work and dedication, the WSU students were successful in breaking the Polish record of 61 miles and established a new record of 70 miles, and then a few days later pushed their mark another 10 miles and established a record at 82 miles.