Undergraduate Engineering Expo 2017

Taylor, Heidi, and Xiaomei from the COAL team presented the poster and demo at the Undergraduate Engineering Expo 2017 on Friday, May 19^th 2017. Expo featured more than 200 projects by more than 600 undergraduate students from the College of Engineering at Oregon State University. COAL was promoted by Expo media as an example of computer science excellence. The COAL team shared its methodology and findings with members of the academic community, representatives from industry, and the general public and enjoyed in-depth conversations about remote sensing, environmental science, and software development.

COAL was selected for one of four industry awards presented during Expo, the CH2M Multidisciplinary Collaboration Award. The COAL team spoke with CH2M representatives who were interested in its work with the scientific and Free Software communities and the possible applications of its remote sensing techniques to environmental remediation efforts. After several rounds of interviews with the judges, COAL was chosen based on the following criteria:

Complex projects rarely exist within a single technical field. Collaboration between technical specialists is necessary to meet client needs and design criteria. Quality begins with a defined design development process. CH2M will award the Multidisciplinary Collaboration Award to a project team that clearly demonstrates proactive planning and collaboration with others at key points throughout project execution. The impact of the collaboration should be to produce an innovative final product which returns high value to the project sponsor/client or to overcome unique technical challenges. The selected team shall be prepared to describe the design process leading up to the final product, and the lessons learned along the way.

The award was presented during the ceremony at the end of Expo. The COAL team was honored to be recognized by OSU and CH2M.

The presentation at Expo provided opportunities to promote the COAL project and communicate its methodology and findings to the public. The interest from members of the community demonstrated that remote sensing is an increasingly important technique for environmental science. The COAL team is pleased with a successful conclusion to its senior capstone collaboration between OSU and JPL.