Designing the future

Students share their creations at Senior Engineering Design Expo

By California State University, Bakersfield

May 4^th, 2023

A portable wooden box that runs video games fom half a dozen retro consoles. An app to help local basketball players find each other for a pickup game at a nearby park. A library database software meant to help both librarians and the book lovers they serve.

Students at California State University, Bakersfield don’t just have good ideas — they have the skills to make them a reality. At the Senior Engineering Design Expo last month, students shared their work and a glimpse into the future they will help to create.

The students participating in the expo will all soon graduate with degrees in engineering, electrical engineering, computer engineering or computer science. At the expo, they shared their work with faculty from CSUB’s School of Natural Sciences, Mathematics and Engineering as well as community members from local industries, many of whom will be looking to hire recent graduates soon.

For their app PickUp, Jayden Bankston, Mario Ervin and Mario Jimenez were inspired by a problem they have faced as basketball lovers looking to play a game at local parks or gyms only to find no one to play with there.

“We decided to make an app to bring basketball lovers together,” said Bankston, a computer science student. “Say you want to play at the SRC. It lets everyone in the area know you’re going to be there. It helps people make basketball friends, and you don’t waste your time going just to find out no one is there.”

The app still needs a little work on its database and profile avatars, the team said, but they were happy to share their progress so far and hope to have it finished by graduation.

Computer science student Ailand Parriott used his experience working at the Kern County Library to conceive of BiblioTech, a more user-friendly database software and a single mobile app for both library staff and patrons. Currently, those groups use different systems, which can slow things down when staff members are trying to help a patron locate a book.

“It came from me wanting to make things faster for the Kern County Library,” said Parriott, whose team also included Rudy Velasquez and Axel Arcos. “The idea was to make a single application that combines the others.”

One of the largest displays at the event was the RetroPie Arcade Game System, a group effort by electrical engineering students Ramiel Simon and Rawnaq Kadhim and computer engineering students Jordan Stacy and Kyle Wesbrook. Using a Raspberry Pi single-board computer and a wooden box with a clear acrylic top, the team created a portable gaming system that allows users to play games from classic consoles, like Atari and Nintendo 64.

“My kids were testers; it’s that easy that kids can use it,” Stacy said. “I think a lot of people (at the expo) have been impressed with the nostalgia it brings.”