Every year, Penn State Abington students and faculty work together on research projects through the ACURA program (Abington College Undergraduate Research Activities). The program allows students to work with faculty mentors on in-depth research in one of three topic areas: Social Sciences, Education and Business; Science and Engineering; or Arts and Humanities.
Students can receive up to three credits for their work over the year (one in the fall and two in the spring). The projects culminate in a poster fair every April, which allows students and faculty to showcase the results of their research to the Penn State Abington community. Some students will even have the opportunity to present their projects at a national conference.
This year, the poster fair promised to be just as fascinating, with truly groundbreaking research presented. In Science and Engineering, a blue ribbon- winning project overseen by Dr. Yi Yang, titled “LIDAR Assist Spatial Sensing for the Visually Impaired,” explored the possibility of restoring spatial awareness to the blind through LIDAR, which uses a laser to determine the distance of objects.
A system would detect the location of objects within a given area, and translate that distance into sound using a variety of pitches. This would essentially allow a blind user to “see” the world in a way that was not possible before.
Moving from Science and Engineering to Social Sciences, Education and Business, we find a study by Robert Nutt and Jacob Benfield, titled “Don’t Go Towards the Light! How Light Pollution Affects Perceptions of Natural Settings in National Parks.” This project, also receiving a blue ribbon, explored what impact light pollution (often from cities) has on people’s experiences in national parks in the United States.
ACURA doesn’t stop with the sciences, as the Arts and Humanities section clearly shows. One project of note bore the title “Vindicating the Reputation of Dr. Robert Oppenheimer.” Spearheaded by William Connor and J. Joseph Pack Jr., the project sought to understand the infamous scientist in more detail and with commonly forgotten historical context.
Most people remember him as a lead scientist on the Manhattan Project and associate him with all of the horrific events that happened as a consequence. This research intended to break that association, by noting several pieces of key information, such as the fact that Oppenheimer’s warnings about the dangers of atomic weapons got him “essentially blacklisted from the Atomic Energy Council.”
ACURA presented just as great a show this year as it has in the past, and the research that was showcased helped to do everything from giving “sight” to the blind to understanding the impact of science itself to shining a light on a part of history that would otherwise have been forgotten.
This program not only affords students and faculty an opportunity to collaborate on research projects, but it also encourages investigation and curiosity into topics that can truly serve the larger world.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.