Carsen's Project Page

Who:  My name is Carsen and I am from Riverton, Utah. I chose to study at the University of Utah because of my experiences at the U as a high school student and my love of SLC! In my spare time, I enjoy playing my double bass, spending time with friends and family, cooking, and watching documentaries.

My scientific/engineering interests:  I have always loved everything about science, and have had an interest in pursuing a life in STEM since elementary school. In high school, I was captain of my high school’s FRC team and tutored in math and science, which inspired me to pursue a degree in engineering. I’m excited to use my passions for science and for technology in my career!

Academic goals:  As a current Civil & Environmental Engineering major pursuing a Computer Science minor, I’m hoping to combine my interests and advance in my field to make an impact in environmental preservation and appreciation. Further down the road, I hope to get accepted into an Environmental Engineering master’s program in order to build more skills to help me accomplish my goals.

Career goals:  In the future, I hope to work in air pollution control or water resources as an environmental engineer. In particular, I’m hoping to provide aid to under-served communities by improving outdated infrastructure and preventing pollution-related crises, and hope to volunteer in my spare time with Engineers Without Borders.

For monitoring environmental changes and perturbations in urban and remote areas, it is important to have sensors that are low-maintenance, durable, and accurate. Location data is pertinent because collected data will reflect the changes in local environmental characteristics. While there are GPS systems on the market for our intended purposes, they tend to be prohibitively expensive and not easily integrated into our existing data-logging system. A GoouuuTech GT-U7 GPS module was added to a SparkFun SAMD micro-controller to provide location data and reduce costs while maintaining efficiency and efficacy.  To test the capabilities of the low-cost GPS in comparison to other models, we chose to colocate multiple systems and test for the mean deviation from the location of the GPS receivers, as indicated by a Garmin 60CSx GPS. The selected testing environment was a busy park, next to a structure, which simulates the inherent variability observed in the type of complex environments that the systems will be implemented in. The GoouuuTech GPS system typically returned results within approximately 9 m of the Garmin coordinates, which is within the given margin of error (given by the Garmin system itself). The module’s impressive performance compared to the more expensive counterpart proves that the GT-U7 provides similar location-reporting accuracy at a fraction of the cost, even in challenging terrain. This low-cost alternative may enable research teams to deploy large numbers of sensors in a variety of regions, leading to an overall increase in our understanding of how our environment is affected by certain activities or changes.