The National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) began in 1987 as an opportunity for undergraduate scholars from a variety of disciplines to present their research. The conference is held annually and it is an excellent opportunity for meeting presenters from a wide array of institutions for higher learning while also honing the skill of research presentations.
While NCUR is held in a different higher learning institution in the United States each year, NCUR also receives representation from De Montfort University and the University of Central Lancashire from the United Kingdom, the University of Sydney from Australia, and Zayed University from the United Arab Emirates.
This year, Carleton University was the only Canadian higher learning institution to send a student to the conference in La Crosse, Wisconsin for presenting on their undergraduate research. Campbell Hennessy, Carleton’s most recent NCUR participant, has created a blog about his experience as an undergraduate research presenter at NCUR 2013.
An introduction
My name is Campbell Hennessy and I am just finishing up my fourth and final year of Computer Systems Engineering at Carleton University. I have been involved in research at Carleton for a little over a year working with Dr. Alan Steele to develop embedded electronics designed for micro-aerial vehicles. Micro-aerial vehicles are bird-sized drones which can be used for a variety of purposes including military reconnaissance, wildlife monitoring and search and rescue operations. The work I have been doing with Professor Steele involves using opensource tools (tools that are free to use and modify) to develop electronics boards for specific applications. Many people believe that it is difficult to design a small embedded system, but the truth is that there are many tools available that make the process very straight forward. I hope to use this work to help educate other engineering students on the opportunities to produce their own custom designs.
My work started out, as does a lot of early work in embedded design, using microcontroller boards and attaching external sensors and logging devices. A microcontroller is a small electronic device that functions like a computer. Microcontrollers are often used to control electronic equipment based on inputs from sensors. Typically sensors used by a microcontroller are connected on external boards, but I worked to attach the sensors directly to the microcontroller’s board. The sensors added to the main board were used for monitoring light, temperature, orientation/movement, direction and barometric pressure. Logging devices were also added to capture and store the data from the sensors. In our lab we made use of the CNode, an Arduino Uno clone that was designed at Carleton University to provide a smaller version of another Arduino clone called the JeeNode (jeelabs.org).
Last December, I got an email from Professor Steele asking if I would like to submit an abstract to attend the 3-day National Conference on Undergraduate Research in La Crosse Wisconsin in April. With Professor Steele’s assistance, I quickly wrote an abstract and submitted it requesting an oral presentation. After a few months we found out that my abstract had been accepted and that I was invited to make a 15 minute oral presentation at the conference.
Day 1
So the day began. The day before leaving for the National Conference on Undergraduate Research in La Crosse Wisconsin, I had been completing my fourth year project written report. It is almost needless to say that I was out late at Staples getting it printed and bound. After I woke up, I very quickly threw together a bag and made sure I had copies of my presentation and one of my research units ready to go. When I got to the University, I met up with my project partner for the triumphant moment of submitting our fourth year project. Then I dashed to the lab to meet up with Professor Steele to go to the airport.
The trip down to Wisconsin was definitely interesting. I have never had the misfortune of a delayed or cancelled flight, but on this trip I had both. Our flight out of Ottawa was delayed a couple of hours and then our flight out of Chicago was cancelled. Thanks to a wonderful airline employee we were able to arrive only 4 hours late. The conference had volunteers that met us at the airport and then a shuttle to the hotel. Fortunately, there was a 24 hour restaurant across the street so we had a well deserved, albeit late supper.
Day 2-Presentation Day:
I was presenting on the first day of the conference. I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect but I had my presentation prepared and it had been reviewed by Professor Steele. I decided that I would use Prezi for the presentation which is a fairly new medium for me having grown up using PowerPoint. We took a shuttle to the conference, it was snowing and I couldn’t see much of the landscape. On arriving, we registered and grabbed breakfast. While eating we reviewed the programme and I was able to choose some oral presentations to attend. The morning got off to a bit of a confusing start because weather had delayed many of the presentations, but the ones I had an opportunity to hear were fantastic!
The plenary address by Will Steger, a polar explorer, was amazing. He is a true explorer and he discussed some of his adventures and how he has been affected by climate change. Afterwards we had lunch, another session and then it was my turn to present.
I was the last to present in my session of four presenters. It was interesting for me because what I was talking about (designing circuit boards) applied to each of the other three electrical engineering presentations in that session. The presentation went very well, despite my rather nasty cold. I was fortunate in that I have had lots of opportunities in my life to practice public speaking, otherwise I would have been far more nervous. Everyone in the audience was supportive and participants asked very interesting questions following my presentation.
Days 2 & 3:
Over the next two days I had the opportunity to attend various other oral presentations, several poster fairs and the graduate school fair at the conference. There were two more very inspirational plenary talks, one from a cave microbiologist and the other from a musician.
Overall, I feel that I benefited tremendously from the experience. As an undergraduate, I originally felt that conferences were scary and mystical, but after presenting I am a lot more comfortable. The conference was also a great way to learn more about academia and it forced me to be able to explain my research to outsiders which is a very useful skill.
I hope that other students will pursue this type of opportunity in the future. Carleton University has been very supportive through my supervisor during my research and through the conference.
Campbell was recently awarded the Adrian D.C. Chan Award for Volunteer and Community Service for his strong contributions as a volunteer and student to the Carleton community.
To read more student testimonials about attending NCUR, see Heather McAlister’s blog about NCUR 2012.