Bakersfield College Math Students

At the 2001 MAA Southern California Spring Meeting

 

Six Bakersfield College Math Students presented poster sessions at the Mathematical Association of America (MAA) Southern California Spring Meeting at Cal State Fullerton on March 17, 2001.  Bakersfield College accounted for six of the 26 poster projects.

                                                                                                                                                                                               

 

Ebola Sudan:  A National Threat

 

Kathryn Brinkley

 

I completed a project that concerns the Ebola virus and the United States.  I had ten infected hosts arrive in New York and tracked the spread of the disease throughout the United States.

 

Kathryn’s project won the award of Best Poster.

                                                                                                                                                                                               


Project:  Mars

Dan Cronquist

 

Almost 400 years ago, the astronomer Johannes Kepler observed how the tail of a comet was blown across the sky as if by a solar wind.  He reasoned that one day ships could be constructed to sail this “wind’ and move across the heavens.  Today this 400-year-old idea is more than science fiction.  It is well within our grasp.  Pushed by the force of light from the sun, solar sail ships could travel between planets near the speed of light.  This project explores the basic design considerations needed to sail a ship from Earth to Mars.  Using the physical laws of gravity, luminosity, motion, and acceleration of a solar ship.  During the course of the project, a number of solving methods were used including an 8th-order Runge-Kutta method in conjunction with the mathematical software Maple.

 

 

Dan also presented Project: Mars at the National MAA conference in San Diego (January 2002).

                                                                                                                                                                                               

 

Fuzzy Logic:  Not Just for Politicians

Lee Hyatt

 

 

 

 

I am studying to be an electrical engineer, so I have chosen to compare how fuzzy logic and PID loops are used in control processes.  To do this I looked at the mathematics required by the two systems to control an inverted pendulum.

Angel Cortez and Lee Hyatt

                                                                                                                                                                                     

 

Explorations in Multiple Derivative Equations

 

 

This research deals with describing and proving elementary equations that allow for taking multiple derivatives.

 

Brandon McNaughton

 

 

Triangular Perfect Squares

Daniel Rife

 

 

 

 

 

A triangular number is half of the product of two consecutive integers.  There are numerous relationships between triangular numbers and perfect squares.  This project investigates some of these relationships.

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                               


 

When a Protected Mountain Lion Eats an Endangered Bighorn Sheep

 

This project is designed to show the declining population levels of both the mountain lion and the bighorn sheep due to the loss of territory, hunting, and sharing land with domesticated sheep.  The project hypothesis will focus on how the lives of both species may be enhanced, without detrimental consequences to the other.  This will be done through a series of statistical, trigonometric, and differential equations. 

 

Jeaninne Trimmer

                                                                                                                                                                                     

Rick Darke, Becky Head, Thomas Mieh, and Joe Saldivar were involved as advisors to the projects.

 

For additional information contact Becky Head at 395-4050 or rhead@bc.cc.ca.us.