Welcome Remarks: Dr. Juan Santana, Dean of Academic Affairs
Breakfast: 8:00AM – 8:50AM
Student Presentations: 8:50AM – 9:30AM
Presentation I
Presenter: Andrew Garcia from the University of Houston Downtown
Biography: Andrew Garcia is a senior computer science major at the University of Houston-Downtown. He has an expected graduation date of December 2024. He is the only STEM major in a Hispanic family in Houston. He has software engineering internship experience in the department of defense, as well as research experience in computer science fields such as data analytics and simulation development. Andrew has a passion for technology and problem solving, as well as virtual reality simulations. He hopes to become a software engineer after graduation so that he can create software that can be used by many working professionals.
Project Title: Virtual Reality in Educational Settings
Description of the project: The main goal for our research is to explore virtual reality environment creation and applications that can be applied to it. Currently, Unity and C# scripting abilities are involved in the creation of a job training simulation for woodworking experts. This simulation will be useful since it would ideally allow for those in engineering and construction to save time, money, and other valuable resources when receiving training. So far, free assets from the student license version of Unity allowed for the placement of certain objects such as tools, tables, and wooden boards. Some of these objects have rigid body components, which are objects that have their own mass and are affected by the force of gravity. Objects with the rigid body component can be picked up using quest controllers while the simulation is running with the help of a useful tool called the XR Interaction Toolkit.
Presentation II
Presenter: Naiomi Rivera from UPR in Cayey
Biography: Naiomi Rivera was born in Cayey, Puerto Rico. She is 20 years old and currently a bachelor’s student in business administration with a concentration in accounting at the University of Puerto Rico Cayey Campus. Prior to this, she finished her fourth year at the Cayey Vocational School in practical nursing. For about a year and a half, she have been working as a personal finance and entrepreneurship mentor at my university, offering mentoring and workshops to both the student community and the community at large. This work is part of Title V Activity II and has allowed her to develop leadership and communication skills, as well as positively impact the lives of others. In addition, she is on the board of the UNO student organization at my university, serving as secretary.
Project: UPR Cayey Financial Literacy Peer Mentoring Program
Description of the project: UPR’s Cayey Financial Literacy Peer Mentoring Program is part of Title V Grant Award, which is centered in two main activities. In Activity I (Improving Academic Student Performance) students at risk are identified through a Student Success Prediction System developed by a previous Title V Grant. With this constant input the program refines the academic and general support model designed for different students who need remedial attention, instruction and mentoring, and orientation for the general freshman population. The second activity (Promoting Innovation for Student Success) is designed to increase the students’ innovation knowledge and improve their academic and innovation performance through three main components designed to train faculty and students in topics of innovation, entrepreneurship and financial literacy.