Community Garden is a board game developed as a creative project for Barrett, The Honors College. The fully-functional board game's design allows relaxed gameplay between players with the zen imagery of a community garden. The written component of this thesis project details the mechanics of the final product, the design process, and the supporting documentation of the playtesting and research that went into developing Community Garden.

This paper describes a project involving the optimization of the analysis process of FreeSurfer and ANTS Registration for neuroscience analytics of patients at risk of cognitive decline using Nipype. The paper details the process of discovering more about Nipype, learning to use a supercomputer, and implementing the open-source python code to fit the needs of the research lab. Nipype is a python-based initiative to unify the various software packages used within the neuroscience community for data analysis. This paper also serves as documentation of the steps taken to complete the project so that future students are able to continue the optimization process to result in one cohesive workflow in which data is able to flow through a unified pipeline of analysis in the future.

I love to work with numbers and data. Learning to solve equations and extrapolate points to predict outcomes will help me hone the talents I want to pursue a job based in an area I enjoy. Solving problems and creating solutions is like a puzzle or a game to me. Games are a big part of my life… from family game night to chess to computer games and math problems. This concept of problem-solving and solution-finding is what led me to this thesis. My Data Analytics and Supply Chain Management majors both involve these concepts as well, so revolving them around my thesis project helped to give me more experience that will help me in my future career. When looking into the field of games, people enjoy many different types around the world. Games can range anywhere from card and board games, to video games, and even sports and the Olympics. These are all considered games, and my goal in taking this thesis course is to become a game designer and start my journey into providing entertainment for my audience to play. Due to the already enormous amount of games in circulation today, I was creative and used the game-making skills I learned in this class when making my game. I focused on developing a strategy board game. Since I have played games all my life, I know that game development is not a simple task to undertake. That is why this Honors Thesis Course is important to me since it was beneficial to gain the skills necessary to create my own game. Making sure the game I created maintained the proper mechanics, story, aesthetic, and technology was paramount to creating an enjoyable board game. Figuring out a cohesive theme was also necessary to sufficiently market the game so people will want to add it to their collection, and more importantly, spend hours of their time playing. Those are skills I learned in my honors-directed study. I used my research by examining different genres of board games and determining which aspects in each influenced my own game design. Once I figured out the general concept of my project, I looked into how already existing games in this genre or other games that are related to my idea function and why they became popular. It was important to understand exactly how these games operate and function in order to be intuitive enough that most people can understand how to play them. I also had to make sure the game wasn’t so basic that people wouldn’t have fun playing them over and over. Once I figured these things out, I started construction of the game prototype, which served as the final deliverable for my Honors Thesis. My purchase list consists of the supplies I needed to construct my board game. I purchased a variety of materials that I needed for this project. I needed to make three copies of it, since my professor requested I give her and my second a copy if I was able. I needed a box, which turned out to be the most expensive single item on the list. The player cards I made doubled as a dice pad since I needed to use dice during the game. I bought plastic gemstones to simulate my currencies, of which I had five types. Four of those came from the same package while the diamonds I bought separately. The bags I bought are used for storage of each type of gemstone, and then they become the player bags when setting up the game. The little cubes I bought are for the quest boards so players can track their actions and certain quests. When constructing the board tiles as well as the quest boards, I needed to buy the wooden blocks, paint, brushes, glue, and lamination sheets. I first painted half of each block with either royal purple or gold to signify what tile it would become. Once I completed that, I printed and laminated the fronts of each tile and glued them together with the blocks. My goal for my thesis project was to create a board game that I would want to buy, and I believe I have accomplished this. Of course, many things will have to change when I work towards publishing my game, such as commissioning artwork, working on different marketing strategies, and lowering the cost of production per game. For a prototype though, I believe that I have done as well as I could with making as good a game as I could. Thank you for this opportunity, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot that will help me in the future.

This thesis seeks to investigate the use of Artificial Intelligence when reviewing STEM job applications and the human biases that are present in AI system training datasets. Further, it proposes to gender neutralize training dataset terms to evaluate job applications based on merit and qualifications, promoting the inclusivity of women in STEM jobs and seeking to eliminate job application system bias from a Utilitarian perspective.

Sports analytics refers to the implementation of data science and analytics techniques within the sports industry. Several sports analysts and team managers have utilized analytical tools to boost overall team and player performance, often through the analysis of historical data. One of the most common techniques employed in sports analytics is that of data mining–the extensive practice of analyzing data in order to extract and deliver insights and findings. Data mining projects are frequently guided with the six-step Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining (CRISP-DM) framework. One such sport that has extensively used data science and analytics, and data mining specifically, is that of Formula One (F1). Given the sports’ reliance on technology, race engineers working for F1 constructors often develop statistical models analyzing historical race performance to derive insight of drivers’ success. For the purposes of this project, the perspective of a race engineer working for the F1 constructor McLaren was considered. As the constructor is seeking to gain a competitive advantage for the upcoming F1 season, race performance data concerning previous seasons was collected and analyzed as part of a larger data mining project utilizing the CRISP-DM framework. Statistical models, such as linear regression and random forest, were developed to predict the number of points scored by McLaren racers and the variables most strongly contributed to such scored points. The final results point to specific lap times having to be aimed for as the most important variable in determining the number of points gained, although specific locations also seem prone to McLaren race success. These results in turn will be utilized to develop race strategies for the upcoming season to ensure McLaren has high efficiency against its competitors.

The goal of my thesis is to discover what fans, specifically students, want to see at the games and what different marketing efforts will encourage them to attend these games more frequently. I will also be analyzing what different factors of the game impact attendance the most to minimize these obstacles for consumers. I look at past research and trends when it comes to attendance, determining which factors and attributes of the game influence the students the most. Students are a portion of the target audience for the Diamondbacks which is the audience I will be focusing on. I conduct research to find the overall interest in sports and find out what influences students to attend games. The student ticket program with the Arizona Diamondbacks is available to all students over the age of 18, and I will find out how knowledgeable students are about this program along with their level of interest. I will then determine what steps the Diamondbacks should take next to combat the decreasing attendance levels.

The COVID-19 pandemic’s unprecedented nature caused significant disruptions in the global supply chain industry, resulting in setbacks for supply chain operations. The repercussions of the supply chain challenges impacted various industries. This thesis seeks to investigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the supply chain industry, with a focus on how disruptions have affected the efficiency and resilience of companies within this sector. Data analytics will be leveraged to analyze these disruptions and improve supply chain operations.