To demonstrate the quality of the application, supervisors and students should provide sufficient information of the project for the UROP Advisory Board’s consideration.  

 

The following two awarded applications are provided as an example of expected level of detailedness for supervisors and students who wish to apply for the UROP Support Grant. 

Example 1 

Result: Awarded 91% of the requested amount 

 

PROJECT INFORMATION 

Project Summary (Please briefly describe the project and its objectives in layman’s terms) 

On the background of intensifying sustainability challenges and intensifying resource limitations, this study aims to explore new methods that can instil the mindset towards sustainable, mindful consumption (SC). While there are more and more educational classed and initiatives for students to learn about SC in schools or university there are limited ways to reach general citizens to acquire knowledge or change their attitude to induce behaviour change. Earlier studies have investigated how playing games can increase awareness and knowledge of students, yet there is little evidence that such games could be accessed by the general public and have a similar educational impact if played outside a class setting. 

 
Furthermore, there is a lack of statistical evidence for such studies. Hence, this study focuses on the question how effectively serious gaming can increase the awareness of sustainable and collaborate consumption (CC), comparing game-play in an educational context with a casual game play setting.  

 

In the last semesters over 200 students have been evaluated in the class-setting. Yet only 50data sets are available of the casual play. We therefore plan to expand on this by organizing more casual play sessions over the next 1-2 semesters with some of them on campus and some in off-campus venues to attract more participants. 

 

PURPOSE STATEMENT 

The intended use of the requested funding (Please provide justifications for each item requested) 

• The requested funding will support the organization of play sessions on campus and off campus in a face-to-face setting. Since the casual play game has been played online before, we like to purchase a few play sets and spare sets of the game. 

• Furthermore, like in previous sessions, students would be compensated for participation in the play session and for filling the pre and post survey (estimate total number of participants: 100x 50 HKD coupon per participant). 

•  To allow for more flexibility and attract more participants to play some of the sessions will be held in off campus venue which require a rental fee (up to 390HKD/h). 

• Lastly, to facilitate survey analysis we plan to buy one student license of the analysis software MAXQDA. 

 

How will the Grant help students continue with the UROP project and benefit their research experiences? 

Given that data collection so far has been completed by previous students, the collection of primary data would help the student to independently plan and execute the test sessions and experience first-hand how to manage data collection procedures.  

 

Furthermore, the student is expected to do a significant amount of data analysis by himself, which provide chances for him to learn and apply statistical analysis and data handling skills along with the research. 

 

Whether the requested consumables/equipment/resources are currently available in the laboratory/research group or elsewhere but not for this undergraduate research. If equipment or database are required, will they be shared by other users if granted? 

Given that earlier casual play sessions were conducted online, and the hard copies of the games used in classes are held by the department and are in use throughout the semester we like to purchase a set of hard copies to facilitate this research. Resources will not be shared as long as this project continues (2022/23), but could be made available for teaching after the project ends. 

Example 2

Result: Awarded 88% of the requested amount 

 

Project Summary (Please briefly describe the project and its objectives in layman’s terms) 

Bio-inspired dynamic systems could have many applications in energy-efficient and powerful computation for tasks that are hard to be dealt with classical computers, such as cognitive learning and integer factorization. Topological quantum systems are fascinating thanks to their immunity to scattering and potential applications in nonreciprocal devices and quantum computing. Recently, electric circuits have been used to emulate bio-inspired dynamic and topological quantum systems due to various available circuit components with different characteristics for system Hamiltonian formulations. This project aims to study dynamic and quantum systems and then use electric circuits to emulate them. 

 

PURPOSE STATEMENT 

The intended use of the requested funding (Please provide justifications for each item requested) 

The fund of applied will be used for purchasing components to construct automated test equipment for the Superconducting System in the laboratory. First of all, the Tantalum target will provide longer coherent time for the quantum circuits compared to other typical target materials like Niobium. Next, the group will sputter Ta film on the “c-cut Sapphire” substrate. In addition, it is required to examine the thickness, crystal phase and roughness of thin films by the XRD and AFM machine test, which are available in MCPF in HKUST with charge (NanoScope llla/Dimension 3100 and X'pert Pro). Also, the training fee for the UG student is desirable. Finally, after making a high-qualified thin films, the group is planning to etch the film to form the different resonant frequency superconducting resonator for the coupling of microwave photons to a superconducting qubit in NFF, which also needs training fee for the UG student. In order to achieve high quality, the superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators such as CPW transmission line with extremely low losses, high Q, 50Ohm are needed. 

 

How will the Grant help students continue with the UROP project and benefit their research experiences? 

The superconducting transmon qubit is a leading platform for quantum computing and quantum science. Building large, useful quantum systems based on transmon qubits will require significant improvements in qubit relaxation and coherence times, which are orders of magnitude shorter than limits imposed by bulk properties of the constituent materials. The targets and substrates are foundations of building the superconducting quantum circuits. In this project, the group will use sputter technology to apply high qualified Tantalum thin films on the substrate, which aims to improve the coherent time of the quantum qubits. After deposition, a series of steps in examining the quality of the thin films are of great importance, such as, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), XRD Diffraction and so on. The examination is required in order to increasing the coherent time of the transmon qubits as much as possible by reducing the uncontrolled defects. 

 

Whether the requested consumables/equipment/resources are currently available in the laboratory/research group or elsewhere but not for this undergraduate research. If equipment or database are required, will they be shared by other users if granted? 

No, the requested consumables/equipment/resources are not currently available in the laboratory. They will be shared with the seniors who guide the UG students the UROP.