TUESDAY, M ARCH 25, 2014
Volume 95, Issue 31
Celebrating Chavez
Team hopes to perfect aircraft Engineering students will compete in June MATTHEW MEDINA Daily Titan
“When someone comes in, it’s the energy, the colors around the wall … ” Vu said. “We appeal to everybody … It’s a place for friends and family.” The owners take pride in their service and speed in preparing orders, but also the customers’ experience. “I think they serve amazing products and offer great customer service,” said Lan Pham, a Tastea fan and CSUF alumnus. “They are innovative and the background of the owners exemplify the American dream … Ted and Scott are savvy entrepreneurs who are smart and brave enough to take chances with their business endeavors. It has obviously paid off.”
A team of mechanical engineering students are working on a plane so good that it will fly itself … literally. The 13 students have designed an unmanned air vehicle (UAV) that will use an onboard camera and image recognition software to surveil an area, just like drones used by the military and law enforcement. In its second year of competition, the team hopes to build their program so it will one day match the success of their colleagues who work on the storied Titan Formula SAE race cars. Despite their humble beginnings and the issues they have had so far, the mechanical engineers hope that as they complete their senior project, they can establish partnerships with local manufacturers and suppliers, then retune procedures to help future Cal State Fullerton students improve upon their work. “Considering that there were four or five people on the team, all mechanical engineers, they got pretty far,” said team member James Wang, 26. The CSUF team finished in the top 20 at the Student Unmanned Air Systems Competition last year. The goal is to win competitions that test UAVs for proficient automated flight, image recognition and other factors. “We’re basically trying to develop it into a legacy program like the (Formula SAE) team has over there,” said team member Adam Nguyen. “We have new faculty coming in who’s going to help us … so we’re hoping to get it built up maybe in three, four years.” One of the main tests for student UAVs that compete with one another is image recognition. The team is tasked with flying the UAV within a flight area, finding an object marked with something such as a letter and ensuring that their software correctly interprets that image when the UAV sends its signal back to the ground. “You’re going to have a live feed of images from your camera down to a computer on the ground,” Wang said. “And so we’re going to have a constant data feed, and as soon as we get an image, we want a software package on the laptop that will process that.” Mastering that image recognition software has been difficult because of the computer science expertise required, since all of the current team members are mechanical engineering majors.
SEE BUSINESS, 6
SEE UAV, 2
MARIAH CARRILLO / Daily Titan Festivities honoring Cesar Chavez Monday included a speech from United Farm Workers co-founder Dolores Huerta. The observance of Cesar Chavez Day, which is March 31, included chalk murals, dance performances and a preview of Cesar Chavez, an upcoming film that retells the labor leader’s story. SEE STORY ON 3
Sorority fundraiser brings in thousands Zeta Tau Alpha hosts Monte Carlo night, raises about $25,000 ASHLEY RUIZ For the Daily Titan
Eleven years ago, on her daughter’s fifth birthday, Susanne Gaskins went to the doctor for a routine mammogram. To her surprise, she received news that she had three lumps in her left breast. The doctor told her having two lumpectomies— surgeries to remove the tumors—would leave her with one breast and she would have a 40 to 50 percent chance of developing cancer in it. With her five-year-old daughter in mind, she decided to do a double mastectomy. “The decision, in many ways, made itself. It was
really easy on the one hand and incredibly difficult to go through with it on the other,” Gaskins said. On Saturday, Susanne Gaskins, history lecturer at Cal State Fullerton, spoke at Monte Carlo night, an annual breast cancer awareness fundraiser hosted by the Cal State Fullerton Theta Phi chapter of the Zeta Tau Alpha sorority. An estimated $25,000 was raised for the event on Saturday. The black-tie event featured faux gambling tables, a jazz band, appetizers, raffles and silent auctions. Tickets cost $45 and all attendees were given $300 in fake gambling money, which could be exchanged for raffle tickets at the end of the night. SEE FUNDRAISER, 6
KAYLI CRAIG / Daily Titan Cal State Fullerton alumni Ted Vu and Scott Nguyen were inspired to open up Tastea, a Garden Grove drink joint with Asian themes, in September 2001.
Alumni grow organic boba drink business Graduates use creativity, resilience to open up shop KAYLI CRAIG Daily Titan
ASHLEY RUIZ / For the Daily Titan Attendees of Zeta Tau Alpha’s annual Monte Carlo fundraiser bid on silent auction items and mingled with breast cancer survivors.
While some college students spend most of their time hanging out with friends, partying or studying, Ted Vu and Scott Nguyen started their own business. At the time, a then 22-year-old Vu and 23-year-old Nguyen were attending Cal State Fullerton full time. The pair’s business, Tastea, began in a garage when Vu and Nguyen made drinks for their friends and co-workers to enjoy during lunch hour. Enduring a lot of sacrifices with their new business, education was
something they did not have to forgo. Both are grateful that they completed school and put a high value of education into their business. “When you’re going to school and taking these classes, you’re like ‘When am I ever going to use it?’” Vu said. “As we are going through this business, day-to-day stuff, planning for the future, it’s actually ingrained in your mind and you are using it and applying it without even realizing it.” The pair came up with the idea of Tastea as the boba and “asian-flair” businesses began to rise in popularity. Vu and Nguyen took what they learned from competitors and decided they could make this business their own through creativity and exceptional customer service and experience.
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MAJOR SPOTLIGHT CSUF student tackles the demanding role of being a computer science major FEATURES 6 VISIT US AT: DAILYTITAN.COM