CURI Academic Year Student Researcher - Fall 25 - Borovsky

Job Title: CURI Academic Year Student Researcher

Classification: Student Employee (non-exempt)

Name and Address of Employer: St. Olaf College, 1520 St. Olaf Ave, Northfield, MN 55057

If the position requires the student to work off campus, provide the name and address here:

• Department Name: CURI
• Unit Number (5 digits): 16118
• Length of Position: See Employment Authorization  
• Contact Person/Supervisor: Faculty advisor
• Pay Rate (Check One)  Standard Hourly Rate  x  Supervisory/Special Skills Hourly Rate

Description of the Position: (Purpose of the Position): Students work together with a faculty member on scholarly or artistic projects. 

Project Title: Engineering Design: An Electronic Starter Gun for Athletic Events

Faculty Mentor: Brian Borovsky

Project Description: This is a project to design and build an electronic starting gun for athletic events. While there are commercial systems on the market today, they are prohibitively expensive for high school athletic programs. And yet, school officials have a strong desire to move away from the traditional starter guns currently used at track and field events and cross-country running meets. These traditional guns are firearms that use gunpowder-based blank rounds. Schools, parents, students, and event officials are eager for an alternative starting system that avoids the safety risks, fears, and regulatory hurdles associated with bringing firearms onto a campus. 

An alternative system needs to be robust and fair. Robust means simple to set up and use, reliable, and able to withstand outdoor environments. Fair means the starting sound needs to be heard by all contestants at the exact same moment, within a small tolerance due to the finite speed of sound. The system also needs to be affordable for school athletic programs. The existing commercial systems are far too expensive. 

Students will be advised by St. Olaf alum Rich Miller and Prof. Brian Borovsky from the Physics Department (borovsky@stolaf.edu). Rich is a retired computer engineer whose career was spent at Sun Microsystems and Reuters news service. He is a USA Track and Field official.

This project will involve a development process that begins with a prototype produced by students in the Spring of 2025 that provides a proof-of-concept. The next phase of the work is aimed at making a refined production-quality version that can be professionally manufactured. Students will use an iterative process of design and refinement until an optimal solution is found. This solution will be achieved within the constraints of time, budget, pricing, performance, professional refinement, and durability. The work will involve computer aided design, 3D printing, electronic circuits, microprocessing, networking, and programming. 

Transferable Skills: Research and presentations.

Duties and Responsibilities: Each project has its own timing (number of hours per week and number of weeks), as determined by the individual faculty mentor. See the CURI Digital Olaf database for individual project descriptions and details.

Qualifications: (Education/Experience/Skills) A student interested in applying for the CURI academic year program must be enrolled as an on-campus St. Olaf student. There is no GPA requirement that must be met in order to apply for the program, but a student’s academic record will be considered during the selection process. Skills are dependent on individual projects.

If you don’t have a work award and select, No, to the application questions your application will be automatically rejected by the system. If you apply and are rejected please contact Erin Eltonga to resolve this for you.

Wage Range: $11.75-12.75

This job description is for general information purposes.  It is not intended to list all duties and responsibilities of the position.  This job description is subject to change at any time by St. Olaf College, with or without prior notice.