MMA Students Invited To Collegiate Wind Competition
A team of students from Massachusetts Maritime Academy has been invited to participate in Phase 1 of the 2023 Collegiate Wind Competition, in which college students from a wide range of disciplines work together on tasks that will help prepare them for jobs in wind and other renewable energy industries.
First launched in 2014, the Collegiate Wind Competition (CWC) is managed by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory on behalf of the US Department of Energy Wind Energy Technologies Office. Through the competition, students prepare for careers in the various industries tied to renewable energy as they design, build and test a prototype wind turbine. Students will also develop a site plan and cost-of-energy analysis for a hypothetical wind farm and conduct outreach with the wind energy industry, local communities and media outlets. The 2023 CWC will focus specifically on offshore wind energy.
The team from Mass Maritime is made up of five core students: senior facilities engineering major Matthew Lutz; senior marine, science, safety and environmental protection major Adam Veloso; junior marine, science, safety and environmental protection major Evangeline Gosselin; sophomore energy systems engineering major Matthew Duane; and sophomore energy systems engineering major Mark Marvel. These students showed initial interest when the project was first brought up by Gail Stephens, associate professor of engineering and energy systems program coordinator, who will be leading the team.
“I originally introduced the topic to students within the energy systems program last year when it was first an opportunity,” Ms. Stephens said. “They took that and ran with it.”
Ms. Gosselin, a junior pursuing a dual major in environmental protection and facilities engineering, said that when she first started researching the competition, she was so intrigued that she stepped up to work with fellow student Matthew Lutz on putting together a slideshow to recruit other students. And it worked—soon they were joined by students from a variety of majors, each of whom brought along a skill set that pertained to certain aspects of the project.
“It was really neat how it started coming together,” Ms. Gosselin said. “We got a lot of other students involved from all these different aspects that could really help out with the project as a whole.”
About a dozen students expressed interest in working on the project. To get a better idea of what they were up against, the core group of five attended the 2022 CWC exhibition this May in San Antonio, Texas, to observe the previous competition’s finalists and start formulating their strategy.
“We divided the projects into three parts of the wind turbine and the review of the environmental side and created our little design team leads, but when we went to Texas, we realized that we’re actually going to need a lot more manpower to build a prototype,” Ms. Gosselin said. “It was good that the five of us went, so now we have a lot more experience, visual learning and hands-on learning with the other teams to see what a final product looks like.”
The CWC has multiple components to it. In Phase 1, the 30 selected teams will each design a prototype wind turbine and hypothetical wind farm site according to designated requirements that will be released in the fall. Teams will also engage in what is called a “connection creation,” which involves outreach within the wind energy industry and with the local media and community. Twelve teams will be chosen to advance to Phase 2, the “build and test stage,” which will include a presentation of work at the final CWC event set for May 2023, held in conjunction with American Clean Power Association’s CLEANPOWER Conference & Exhibition.
“It really works to have multidisciplinary majors,” Ms. Stephens said, “because in any industry and any government program, it’s not just one type of individual [or] one skill set that’s needed. There are multiple sets, so I think [the CWC] is trying to make it as realistic as possible into how a program evolves so that it’s designed, built, installed, used and communicated.”
“Personally, for me or for the energy systems/facilities major, [wind energy] is definitely a growing industry, and to get students as involved as possible is really important,” Ms. Gosselin said. “That’s why I think this project is great. To really get that hands-on experience, especially with the connection creation, reaching out to other companies [and] talking with Vineyard Wind or Mayflower Wind, which are on the Cape, and building those strong relations with Mass Maritime graduates is really, really important.”
The student kickoff for the CWC is not until September, but some students, like Ms. Gosselin, are itching to get back to work. She has taken on leadership of the cell that handles electrical for the project, and, although electrical engineering is not her major, she has undertaken it almost as if it were. She found some fellow students who had coding experience and, with the help of an electronics professor, has been meeting with the group weekly to learn the ropes in preparation for the competition.
“It’s a lot of work, but honestly, I remember the first team meetings that we had had and it was just like four or five of us,” Ms. Gosselin said. “We would just sit down in the library and do research together. Then the library was closing, so we’d go back to our rooms and I would keep doing research. It was the first thing that I ever researched and was actually interested in because I wasn’t forced to do it for a class or a project or anything; I genuinely wanted to. I watched all these videos and read all these articles, and yeah, I really enjoy it so far. I’m excited to get back.”
The team of students will work on their project throughout the fall semester. Judging will occur around January to determine which teams will advance to Phase 2.
“Mass Maritime has been trying to position themselves as one of the schools that helps train,” Ms. Stephens said. “Whether it’s the people in the industry or help with job force development, we’re trying to use resources we have in-house, as well as academic opportunities to help develop that workforce, whether it’s in the design and build or operational side. I think we’re finding that in education, project-based learning is really where the most learning happens, where they actually apply what they’re learning in the classroom and they see how it all works together.”